Saturday night wrestling had returned to Peterborough, Ontario, and another enthusiastic audience had gathered for a night of body slams and suplexes. Run by promoter Dave Wyldstar, the Oshawa based GCW Westling always brings out a crowd with many fans traveling throughout Ontario to see the freshest talent to enter the ring. But, while I’ll admit that I do enjoy attending the matches, the wrestling wasn’t what got me to go from my home in Ottawa to visit my hometown of Peterborough that night. I was there to see GCW’s special guest of the evening, legendary wrestling manager Jimmy “The Mouth of the South” Hart, and get him to sign some records.
A fixture in the wrestling industry since the late 1970’s, Jimmy Hart will probably always be best known as a fan favorite for his big personality and bigger mouth, where he spent the greater part of his life escorting some of the most legendary heels to the wrestling ring during the early days of the WWE when it was still known as the WWF. With his feathered mullet and signature megaphone grasped tightly into his hands, he cackled orders to guys like Bret “The Hit Man” Hart, Greg Valentine, Brutus Beefcake, King Kong Bundy and The Honky Tonk Man. Weasley, aggressive and high energy, he was a guy that fans loved to hate, and hated to love. But although it seemed to go overlooked by many wrestling fans, Jimmy Hart originated from the world of rock n’ roll, which is why he’d often wear blazers with music notes silk screened on them. Currently affiliated with the WWE under their “Legends” trademark, Jimmy, now at 80 year old, continues to make appearances across North America at autograph shows, fan conventions and wrestling matches where he talks to fans about his career in wrestling. But, of course, I’m didn’t come to talk about wrestling. I’m here to talk to Jimmy about his first love, music.
“So tell me,” I said to Jimmy, “Are you a music guy, or a wrestling guy?”
“I’m probably a bit of both,” Jimmy said. “Wrestling has been very good to me, but my first love will always be music,” he continued, as he shuffled through the albums I had handed him.
“Oh wow, you don’t see this very often” Jimmy Hart said, running his hand over my copy of his rare 1986 solo album “Outrageous Conduct.” “These things are really hard to find.”
“Yeah, I know and I was pretty lucky to get it,” I replied. “I picked it up at a collectables shop for about $25 and bought it because I thought it was pretty cool. But when I got it home and saw how much its selling for on Discogs I was pretty surprised.”
So there is this thing in the world of wrestling known as “The Rock n’ Wrestling Connection,” which signified a significant moment in wrestling when the WWF joined forces with MTV via Cindy Lauper and her manager/boyfriend Dave Wolff, which had a big part in bringing wrestling into the mainstream in the 1980’s. A moment when the world of wrestling and music was colliding, it was a memorable period in wrestling history which has often been discussed in books, documentaries and podcasts. But while it was primarily a gimmick made successful by star power and corporate deal making, Jimmy Hart had been living a real life Rock n’ Wrestling Connection long before 1984.
As a member of the 1960’s group The Gentrys, Jimmy Hart’s first taste of fame when the group hit a massive hit with the classic party song “Keep on Dancing.” But despite national exposure on multiple television programs, and touring the US with Dick Clark, The Gentrys never had another hit and broke up in 1966. But Jimmy wasn’t done with music yet, and reformed The Gentrys in 1970 with limited success. However, by the early 1970s Jimmy had hit a rut and his version of the Gentrys had gone from performing in concert halls to playing a regular gig at the Memphis Ramada Inn Lounge and Bar. But while his rock n’ roll dreams may have seemed to have passed him by, things were about to get really interesting for Jimmy, who was about to fall into a strange new journey, and there was going to be a lot of opportunity for new music to be made. (For more on this, read our Vinyl Story “The Gentrys – Keep On Dancing (1965).”)
Well known and liked amongst the musical circles in Memphis, Jimmy Hart made himself available as a studio performer for other artists records, which wasn’t a way to get fame, but it was a way to pay the bills. So this was wjy Jimmy got a call from a record producer friend of his named Jim Blake in 1974 which would go on to change the trajectory of his entire life.
Blake was recruiting local musicians for an unusual project which he had brainstormed and wanted Jimmy to sing back up vocals on it. A fan of the local wrestling scene, Blake had gotten to know Memphis Wrestling’s biggest star, Jerry “The King” Lawler, and had talked him into cutting a record. Despite Lawler being reluctant of the idea, he hesitantly agreed to do it and entrusted Blake in organizing the session. Always available for work, Hart agreed to be a part of the project.
