Born: July 17 1928 in Drayton Mills Village in Spartanburg, S.C.

Inducted: April 26 2005

Category: Country

Biography: Jimmy Case was the first inductee into The Southern Legends Entertainment and Performing Arts Hall of Fame. He was inducted by Widmarc Clark in Portland, TN.

Jim has always liked country music from the first time he heard Smiley and Kitty Wilson. From then on he was hooked on country music. Some of his favorites were Jimmy Rogers, Don Reno, Red Smiley The Sons of The Pioneers, and Bob Wills.

Jim knew early on he wanted to be an entertainer. He bought his first guitar for $ 4.95 at a local pawn shop paying fifty cents down and fifty cents a week by picking cotton and doing farm work till it was paid for. His aunt Emma Mathew and his uncle, Tom Frady taught Jim a few chords and Jim was on his way. Jim became an accomplished guitarist playing with many bands around the area at square dances and other events.

In may of 1942 Jim answered the call to join uncle sams Navy. He served two years in the Navy taking basic training at Bainbridge Naval Training Center in Brainbridge, Md. From there he was sent to the U.S. Naval Air Station in Millington, TN just outside Memphis. While stationed there he contacted his friend Shorty Boyd, who played fiddle for Pee Wee King and The Golden West Cowboys on the Grand Ole Opry. Jim got the thrill of his life when he got a back stage pass to visit with the stars of the Opry.

From Millington he was transferred to Naval Base Norfolk,Va where he was assigned to the USS Midway CVB-41 the largest aircraft carrier in the Navy at that time.While on the Midway he formed his first band and entertained his shipmates.There wasn’t much time for playing however, Jim was kept busy refueling aircraft on the flight deck. The Midway cruised the North Atlantic searching for German Subs in Africa, Malta, Gibraltar, Italy, France and England.

Honorably discharged at the end of the war, he headed for Greenville, S.C. and worked various day jobs while playing music at night. He and a friend Jackie King did very well playing at many events around Greenville and Spartanburg. Jim says he learned a lot about the music business from Jackie King.

From South Carolina he moved to Washington. D.C. where he formed a band with Scotty, Patsy and Donna Stoneman called The Bluegrass Champs. They played all over Washington.D.C., Maryland and Virginia. They were so good Arthur Godfrey asked them to perform several times on his TV show.

Later Jim formed another band called Jimmy Case and The Cherokees featuring Dale Turner, traveling all over the south east. When war broke out in Vietnam in 1965, Jim, Red Sovine, and Leon Bolinger joined a USO tour that took them to Vietnam performing on the front lines for the troops. From Vietnam they teamed up with Loretta Lynn to entertain the troops in France and Germany doing 38 shows in 17 days.

During the years Jim lived in the Washington. D.C. area he played with hundreds of musicians including Jimmy Dean, Patsy Cline, Roy Clark, Link Wray, Charlie Daniels, Ray Vernon, Vernon Taylor, Danny Gatton, Roy Buchanan, Frank Gosman and the Dawn Rose Drifters, he worked The Town and Country Party televised on WTOP, worked at WDON as a disc jockey was a good friend to Don Owens the biggest name country DJ in Washington. D.C. Jim has made hundreds of recording’s down through the years. Many of those records have been played on radio stations throughout the USA.

Many of these favorites can be purchased at Jim’s web site www.jimmycase.com.

Today Jim lives in Portland,TN where he operates ACE Productions, Aaron records, and is Senior Vice President of The Southern Legends Entertainment and Performing Arts Hall of Fame. Jim is also Senior Vice President of The Southern Legends Association which operates The Southern Legends Entertainment and Performing Arts Hall of Fame.