Always late
By Archie P. McDonald

Coming north out of Beaumont on Highway 96 in the 1950s, one passed through a community called Voth. Driving through now on a modern, four-lane freeway, one is hard pressed to find that place so familiar then when the old road cut an "S" to cross the railroad tracks. Just on the southside of the crossings sat a beer joint named "Neva's," and there, my father said, was where Lefty Frizzell sang about a girl who was "always late" with her kisses. I heard Frizzell sing that song dozens of times on Radio Station KTRM and knew of him as a headliner in the C&W business. He was just that, for a time, until Elvis Presley and rockabilly music left Frizzell's beer joint ballads behind.

William Orville R.C. Frizzell was born in Corsicana, Texas, on March 31, 1928, to an itinerant oil field worker and his wife who moved around Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, following the work. Lefty Frizzell appeared on a children's radio program late in the 1930s, and by the time he entered his teens had begun entertaining at local fairs, beer joints, and dances. Frizzell's twangy voice and guitar accompaniment reminded some who heard him perform of Jimmy Rodgers, although there is a consensus among those who study this genre that Frizzell did not deliberately imitate the Singing Brakeman. Frizzell cut his first recording for Columbia Records in 1952 and remained a headliner for the company for nearly a decade. His most successful recordings included "If You've Got The Money, Honey, I've Got The Time," "I Love You a Thousand Ways," "Long Black Veil," and "Always Late." His last Top Ten recording, "Saginaw, Michigan," was released in 1964.

When Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and other entertainers became dominant in Country Music, Frizzell returned to appearances in the dance halls, beer joints, fairs, and rodeos where he began his entertainment career in the 1940s. Frizzell died in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 19, 1975.

Country music historian Bill Malone considers Lefty Frizzell a leader of the field during the 1950s that influenced the style of such later major entertainers as Willie Nelson and George Jones. The latter also began his career in entertainment in Jefferson County, and likely sang for his supper in Neva's -- and dozens of other dance halls and beer joints where the lights are low and the girls all get prettier at closing time.

Anyway, that's the way it was, when Lefty sang "Always Late."

(The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Archie P. McDonald is director of the Association and author of more than 20 books on Texas.)