(Ted Daffan - Jimmie Davis)
Australia
On Festival EP Joyride by pioneering Australian rock’n’roll singer-guitarist Col Joye (Colin Jacobsen 1936-2025) and his band The Joy Boys .
The EP was the first release by Col Joye & The Joy Boys (June 1958), and three of its tracks were the first recorded by the band (late 1957).
Foundation
In 1957 Col Joye joined his brother Kevin in jazz outfit The KJ Quintet. In October 1957 they appeared as Col Joye & The Joy Boys in the Jazzorama concerts at the Manly Embassy cinema, promoted by their manager Bill McColl. (The photo on the sleeve for the Joyride EP shows the band performing in the Jazzorama show.) Also on the bill was another upcoming young rocker, Johnny O’Keefe.
First recordings
Late in 1957 Col Joye & The Joy Boys made a custom recording at Harmony House, a small studio behind a record store of the same name at 101 George Street in the Rocks locality of Sydney. Three vocal tracks from that session, intended as demos in seeking a recording contract, remained unreleased until 1958’s Joyride EP.
First release
By the time Joyride was released in June 1958, Col and the Joy Boys had been signed to the Festival label which released the EP using tracks from the Harmony House session: I’m Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes, Worried Mind and I Miss You So. A fourth track, Colonel Bogey, is an instrumental recorded later.
Major success
In 1959 Col and the Joy Boys would dominate Australian charts nationwide. In Sydney, for example, they charted with Bye Bye Baby (#1), (Rockin’ Rollin’) Clementine (#1), Oh Yeah Uh-Huh (#1), Livin’ Doll (#3) and Teenage Baby (#4). Col became a regular on national TV pop show Australian Bandstand and ultimately a legend of Australian music whose performance costume was later displayed at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum.
Joyride, the album?
The Col Joye & The Joy Boys LP Joyride (1961) is unconnected apart from carrying a re-recording of I Miss You So, one of the songs on the Joyride EP.
♫ Listen at YouTube
The YouTube post has errors in the title and notes but we are grateful for the audio!
Worried Mind: a much-recorded song
SecondHandSongs.com lists 38 versions of Worried Mind plus a French adaptation Comme Une Âme En Peine. A shorter list at The Originals covers the essentials.
The other songs on the Joyride EP
• I Miss You So was originally released in 1940 by Cats And The Fiddle. It is another much-recorded song, and a version by Little Anthony And The Imperials charted #23 Billboard in 1965. Col Joye & The Joy Boys re-recorded I Miss You So for the B-side of their hit Bye Bye Baby (1959), and it appeared on their Joyride LP (1961).
• I’m Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes is based on a traditional song recorded in 1927 by Roy Harvey & The North Carolina Ramblers as Blue Eyes and in 1929 by the Carter Family who were the first to use the longer title. Many well-known artists adapted and recorded it, some under the titles The Great Speckled Bird, The Wild Side Of Life, and other variations.
Credits
Thanks to Tony Watson for suggestion and background from his research with Colin Duff.
Style guide
• Joy Boys is sometimes formatted as Joyboys.
• Some US discographies mistakenly show ‘Colonel Joye’, but of course in this case Col is short for Colin.
Further reading:
• It’s not hard to find sources but the archived Col Joye page from the Howlspace site has facts and commentary. Kimbo’s blogpost gives a succinct overview.
• For wider context, see Craig McGregor’s The Bodgie Boogie: What was Australia’s first rock&roll record? reprinted from Meanjin.
(Ted Daffan - Jimmie Davis)
USA
#27 USA
10″ 78 rpm disc on Okeh #06101 by popular and influential Western swing band formed 1934, flourished into the 1940s. Vocals by Bob Wills and Tommy Duncan .
This is the same song as Worried Mind but with a sprightly swing feel and humorous interplay between Wills and Duncan.
A later Bob Wills recording of Worried Mind (without the New) is from sessions for the Tiffany Recording Company in 1946-47, intended for a radio show but unreleased at the time. ♫ YouTube
It was eventually released in 1987 on The Tiffany Transcriptions Vol. 7: Keep Knockin’ by Kaleidoscope Records (later acquired by Rhino Records).
(Ted Daffan - Jimmie Davis*) USA
Original version
*Jimmie Davis, credited as co-writer on future releases of Worried Mind, is not credited on the label of this release. See also above.
10″ 78 rpm disc on Okeh by Country singer, songwriter and steel guitarist Ted Daffan (Theron Eugene Daffan 1912-1996).
According to his biography at Discogs.com, Daffan charted six times as a singer between 1944-46 (all in the top 6 on the country charts) and fourteen times as a songwriter between 1944-78.
Daffan’s big break came when Cliff Bruner And His Boys recorded his composition Truck Driver’s Blues (1939), a popular record that probably kicked off the tradition of country trucking songs. In 1940 Daffan formed his own band, The Texans, and released a series of successful country songs including his compositions No Letter Today (1943 #2 country, #9 pop) and Born To Lose (#3, #19, later a Top 50 for Ray Charles in 1962). Daffan’s composition I’m A Fool To Care, first recorded by Ted Daffan & The Texans (1940) was covered by Les Paul & Mary Ford for a Top 10 hit in 1954.
Selected sources, further reading: 1. The Ted Daffan page at Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame is a good succinct introduction. 2. The Discogs.com entry has the discographies with a brief biography and useful links to other sources.
Charts: It is hard to get a handle on chart placings before the rock’n’roll era, and what we have are reconstructions from multiple sources rather than hard sales figures. I have used Joel Whitburn’s retrospective chart books, Pop Singles1940-1955, Country Singles: 1944-1993, and Pop memories 1890-1954, and nobody has done it better.
(Ted Daffan - Jimmie Davis) USA
Later version
Orchestra directed by Owen Bradley, also a producer and a key figure in the development of the Nashville recording industry during the 1950s.
On Decca EP You Are My Sunshine: Jimmie Davis’ All Time Hits by co-writer of Worried Man. Also on LP You Are My Sunshine (1959).
Louisiana country, gospel and blues singer and songwriter Jimmie Davis (1899-2000) was a college graduate who initially worked as a teacher but began a prolific recording career in 1928, initially influenced by Jimmie Rodgers.
His composition Nobody’s Darlin’ But Mine (1935) was one of his most successful releases and has been covered by many other artists over the years. He is perhaps most associated with You Are My Sunshine which he recorded in 1940 and may or may not have written.
After going into local politics in Shreveport, Louisiana, Jimmie Davis served two terms as Governor of Louisiana (in the 40s and again in the 60s). He used You Are My Sunshine during campaigning, and it was made a state song of Louisiana in 1977. As the State of Louisiana’s website puts it, Louisiana is one of the only states with two state songs: Give Me Louisiana and You Are My Sunshine.
Further reading: Jimmie Davis at Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and at the Country Music Hall of Fame.
(Ted Daffan - Jimmie Davis) USA
Later version
#74 USA
Label: with orchestra conducted by Jimmie Haskell.
Instrumental version on Capitol April 1962 by big-band era trumpeter (born 1922) who was in the Glenn Miller Orchestra in the 1940s, later led his own orchestras. Ray Anthony’s recording of The Hokey Pokey (1953) helped to popularise the dance in America.
Further reading: Ray Anthony biography by Matt Collar at All Music.
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Website by Lyn Nuttall. © Lyn Nuttall 2004-2026. Chart positions courtesy of Gavin Ryan’s Australian Chart Books and Dean Scapolo’s Complete NZ Music Charts. Special thanks to Terry Stacey for information, corrections and suggestions. Thanks also to Tony Watson, Philippe Edouard, Dave Overett.., More…