NASHVILLE — Stonewall Jackson, the honky-tonk singer who overcame a violent, hard-scrabble childhood and had a long, successful career in country music, including more than 60 years as a cast member of the Grand Ole Opry, died Saturday in Nashville. He was 89.
His death, after struggling with vascular dementia, was announced by the Opry.
In the book “From the Bottom Up: The Stonewall Jackson Story as Told in His Own Words” (1991), Mr. Jackson that his stepfather, a short-tempered tenant farmer named James Leviner, had often mistreated him by once lifting him high above the ground. his head and hit him against a rock.
Another time, Mr. Jackson wrote, his stepfather beat him and left him unconscious in a field after the boy accidentally spilled a bucket of water he was carrying.
“The physical scars and pain of abuse don’t last long,” said Mr. Jackson, “but the mental part of it just goes on and on and on.”
Jackson’s 1962 recording “A Wound Time Can’t Erase,” a Top 10 country hit written by Bill D. Johnson, was reminiscent of this early trauma.
‘Is it power you have won for the things you have done? I don’t think I’ll ever see what you’ve won,’ Mr. Jackson wonders aloud, his heartache geared to the record’s churning rhythms and uncluttered production.
“A Wound Time Can’t Erase” was the 11th in a string of 23 consecutive singles that reached the country Top 40 for Mr. jackson. He later had a run of eight consecutive Top 40 country hits from 1966 to 1968, eventually charting 44 singles on the country charts before the hits stopped in 1973.
“Waterloo,” a catchy tune written by John D. Loudermilk and Marijohn Wilkin, was his biggest record, occupying the top spot on the country charts for five weeks in 1959 and transitioning to the pop Top 10. “BJ the DJ” his other No. 1 country single began soaring on the charts in late 1963.
Most recordings of Mr. Jackson are made in the traditional style known as hard country: a lean, shuffling sound accentuated by languorous fiddle and steel guitar. Eleven of his singles, including “Life to Go”, an inmate lament written by George Jones, and “I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water”, a Top 20 pop hit for Johnny Rivers in 1966, reached the top 10 of the charts. the country.
Stonewall Jackson was born on November 6, 1932 in Tabor City, NC. His biological father, a railroad engineer named Waymond David Jackson, wanted him to be named after Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, the Confederate general he claimed descended from, but he died of complications from a hernia before Stonewall, the third of his three boys, was born.
Mr. Jackson’s mother, who was born Lulu Loraine Turner, remarried after his father died.
Fearing for their safety, Mr. Jackson’s mother eventually left her sons’ abusive stepfather and the family moved to Georgia, where they lived in a cabin on the ranch of the paternal grandmother and her husband. Stonewall worked in the fields and chopped wood before he was 10 years old.
Hoping to escape the rut of sharecroppers, Mr. Jackson, who had only a limited education, lied about his age and joined the military when he was 16. He was fired as soon as the deception was discovered.
The following year, he enlisted in the Navy, serving on the submarine rescue vessel Kittiwake and beginning to hone his skills as a guitarist and songwriter. Four years later, he returned to Georgia to work a small plot before moving to Nashville to try his luck as a songwriter.
Despite his many hit records, Mr. Jackson’s biggest claim to fame is his six-decade run on the Grand Ole Opry. He remains the only singer invited to join the Opry cast before releasing a record, let alone a hit.
Jackson, who lived in Brentwood, Tennessee, recalled presenting himself unannounced at the Acuff-Rose Music office in 1956, on his first visit to Nashville, in hopes of striking a songwriting deal. Wesley Rose, the son of Fred Rose, the director of Acuff-Rose who gave Hank Williams his start, invited Mr. Jackson to do a demo recording and was impressed with the results.
“He called WSM, the radio station that owns and operates the Grand Ole Opry, and told them about me,” Jackson was quoted as saying in the liner notes to the 1972 compilation “The World of Stonewall Jackson.” “He asked if they would arrange an audition for me the next day and asked if I wanted to try for the Opry.”
In 2007, Mr. Jackson’s relationship with the show deteriorated when he sued Gaylord Entertainment, the Opry’s parent company, for ageism after his appearances on the program were curtailed to make way for younger performers. The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount in October 2008, and Mr. Jackson resumed performing on the show.
His wife, Juanita Wair Jackson, died in 2019. Survivors include a son, Stonewall Jr., and two grandchildren.