Well, little did Hart know, his local ties with Lawler went further back than this musical endeavor. Jerry Lawler had also been a student at Treadwell High School which was where The Gentrys had been formed out of. A few years behind Jimmy and the other members of the band. Lawler was a freshman when The Gentrys hit with “Keep On Dancing” and was a fan of the group who regularly attended their home coming gigs. Lawler recognized Jimmy from his time in The Gentrys and the two quickly struck up a friendship based on mutual connections during the production of the single.
Although it was an unorthodox idea for a wrestler to release a record, it wasn’t the first time it had happened, and Jerry Lawler was enough of a sensation in the world of wrestling to make the project lucrative. The single, a country number called “Bad News,” sold far more copies than anybody would have imagined, especially by being was promoted on Memphis Wrestling broadcasts, as well as being sold at wrestling events. But despite its failure to even be a regional hit, Blake considered it enough of a successa successful to talk Lawler into recording an entire album. Lawler, more confident of the idea now, was ready for more, but he wanted Jimmy Hart back on the project with him.
But just prior to Lawler going into the studio to record the album, he would suffer a personal loss when his manager, Sam Bass, was killed in a car crash. Looking for a new personality to replace Bass, Lawler thought that maybe Jimmy Hart would have the right presence for the wrestling industry. He was looking for someone that was high energy, colorful and had the gift of the gab. With Jimmy continuing to flounder in the music industry, maybe the change in industry would be the pivot that Jimmy needed. Lawler put the idea past Jimmy, and he decided to give it a try. I mean, it couldn’t be any worse than playing at the Ramada Inn.
In 1977 “Jerry Lawler Sings,” was pressed and ready to go, and in a storyline to cross promote it, Lawler announced that he was leaving wrestling to go across America to perform as a singer. As a part of his farewell, he organized a free concert that was to be held at the Mid-South Coliseum following its weekly wrestling show where he’d perform all of his “hits” with special guests Jimmy Hart and the Gentrys and The McCarver Sisters. To a packed house, Lawler and Jimmy took the stage and the pair did a few numbers, but halfway through the show they were ambushed by wrestling heel “Handsome” Jimmy Valient who knocked over a block of speakers and busted a guitar over Lawler’s head. Well, the feud was on and now Lawler was abandoning his musical aspirations to defend his honor against Valiant with Jimmy Hart by his side as his new manager. This was how Jimmy Hart transitioned from the world of music to the world of wrestling and to a new kind of fame.
Although still a musician at heart, Jimmy would craft a colorful personality and become a fan favorite, especially after “turning heel” himself when he broke with Lawler and vowed to destroy him. For the next few years, Jimmy put together a powerful faction of wrestler who he called The First Family. Pitting them one after the other against Lawler, The First Family would include many wrestlers who would go on to be massive stars in the business including “Ravishing” Rick Rude, Randy “Macho Man” Savage, Koko B. Ware, “Leaping” Lanny Poffo, King Kong Bundy, The Iron Sheik, The Junkyard Dog, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart and, in some of his earliest matches, Hulk Hogan.
Jimmy even played an important part in the historic ring career of comedian Andy Kaufman, who put together a surreal act which gained mainstream national attention where he’d challenge female spectators at wrestling matches to fight him. Jimmy Hart acted as his manager during these weird and often controversial performances. This led to one of the most famous moments in late night television when Jerry Lawler smacked the crap out of Kaufman during a live taping of “Late Night with David Letterman.” Although planned in advance by Kaufman, Lawler and Jimmy, the trio left the “Late Night” producers out of the loop, Letterman and the audience were stunned stupid when Lawler hit Kaufman so hard that the sound of contact rang through the studio, leaving Kaufman sprawled out on the floor screaming that he was calling his lawyers as Lawler stomped off the stage.
After a few years of focusing on wrestling, the urge to make music was calling Jimmy, and he thought that perhaps this time he could use wrestling as a way to launch himself back into rock n’ roll. Although it seems to have gone unnoticed and rarely talked about, Jimmy Hart released a new wave inspired single called “We Hate School” in 1982 on Firetone Records under the name Jimmy Hart and the First Family Grainy footage of Hart singing the song with members of his faction, including Koko B. Ware and the Iran Assassin, who are obviously not playing guitars, exists on YouTube. The single went nowhere, but it didn’t stop Jimmy from writing and recording another new wave composition titled “Lance Russell’s Nose” which got its own slickly produced video that aired on Memphis Wrestling broadcasts (Lance Russell was a former wrestler, and Memphis Wrestling broadcast announcer who Jimmy Hart liked to torment on screen). Although these recordings were not a success, what is interesting to note is that Jimmy attempt to fuse music and wrestling happened a full year before Captain Lou appeared in Cindy Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to have Fun” video, and two years before the WWF’s cross promotion with MTV. Jimmy Hart had the idea for The Rock n’ Wrestling Connection first, but what he was probably missing was mainstream star power and corporate juggernauts to make the idea a reality.
