Ted Daffan
b. Theron Eugene Daffan, 21 September 1912, Beauregarde Parish, Louisiana. USA. He was raised in Texas and graduated from high school in Houston in 1930. Late in 1931, he began to teach himself to play the Hawaiian guitar and first appeared on KTRH Houston with the Blue Islanders in 1933. During the '30s, he was a member of both the Blue Ridge Playboys (where he played with Floyd Tillman and Moon Mullican) and the Bar X Cowboys. His keen interest in electronics led to him becoming one of the first to experiment with electronically amplifying guitars and he first recorded with an amplified steel guitar in 1939. He also developed a considerable talent for songwriting and in 1939, his song Truck Driver's Blues became the first of the genre of truck-driving songs. In 1940, he formed his own band, the Texans (which he kept almost to the end of the '50s) and recording for Columbia had a hit with his song Worried Mind, in the face of competition from recordings by Bob Wills and Roy Acuff. In 1943, he wrote and recorded for OKeh No Letter Today and his classic million- selling Born To Lose. Released on the same single, they both became US country and pop hits in January 1944. The following year, he had further Top 5 country hits including Headin' Down The Wrong Highway. Between 1944-46, he was resident at Venice Pier Ballroom, Los Angeles and in the late '40s, he was a regular on the popular Town Hall Party from Compton. He later returned to Texas with his band and played in various venues, including Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth. In 1958, he formed a publishing company with Hank Snow and in 1961, he founded his own company in Houston. Amongst his best known country songs, apart from those previously mentioned, are A Woman Captured Me, I've Got Five Dollars And It's Saturday Night, and Always Alone. Over the years, his songs have also been recorded by non-country artists such as Ray Charles (Born To Lose and No Letter Today) and in 1968, pop singer, Joe Barry was credited with a million-seller for his 1961 recording of I'm A Fool To Care, which had previously been recorded by Les Paul and Mary Ford. Daffan was one of the first to be elected to the Nashville Songwriters Association International Hall Of Fame, when it was founded in 1970.