Harry Henry Choates

The Handbook of Texas says Choates was playing fiddle for tips in Port Arthur barbershops by about age twelve. He recorded "Jole Blon" in 1946 for Bill Quinn's Gold Star label in Houston, and reportedly sold the song for $100 and a bottle of whiskey. Moon Mullican had a bigger hit with it a year later. After Choates died in Austin on July 17, 1951, Beaumont disc jockey Gordon Baxter raised money for his burial in a Catholic cemetery in Port Arthur, and in 1979 and 1980 Baxter and Tim Knight of Groves raised money for the granite marker.

What the plaque says

Harry Henry Choates Noted musician Harry Henry Choates, whose career was shortened by an early death, was born in Louisiana in 1922. During the 1930s, he moved with his mother to Port Arthur, where as a child he began to develop and shape his gift of music. Known for playing the fiddle and singing in French and English, Choates also played the accordion, acoustic guitar and steel guitar. Choates helped raise Cajun music to national prominence during the 1940s. While also performing jazz, blues and country, he was best known for merging traditional Cajun music with Western swing. In 1946, He organized a band named the Melody Boys and recorded "Jole Blon," rewriting a traditional Cajun waltz, "Jolie Blone." "Jole Blon" became a regional favorite and received extensive airplay nationwide. It is still considered his enduring classic. Choates and the Melody Boys recorded dozens of other songs in the next several years and, partly due to Choates' famed, high-energy performances, became widely known. Unfortunately, difficulties in Choates' personal life sometimes overshadowed his musical talent. He often ignored musician contracts, which led to cancellation of bookings and ultimately the disbanding of the Melody Boys. He also battled alcoholism and was estranged from his wife, Helen, with whom he had two children. Choates moved to Austin by the early 1950s, and police there detained him after a Jefferson County judge found him in contempt of court. In 1951, he died in the Travis County Jail, under uncertain circumstances at the age of 28. Though his life was brief and sometimes tragic, he left a legacy of talent still celebrated today, influencing a new generation of musicians. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 2.8 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 12 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.
• Sabine Pass Battleground State Historic Site — 13 mi
  A waterfront park at the mouth of the Sabine where the earthwork of Fort Griffin stood, with a Dowling statue, a Union memorial, wartime magazines and a walkway for fishing.
• Sea Rim State Park — 16 mi
  Texas's far southeast corner: nearly two miles of Gulf shoreline backed by 4,000 acres of marsh, reached by boardwalk or paddle trail, rebuilt after Rita and Ike.

More markers nearby

• The Hughen School — 0.3 mi
• Janis Lyn Joplin — 0.8 mi
• Community Retirement Home — 1.6 mi
• Birthplace of Babe Didrikson Zaharias — 1.8 mi