Bakersfield Sound TV performer Cliff Crofford dies
| Tuesday, Nov 24 2009 02:43 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Nov 24 2009 02:44 PM
Loading Stories
Advertisement
By ROBERT PRICE
Californian columnist
Cliff Crofford, co-host of the mid-1950s KBAK-TV show "The Chuck Wagon Gang" and a prolific honky-tonk club performer and movie-soundtrack songwriter, died Sunday, two days after suffering a massive stroke, according to his granddaughter, Danielle Crofford Fetters.
Crofford, who would have turned 80 on Dec. 12, played with Bill Woods' Orange Blossom Playboys at the Blackboard saloon and at various local venues with the Jimmy Thomason Band. He co-hosted the KBAK show with Billy Mize using the Blackboard band, headed by Buck Owens, and was later a regular on "Town Hall Party" and "The Cal Worthington Show," two Los Angeles-based programs.
Crofford also toured with Johnny Cash and Roger Miller and worked for many years at the famous Foothill Club in Long Beach.
Clifton Thomas Crofford was born on a farm in Rochester, Texas, in 1929 and moved to San Diego in 1942 so his father could work in the defense industry. Crofford had played guitar from a young age but he found himself without an instrument to play in San Diego.
"He wanted to play guitar but they couldn't really afford a guitar," said his lifelong friend and fellow musician, Lawton Jiles. "So his mom found him an old Martin trumpet at a pawn shop. It had a hole in it. Cliff plugged it with chewing gum."
Crofford returned to Texas after World War II to complete high school, then moved back to San Diego upon graduation and studied music at Riverside City College.
In 1949, on his way to Reno via Highway 99, Crofford stopped in Bakersfield to meet Bill Woods on a friend's suggestion. Woods, who, by his own tally, convinced 47 different performers to move to Bakersfield in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, hit it off so well with him that Crofford, just 19, stayed and played trumpet that night with Woods' band at Café 99 in McFarland. Crofford joined the band permanently and later teamed up with Woods on his KAFY-AM radio show five days a week. As Jiles notes, Crofford never made it to Reno that year.
In 1953, Crofford joined Mize on "The Jimmy Thomason Show," and when Thomason moved back to Texas for two years, Crofford teamed with Mize to bring "The Chuck Wagon Gang" to Bakersfield audiences for a year and a half. Crofford also appeared on Cousin Herb Henson's "Trading Post" show.
Crofford, who recorded for Tally Records, Liberty Records, Dot and others, achieved his greatest fame writing songs for movies. He appeared in two of those films: "Every Which Way But Loose" and "Any Which Way You Can," both starring Clint Eastwood.
His list of movie songs, which is long, includes "Send Me Down to Tucson," "Bronco Billy," "Bar Room Buddies" (with Merle Haggard), "Smokey and the Bandit II," "Honky Tonk Man," "Charlotte's Web" and "Sharkey's Machine."
His non-movie songs were recorded by dozens of singers including Faron Young, Bobby Bare, Freddy Hart, Fats Domino, Cher, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Wynn Stewart, Ray Price, Ferlin Husky and, perhaps most famously, Walter Brennan, who took Crofford's "Old Rivers" to No. 1 on BMI's country sales listing. The 1962 hit contained what was perhaps Brennan's (and Crofford's) most famous line: "One of these days, I'm gonna climb that mountain."
"He had a career that most people would have killed for," Jiles said. "He was a shy man, kind of always put himself down, but everybody loved him. He had no enemies -- he would talk to anybody."
At the time of his death Crofford lived in Ontario with his wife, Maxine, whom he wed in 1951. He is survived by two granddaughters, Dovelle Crofford and Danielle Crofford Fetters, and six great-grandchildren. His son, David Crofford, died in April.
A viewing will be held from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday at Draper Mortuary in Ontario, and a graveside service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at Bellevue Memorial Park in Ontario. In lieu of flowers the family asks that contributions be made in Crofford's name to Kris Camp for Autistic Children, a 501(c)3 charity based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
To hear Crofford perform with Billy Mize, go to http://tinyurl.com/crofford.
