From: "Dik de Heer" Date: Sun Oct 20, 2002 2:00 am Subject: Born To Be With You : Jerry Irby JERRY IRBY Born Gerald Irby, 20 October 1917, New Braunfels, Texas Died December 1983, Houston, Texas Jerry Irby's career in country music spanned almost forty years. The list of artists he worked with during that time reads almost like a Who's Who of Western Swing. He got his start (around 1937) with two Houston-based ensembles, first the Bar X Cowboys, then the Texas Wranglers, with whom he recorded for Decca. The forties were his most successful period. After recording for Gulf, Globe, Mercury and Imperial, Jerry Irby and his band, the Texas Ranchers, were signed to MGM in October 1947. Soon the music industry would be hit by the recording ban of 1948, but MGM acquired a number of Irby's Globe and Imperial masters and reissued that material, resulting in two hits, "Cryin' In My Beer" (# 11 country) and "Great Long Pistol" (# 10), both in 1948. However, these are not the records that he is best remembered for. Irby wrote and recorded the original version of "Drivin' Nails In My Coffin", which was a big country hit for Floyd Tillman and Ernest Tubb in 1946. The song (aka "Nails In My Coffin") has been recorded by many other country artists, including the recently featured Lattie Moore. Rockabilly fans will know him for "49 Women" and "Clickety Clack", both of which which Irby recorded twice, first in the late forties and then, with the advent of rock 'n' roll, in a more boppin' style in 1956. Many of his 40s and 50s recordings feature a piano and can be qualified as hillbilly boogie. After more recordings for small labels in the second half of the fifties, there followed a long period of musical inactivity, during which Irby concentrated on his nightclub/restaurant "Texas Corral" in Houston. In the seventies he resurfaced as a born-again Christian, recording non-secular songs for the tiny Bagatelle label. When Irby died in 1983, he left behind a wealth of recorded material. CD: Jerry Irby, in the "Boppin' Hillbilly series" (Collector CLCD 2851). 26 tracks, some reproduced from demos in low-fi sound quality.