On this day (June 12) in 1978, country singer-songwriter Johnny Bond died of a stroke at age 63 in Burbank, California. Born Cyrus Whitfield Bond on June 1, 1915 in Enville, Oklahoma, he sent seven songs to the top 10 on the Billboard country charts, including “Divorce Me C.O.D.” (1947) and “Ten Little Bottles” (1965). Bond also acted in more than 40 Western films, such as Saga of Death Valley (1939) and Duel in the Sun (1946).
The Life and Career of Johnny Bond
Music was a fixture early on for Johnny Bond, who grew up in Marietta, Oklahoma. Self-taught on the ukulele and guitar, he got his start playing local dances.
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After graduating from Marietta High School, Bond headed to Oklahoma City to work in radio. In 1937, he teamed up with Jimmy Wakely and Scotty Harrel to form the Singing Cowboy Trio, which later became the Bell Boys.
According to the Encyclopedia of Country Music, the three men double-dipped in the music industry by recording for two companies under different names: the Jimmy Wakely Trio for Decca Records; and Johnny Bond & the Cimarron Boys for Columbia.
Through their performances on the Oklahoma radio circuit, they gained a following—including the original singing cowboy, Gene Autry, who reportedly told them to “look me up” if they ever found themselves in California.
He Penned More Than 400 Songs
In 1940, the group—with Dick Reinhart, who replaced Harrel—followed Autry to California. Billed as the Jimmy Wakely Trio, they joined Autry on his CBS radio series, The Melody Ranch Show.
After the group split in 1942, Johnny Bond signed with Columbia Records. He would later record for Autry’s Republic label, Starday Records, Capitol Records, Lamb and Lion Label, and Jimmy Wakely’s Shasta Label.
Bond wrote more than 400 songs throughout his three-decade country music career. Among his more popular solo hits were “Divorce Me C.O.D.”, written by Merle Travis; “So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed” (1947), “Oklahoma Waltz” (1948), “Love Song in 32 Bars” (1950), “Sick Sober and Sorry” (1951), and a cover of Charlie Ryan’s “Hot Rod Lincoln” (1960).
He scored his highest-charting song in 1965 at age 50, when the comedy track “Ten Little Bottles” spent four weeks at number two.
In addition to his work as a singer-songwriter, Johnny Bond acted in nearly 38 movies and spent seven years hosting the syndicated country music TV series Town Hall Party with Tex Ritter.
Also with Ritter, Bond formed Vidor Publications, a music publishing firm. He retired from performing in the 1970s to devote more time to publishing.
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