Johnny Paycheck~ "She's All I Got"
Johnny Paycheck was the stage name of Donald Eugene Lytle (May 31, 1938 – February 19, 2003), a country music singer and Grand Ole Opry member most famous for recording the David Allan Coe song "Take This Job and Shove It".
He achieved his greatest success in the 1970s as a major force in
country music's "Outlaw Movement" popularized by artists such as David Allan Coe, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver and Merle Haggard.
In the 1980s, his music career suffered from his problems with drugs, alcohol, and legal difficulties.
He served a prison sentence in the early 1990s but his declining health effectively ended his career in early 2000.
In the 1980s, his music career suffered from his problems with drugs, alcohol, and legal difficulties.
He served a prison sentence in the early 1990s but his declining health effectively ended his career in early 2000.
| Johnny Paycheck | |
|---|---|
 From left to right Johnny Lee, Johnny Paycheck and Mickey Gilley at Gilley's Nightclub. |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Donald Eugene Lytle |
| Born | May 31, 1938 |
| Origin | Greenfield, Ohio, USA |
| Died | February 19, 2003 (aged 64) Nashville, Tennessee, USA |
| Genres | Country Music Outlaw Country Honky tonk |
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocalist Electric Guitar Acoustic Guitar Bass Guitar Steel Guitar |
| Years active | 1953 – 2003 |
| Labels | Sony |
| Website | www.johnnypaycheckmusic.com |
Early career
Born in Greenfield, Ohio, Donald Lytle was playing in talent contests by the age of 9 years old.
He took a job with country music legend George Jones for whom he played bass and steel guitar.He later co-wrote Jones' hit song "Once You've Had the Best."
PayCheck was a tenor harmony singer with numerous hard country performers in the late 1950s and early 1960s including Ray Price.
Lytle, along with Willie Nelson, worked in Price's band the Cherokee Cowboys.
He is featured as a tenor singer on recordings by Faron Young, Roger Miller, and Skeets McDonald.[citation needed]
All of these recordings are recognizable by their honky tonk purism.
The recordings shun vocal choruses and strings that became known as the "Countrypolitan" sound in favor of steel guitar, twin fiddles, shuffle beats, high harmony and self-consciously miserable lyrics.
As George Jones' tenor singer, PayCheck has been credited with the development of Jones' unique vocal phrasing.[citation needed]
In 1960, he reached Top 35 status in Cashbox magazine's country charts as Donny Young with the tune "Miracle Of Love".
From the early to mid-1960s, he also enjoyed some success as a songwriter for others, with his biggest songwriting hit being "Apartment No. 9", which served as Tammy Wynette's first chart hit in December 1966.
Johnny Paycheck
In 1964, he changed his name legally to Johnny Paycheck, taking the name from Johnny Paychek, a top ranked boxer from Chicago who once fought Joe Louis for the heavyweight title.[1](The name was often seen as a pun on the name of the popular country singer Johnny Cash.)
He first charted under his new name with "A-11" in 1965.
His best-selling single from this period was "She's All I Got" which reached No. 2 on the U.S. country singles charts in 1971 and made it onto the Billboard Hot 100.
His "Mr. Lovemaker" also reached No. 2 on the U.S. country singles chart in 1973.
But with the popularity of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings in the mid 1970s, Paycheck changed his image to that of outlaw, where he was to have his largest financial success.
It was his producer Bill Sherrill who helped revive his career by significantly changing his sound and image.
Sherrill was best known for carefully choreographing his records and infusing them with considerable pop feel.
The Paycheck records were clearly based on Sherrill's take on the bands backing Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson on records.
"Colorado Kool-Aid", "Me and the IRS", "Friend, Lover, Wife", "Slide Off of Your Satin Sheets", and "I'm the Only Hell (Mama Ever Raised)" were hits for Paycheck during this period.
He received a Academy of Country Music Career Achievement award in 1977.
| “ | To me, an outlaw is a man that did things his own way, whether you liked him or not. I did things my own way." |
” |
—Johnny Paycheck[citation needed]
| ||
Later life and death
In 1981 he appeared on the television show, The Dukes of Hazzard, as himself.[2]
The scene had him playing "Take This Job and Shove It" and arguing with Boss Hogg when the sheriff tried to give him a citation over the content of the song.
In December 1985, Paycheck was convicted and sentenced to 7 years in jail for shooting a man at the North High Lounge in Hillsboro, Ohio after he fired a .22 pistol, grazing the man's head with a bullet.
Paycheck claimed the act was self-defense.
After several years spent fighting the sentence, in 1989 he began his sentence, spending 22 months in prison before he was pardoned by the Governor of Ohio, Richard Celeste.[3]
| “ | I heard from fans constantly throughout the entire two years. The letters never stopped, from throughout the world. I looked forward to mail call every day. | ” |
The most successful of his later singles, released during his appeal, was "Old Violin" which reached # 21 on the country chart in 1986.
His last album to chart was "Modern Times" in 1987.
He continued to release albums, the last of which, Remembering appeared in 2002.
In 1990, he filed for bankruptcy after tax problems with the IRS.[citation needed]
Although Paycheck suffered from drug and alcohol addiction during his career, he later was said to have "put his life in order" [4] after his prison stay.
He continued to perform and tour until the late 1990s.
After the year 2000 his health would only allow for short appearances. Suffering from emphysema and asthma after a lengthy illness, Paycheck died at Nashville's Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2003.
His funeral was paid for by good friend and music legend George Jones.[citation needed]
He was buried in Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Nashville and survived by his wife Sharon and son Jonathan.
His brother Bud Lytle died from cancer in the mid 1990s in Ohio.[citation needed]
His brother Jeffrey L. Lytle was killed in a car crash on Ohio State Route 73 near Hillsboro, Ohio on April 1, 2009.[5]
Source: Wikipedia.org
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