* 21-09-1912, Beauregard Parish, Louisiana

One of honky tonk's pioneer songwriters,  steel guitarist Ted Daffan enjoyed stardom himself in the 1940's. Raised in Houston, Theron Eugene Daffan gravitated to steel guitar and eventually in electric steel, playing in a Hawaiian music band known as The Blue Islanders. By 1934 he'd signed on with The Blue Ridge Playboys and started writing songs, including the first trucker number 'Truck Driver's Blues'. Daffan formed his own band, known as  The Texans, and with them enjoyed a brief run of stardom with originals like 'No Letter Today' and his 'Born to Lose' , written under the pseudonym of Frankie Brown  ( a.o. recorded by The Everly Brothers). During World War II, both of Daffan's Columbia recordings of these songs, as well as 'Headin' Down the Wrong Highway' became  enormously popular - 'Born to Lose'  is now considered a standard. Daffan's instrumental, 'Blue Steel Blues' was a favourite among steel guitarists. The  Texans relocated to the West Coast during the war, becoming regulars at Venice Pier. After the war, Daffan returned to Texas and continued performing and  recording.

He wrote other honky tonk favourites including Faron Young's 1956 hit, 'I've Got Five Dollars and It's Saturday Night' and Hank Snow's 1957 hit, 'Tangled Mind'. For a time he and Snow run a publishing company in Nashville before Daffan returned  to Texas in 1961. One more major standard emerged from his pen: the ballad 'I'm a Fool to Care'. Daffan  ran his own song publishing operation for awhile and remains today an elder statesman of honky tonk's earliest days.