Jimmie Jackson

Jimmie Jackson was born on February 2, 1914 in Jackson, Mississippi, USA as James Wood Coleman.

Commercial history was made on "The Jimmie Jackson Show" broadcasting over WJDX back in the early 1930s. Jimmie wanted to do something different to entice his listeners to pay more attention to the message of his show's sponsors, so he decided to "sing" their spots. The station protested, saying that people don't pay attention to words in songs and that only by reading the sponsor's material in a clear and distinct delivery would any response to the product be achieved. Jackson ignored the station's directive that he only read the copy and initiated what is considered one of the very first "singing commercials" in broadcast history. The station's switchboard lit up and the sponsor's business drastically increased, causing them to request Jackson to "please keep it up!".

In 1940, "The Jack Benny Program" radio show was almost pulled off the air by Hollywood Musicians' Union Local 47 over a conflict with "The Jimmie Jackson Show", which was broadcast over Warner Brothers Hollywood station KFWB. During those ten years on KFWB the announcers for both his "Jimmie Jackson Show" and his "Jimmie Jackson's Memory Lane" show were Neil Reagan (brother of future US President Ronald Reagan) and Hal Smith (better known as Otis the Town Drunk on The Andy Griffith Show (1960)).

One of the Sunday "Dixie Dugan" syndicated comic strips drawn by J.P. McEvoy and J.H. Strirbel (1948) features Dixie Dugan having a chance encounter with Hollywood celebrity Jimmie Jackson in a music store. As with this comic strip, it was not uncommon for friends in the industry to slip in the name of stars they knew and associated with. Hal Smith also took such an opportunity to do a tongue-in-cheek zinger on Jimmie in The Andy Griffith Show: Goodbye Sheriff Taylor (1964). The quip was when Otis Campbell, acting as a school crossing guard, has an encounter with a mischievous child named "Little Jimmie Jackson"..

In 1949 Johnnie Parsons came in second place in the world-famous Indianapolis 500 Race. Believing Johnnie could win the following year, a week before Parsons was to compete again in the 1950 Memorial Day Indy 500 Jackson used a new technology--the wire recorder--to record he and Johnnie having the winning interview in Jimmie's living room, as if Parsons had just won the race, which in fact he did. People were amazed at how Jimmie Jackson was able to interview Parsons "live" on Memory Lane (1947) right after the race and "scoop" the major networks and everyone else. This was a television first using this new technology in this manner.

From 1955-65 he was honored by being appointed the "Honorary Sheriff of Calabasas," a community located in northern Los Angeles County, in the San Fernando Valley..

He is known for his work on The Downtown Show (1957), Memory Lane (1991) and Memory Lane (1947).