AMERICAN  

Hoyt Wayne Axton (March 25, 1938 – October 26, 1999) was an American country music singer-songwriter, and a film and television actor. He became prominent in the early 1960s, establishing himself as a well-known folk singer on the West Coast with an earthy style and powerful voice. As he matured, many of his songwriting efforts became well known throughout the world. Among them are "Joy to the World," (which many know for its opening lyric "Jeremiah was a Bullfrog!") and "Greenback Dollar."

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He was born in Duncan, Oklahoma and spent his pre-teen years in Comanche, Oklahoma with his brother, John. His mother, Mae Boren Axton, co-wrote the classic rock 'n' roll song "Heartbreak Hotel", which became the first major hit for Elvis Presley. Some of Hoyt's own songs were also later recorded by Elvis. Hoyt's father, John T. Axton, was a Navy officer stationed in Jacksonville, Florida; the family joined him there in 1949. Axton graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in 1956 and left town after Knauer’s Hardware burned down on graduation night, a prank gone wrong.[1] Axton attended Oklahoma State for a short length of time before following his father and enlisting in the Navy. Hoyt served aboard the USS Princeton (LPH-5), before pursuing a music career. After his discharge from the Navy on the west coast, he began singing folk songs in San Francisco nightclubs.

Axton spent some time struggling with cocaine addiction and several of his songs, including "The Pusher", "Snowblind Friend", and "No-No Song" partly reflect his negative drug experiences. He had been known as an opponent of drug use for many years when, in February 1997, he and his wife were arrested at their Montana home for possession of approximately 500 grams of marijuana, a little over a pound. His wife explained later that she offered Hoyt marijuana to relieve pain and stress following a 1995 stroke; both were fined and given deferred sentences.

Hoyt never fully recovered from his stroke, and still had to use a wheelchair much of the time. His mother, Mae, drowned in a hot tub at her Tennessee home in 1997. Hoyt Axton died of a heart attack in Victor, Montana, on October 26, 1999, at the age of 61. Axton had suffered a severe heart attack two weeks earlier and experienced another one while undergoing surgery in Montana.

He is best remembered by Oklahomans for one of the lines from “Never Been to Spain,” “Well, I’ve never been to heaven, but I’ve been to Oklahoma.”

On November 1, 2007 he and his mother were inducted posthumously to the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in Muskogee, Oklahoma.

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Daily Oklahoman, The 
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
October 27, 1999

Heart attacks claim singer Hoyt Axton

Oklahoma native Hoyt Axton , barrel-chested singer-songwriter and actor, son of songwriter Mae Boren Axton and cousin of University of Oklahoma President David Boren , died peacefully Tuesday in his home in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, surrounded by family and friends.

Born in Duncan, Axton , 61, had built a huge catalog of folk, country and rock 'n' roll songs, ranging from the Steppenwolf anti-drug '60s anthem "The Pusher" to the feel-good "Joy to the World" made famous by Three Dog Night to the country hoot "Boney Fingers," whose chorus asked the musical question:

"Work your fingers to the bone, what do you get?

"Boney fingers."

Axton suffered a severe heart attack two weeks ago and was struck by another while undergoing surgery in Missoula, Jan Woods, a friend in Nashville, Tenn., told The Associated Press. He never fully recovered from a stroke in 1996.

He started writing songs at age 15, he once told The Oklahoman. "All I ever wanted to be was a songwriter. The closest you can get to God, or the way I do, anyway, is when you're writing a song and it's right."

He knew and wrote of life's temptations.

"Your life is a camera and your mind is the lens," he said. "If you've got something foggin' up the lens, man, you're not gonna get a clear picture, a clear set of memories or a clear life."

Born to a father who loved to sing, John Thomas Axton , and a mother who co-wrote Elvis Presley's first million-seller, "Heartbreak Hotel," he drifted into music naturally.

In the late 1950s, he sang folk songs in West Coast coffee houses and hung out with the likes of "On the Road" writer Jack Kerouac.

Axton did a stint in the Navy and married a San Pedro police officer's widow who was 10 years his senior, "'cause she looked like Connie Stevens." The marriage didn't last.

He left California in the summer of 1961 with two guitars, a banjo, $4.58 and a buddy, and drove a beat-up '55 Plymouth to New York. He spent the winter of that year in Harlem, sharing a rundown apartment with folk singer Major Wiley.

The next year, Axton was back in Los Angeles, playing at the legendary Troubador club where he met other struggling young musicians like Roger McGuinn (then known as Jim, founder of The Byrds), John Kay of Steppenwolf and John Stewart.

