Happy Birthday, Billy Mize -- party is April 28

Billy Mize turns 80 on April 29, but there's a party being held in his honor April 28 at Buck Owens' Crystal Palace -- and one of the features of the gathering will be a preview of a new documentary about his life and career. For those who don't know his story, here's a short excerpt from my 1997 profile. It picks up after TV host/fiddle player Jimmy Thomason quit his TV gig to run (unsuccessfully) for the state senate in 1954 and then, out of a job, moved temporarily back to Texas:

Billy Mize, a young, handsome steel guitar player, had taken advantage of the Thomasons’ self-imposed two-year exile, stepping in to host his own program. He called his KBAK show “The Chuck Wagon Gang” and teamed for a year and a half with Cliff Crofford (later to earn a reputation writing songs for Walter Brennan and composing mid-’70s film soundtracks including those for “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Every Which Way But Loose”).

Mize “sang like a bird,” said Roy Nichols, former guitarist for Merle Haggard’s Strangers and a some-time-regular on the “Trading Post.” “Looked good, too.” “He had a lot a trouble with girls,” Red Simpson said. “Trouble keeping them away.”

Mize, who rejoined the “Trading Post” gang after the Thomasons’ return, became the show’s host in October 1963 when Cousin Herb was forced to scale back following his first heart attack. After Henson’s death the following month, the show moved to KBAK, and Mize continued as the show’s host for its final years. The Thomasons essentially switched places with Mize, landing on KERO-TV.

A native of Kansas by way of Riverside, Mize was all over the Southern California airwaves in those days. In a two-year display of road-warrior grit during 1964 and 1965, he racked up 3,000 miles a week driving his pink 1959 Cadillac back and forth between Bakersfield and Los Angeles, appearing on two live, daily TV music shows: “Trading Post” in Bakersfield and “Melody Ranch” on KTLA.

Mize performed on several Los Angeles-area TV shows, including “The Hank Penny Show,” “Town Hall Party,” “The Cal Worthington Show,” and “Country Music Time.” He eventually sold his heroic, well-traveled Caddy to Buddy Mize, his songwriting brother.

Before the Academy of Country Music gave its “TV Personality of the Year” award to Glen Campbell in 1968, Mize owned the trophy, winning three years in a row. He recorded for Columbia, Decca, United Artists, Zodiac and others, but his finest moment in the studio was probably the day in June 1966 that Dean Martin recorded three of his songs, including “Terrible Tangled Web.”