Lefty Frizzell

Influenced equally by Jimmie Rodgers and by the cowboy jazz of Texas-based western swing, Texan country legend Lefty Frizzell was among the first to apply jazzy vocal phrasing to the honky-tonk country template. Equally seminal as a songwriter, he turned out gems like "If You've Got the Money (I've Got the Time)" and "Look What Thoughts Will Do," which would become staples of the standard country repertoire. In the first half of the 1950s, he was a virtual hit machine. Though his star faded slightly in the subsequent decades, he continued performing and recording (often still hitting the charts) into the '70s. He passed away in 1975, but his enormous influence can be felt in everyone from Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard to Dwight Yoakam.