Axton rewrote "Free Man," by the late Ken Ramsey, and renamed it "Greenback Dollar." Stewart, who had just joined The Kingston Trio, heard him play it. Axton worked out a deal to share writing credit and the trio made the song a hit in 1963.

"There was nobody that didn't like Hoyt," said Fran Boyd, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Academy of Country Music. "He was an entertainer's entertainer."

Boren , a former U.S. senator from Oklahoma, called his cousin "a wise curbstone philosopher with a generous heart."

A big man, Axton also specialized in playing good ol' boys on television and in films. He appeared in movies including "Gremlins" and "The Black Stallion." He also sang a jingle used to advertise Busch beer in the 1980s.

He also appeared in TV series, from "Bonanza" in 1964 to "Diff'rent Strokes," "McCloud," "The Bionic Woman" and "WKRP in Cincinnati."

"When I was runnin' around barefooted down by that South Canadian in the summertime, man, chasin' rabbits and stuff around Ada and Kiowa, I'd go to the movies and sit there like everybody else and say, 'Boy, I'd like to do that,'" Axton told The Oklahoman. He explained his acting technique.

"I'll tell you what the mystery is - They drive you to work, they give you a dressing room, they dress your hair, they put your makeup on, give you the clothes to wear, they tell you what to say and then they tell you how to move when you say it. Then they pay you a bunch of money.... It's a piece of cake."

The singer-songwriter-actor died Tuesday at his home in Montana.

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November 2, 2007

Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame inducts More

MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) - The Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame has five new members.

Mother and son Mae Boren Axton and Hoyt Axton, country singers Sammi Smith and Cal Smith and guitarist Tommy Crook were inducted during a ceremony last night in Muskogee.

Mae Boren Axton wrote numerous hit songs including "Heartbreak Hotel" which became Elvis Presley's first Number One song. She died in 1997.

Hoyt Axton was a singer, songwriter and actor and wrote the hit songs "Joy to the World" and "Never Been to Spain" for Three Dog Night. He died in 1999.

His [David Lyle Borren] inaugural ball at Oklahoma City's Myriad Convention Center offered music for every kind of taste from big band to rock and roll. The new governor's cousin, singer and songwriter Hoyt Axton, performed. -- http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/B/BO018.html

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Mae was born September 14, 1914 in Bardwell, Texas, however, she was reared in Oklahoma and attended the University of Oklahoma where she earned a journalism degree. Mae was the sister of David Boren, one of Oklahoma’s most celebrated politicians as he served as state senator, governor, and U.S. Senator from the state, as well as serving as current president of the University of Oklahoma. Mae Boren was the only daughter of Mark L. and Nannie Boren.

After college, Mae worked as a reporter for Life Magazine and married John T. Axton and they had two sons, Hoyt and Johnny.

Mae died April 9, 1997 at her home in Hendersonville, Tennessee at the age of 82, after an apparent heart attack.

She was well known and noted for helping boost the careers of such legends as Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Blake Shelton. In her memory, Garth Brooks recently donated $1 million to the city of Nashville to establish a children’s zoo named in honor of Mae Boren Axton.

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Daily Oklahoman, The 
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
April 11, 1997, pg 20

Services will be Saturday in Hendersonville, Tenn., for Mae Boren Axton , award-winning songwriter, English teacher and member of the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame. She died Wednesday at 82.

Axton , mother of actor-musician Hoyt Axton and aunt of University of Oklahoma President David Boren , co-wrote the song "Heartbreak Hotel" with Tommy Durden for Elvis Presley in the mid-1950s.

Born in Bardwell, Texas, she was the only daughter of M.L. and Nannie Boren . She had eight brothers, including the late U.S. Rep. Lyle H. Boren and former Southwestern Oklahoma State University President Dr. James B. Boren.

She received a bachelor's degree in journalism from OU and had articles printed in several publications.

She taught high school English in Wewoka, Ada, Broken Bow and Velma-Alma districts in Oklahoma, and in Jacksonville, Fla.

David Boren called his aunt a "pied piper of young people," praising her for helping aspiring musicians to believe in themselves.

She is credited with helping country star Willie Nelson find his feet in the music industry.

The "Comprehensive Country Music Encyclopedia" calls her a "colorful fixture on music row: a perennial behind-the-scenes career broker and perpetual friend to the stars."

In addition to "Heartbreak Hotel," Axton 's work was recorded by Faron Young, Conway Twitty, Hank Snow and Floyd Tillman.

More recently, she was an active partner with son Hoyt Axton in the creation of the Jeremiah record label.

Services for Axton will be 2 p.m. Saturday at the Hendersonville Church of Christ, directed by Phillips and Robinson Funeral Home in Hendersonville.

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