Joe Allison

Diagnoses

Personal

Vocation

American Hall of Fame songwriter, a radio and television personality, a record producer, and a country music business executive. Allison worked as a commercial artist before embarking on a career in the entertainment industry, first as a disc jockey on a Paris, Texas radio station. In 1945, after a few years on radio, Allison took a job as the emcee for the North American tour of country music singing star Tex Ritter. While working on tour, he offered Ritter a song he had written called "When You Leave, Don't Slam the Door", which the singer turned into a No. 1 hit on the country music charts. This success ultimately led to Allison moving to a radio station in Nashville, Tennessee where he remained until accepting an offer from a station in Pasadena, California. While working on radio and television on the West Coast, Allison continued writing music, many of which were co-authored with his first wife, Audrey. He scored a success with a song recorded by country singer Faron Young and a major hit when teen idol Tommy Sands recorded his song, "Teen Age Crush'". In 1959, Joe and Audrey Allison wrote their most famous song, "He'll Have to Go", which was initially recorded by Billy Brown. A subsequent version by Jim Reeves become a platinum record, and the song would be recorded successfully by more than one hundred other artists including Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, Tom Jones, Eddy Arnold and even big band leader Guy Lombardo. Joe Allison died in Nashville on 2 August 2002 from respiratory failure from lung disease. Link to Wikipedia biography