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Pistol Packing Mammaby
Bob Bowman | |
One
of the most popular songs in the U.S. during the mid-1940s was “Pistol Packing
Mama,” which became Billboard Magazine’s most played jukebox favorite in 1944.
Both Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra performed the song at the peak of their
careers.
But few know that the song came from East
Texas and was written and performed by an Cherokee County musician.
Clarence
Albert Poindexter, who was born at Jacksonville
in 1902, was working as a house painter when he began performing in local bars
and clubs in East Texas. For professional
reasons, he shortened his name to Al Dexter.
Dexter was 34 when
Cherokee County Sheriff Bill Brunt was killed in a shootout with bootlegger
Red Creel near Rusk in 1939.
Creel also died in the shootout. Brunt’s death prompted the commissioners court
to appoint his 26-year-old wife, Mary Dear Brunt, as sheriff. Strapping
on a pistol, Mary completed her husband’s unfinished term. |
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A 1939 front page from the Rusk Cherokeean reported on the slaying of Sheriff
Bill Brunt and the apointment of his wife to succeed him. |
Mrs.
Brunt’s elevation to the sheriff’s office caught the attention of Dexter, who
had already written with James B. Paris “Honky Tonk Blues,” the first country
song to use the term.
He soon wrote Pistol Packing Mama and recorded
the song with Gene
Autry’s backup band.
The song was released in 1943 and, although controversial
because of its lyrics, sold one million copies in its first six months.
Over
time, Dexter’s honky tonk sound lost its popularity, but in 1971 he was installed
in the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. Dexter invested in loan, motel
and real estate businesses in Texas and died a wealthy
man in 1984 at Lewisville, Texas.
In 1940, when Mrs. Brunt’s term as sheriff
was scheduled to expired, she decided not to seek a full term and her brother-in-law,
Frank Brunt, filed as a candidate for the office.
He won on November
5, 1940, and took office on January 1, 1941, at the age of twenty-seven. He remained
in the office through 1954 when he resigned to accept a security position with
Exxon USA in Houston.
Brunt
was later transferred to Tyler,
where he retired and was appointed to accept a temporary position as Smith County
sheriff, leaving the office a year later.
The Brunt family legacy in the
Cherokee County sheriff’s office came to a close in 1976--some 37 years after
Bill Brunt’s murder--when John Bill Slover, a Cherokee County sheriff eight years,
left office.
Slover, a cousin of Bill and Frank Brunt, was elected November
5, 1958, and served eighteen years.
Bob
Bowman's East Texas
March 7, 2009 Column
(Bob
Bowman of Lufkin is the author of more than 35 books about East Texas history
and folklore. He can be reached at bob-bowman.com) | |
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