Artells Dickson

Biography

Artells Dickson was involved with most forms of popular entertainment during the '20s, '30s, and '40s, leaving behind an impression not unlike a chameleon. He was in the '30s considered a so-called "serious" concert artist fronting the Artells Dickson Concert Company in which his wife, vocalist Martha Dickson, was one of the featured performers. But he was also down-home enough to publish and perform cowboy songs, a style that in the late '20s was as popular as rap was in the late '90s. Put a cowboy hat on Dickson and he was ready to pose for the cover of sheet music folios such as the volume published in his name by Cross Music. Whether he even wore the hat while portraying cowboy star Tom Mix on a radio serial is unknown; co-stars such as Russell Thorson aren't telling. On record, this artist was more likely to present himself as Art Dickson. This goes for the 78s released by Art Dickson & His Harmonicowboys, as rare as gold nuggets in the stream outside an abandoned mine, as well as the sentimental titles put out for moral support during the Second World War such as "She Gave Her Heart to a Soldier Boy" and "The Man of the Hour, General Eisenhower." The latter represents one of several ditties written to honor the war hero who became a president, best of which is "We Like Ike" by calypso legend the Mighty Sparrow. Besides his performing, Dickson was involved with money-making activities that were quite normal in the music industry during these decades but shady nonetheless. He and partner Geoffrey O'Hara managed to copyright the folk song "This Train" during the '30s -- put all the people who claim to have written this song aboard a locomotive and Amtrak's budget worries would be over for good. That's a joke, but the following one is better, an authentic shard of vintage radio mirth in which the subject of this biography plays an essential role: "If Ann Sothern had married, in succession, Perry Mason, Artells Dickson, and Peter Lyon, she would then be "Ann Sothern Mason Dickson Lyon."