But while his early idea may not have taken off, Jimmy would prove to be an important part of the WWF’s Rock n’ Wrestling just as it hit its most lucrative peak. Recommended to Vince McMahon by pal Hillbilly Jim, Jimmy Hart, now being called “The Mouth of the South” joined the federation in 1985 and quickly moved his way as one of the most popular and memorable on-screen characters. With his big personality, Jimmy Hart fit right into the cartoonish and often goofy on screen antics and everything that the WWF was representing within sports entertainment at that time.
So when Dave Wolff put forward the idea to do an entire album with tracks being sung by WWF performers, Jimmy Hart was the obvious first choice for the project. Jimmy not only felt comfortable as a singer, but he could even compose and perform his own material which was not something any of the other members of the WWF roster could do. One of the best selling and most beloved novelty albums of the 1980’s, “The Wrestling Album” was released in November 1985, and Jimmy Hart contributed one of the best produced and most singable number of the record, “Eat Your Heart Out Rick Springfield.” A fun and colorful rock number slaming the popularity and sex appeal of the rock n’ roll hunk from Australia, who was not only making hits on MTV but also played Dr. Noah Drake on daytime soap “General hospital” from 1981 to 1983, Jimmy was able to seamlessly bring his colorful WWF character to the recording studio. Although none of the tracks on “The Wrestling Album” became hits, “Eat Your Heart Out Rick Springfield,” for the exception of Rick Derringer’s “Real American,” was easily the most listenable and remained to be a fan favorite.
“Did you ever get any feedback from Rick Springfield about the song?” I asked Jimmy Hart when I met him in Peterborough.
“Oh yeah, baby,” he replied to me. “He loved it. He thought it was hilarious.” Sounds legit. I’ve read Rick Springfield’s autobiography and he seems like a pretty easy going guy.
Also noteable on the album was that Jimmy got five “solos” on the album’s first track “Land of 1000 Dances” in which a roster of WWF wrestlers perform the classic Otis Redding song with precarious results. Jimmy, who got more lines than any of the others performers who particpated (probably because he could hold a tune better than the rest” can be heard singing “You gotta know how to twist,” “Come on everybody, lets sing together,” “Come on Bobby, tell them what to do,” “Aw, come and sing along with Jimmy now, c’mon” and “I’m going to steal your little girlfriend.” To put this in perspective, Michael Jackson didn’t even get that much solo time in “We Are the World.”
The experience of recording “Eat Your Heart Out Rick Springfield” must have proved to be a fulfilling experience, because Jimmy Hart stayed in the studio and continued recording more tracks in his wrestling persona, which would become his first solo album, “Outrageous Condust.” Initially getting a small pressing in 1985 with cover art created by Jerry Lawler, who initially attempted to be a professional cartoonist prior to being a wrestler, the album included rerecorded versions of “Eat Your Heart Out Rick Springfield,” “We Hate School” and “Lance Russell’s Nose,” now renamed “Barbra Streisand’s Nose” to appeal to a broader audience who wouldn’t understand an inside wrestling joke. But after the success of “The Wrestling Album,” Epic Records picked up the rights to “Outrageous Conduct” and released it in 1986 in conjunction with the WWF, containing a new photo cover of Jimmy wearing his classic white jacket with the black music notes and brandishing his megaphone as he climbed into a wrestling ring. However, while the album proved to be a fun bit of curiosity, Jimmy Hart proved to be far too niche of a public figure to be recognized beyond the world of wrestling. The result was that the album flopped in retail record shop, and was primarily sold at wrestling shows. Still today, as Jimmy said to me when I handed him my copy, it remains to be a rare album to find with a high price tag for collectors.
But possibly also contributing to the low sales was that the Rock n’ Wrestling Connection had started to fade, especially when Cindi Lauper grew tired of the cross promotion and felt she stayed to long and left wrestling behind. But this didn’t stop the WWF attempts to release a follow up album anyhow. “Piledriver” was released in 1987 but did not have nearly the same success as the first Wrestling album. But despite its failure,, the album proved to be a launching pad for Jimmy Hart to find a new successful career behind the wrestling scenes. For “Piledriver” Jimmy began writing original songs which would be used as entrance music for other wrestlers, including “Honky Tonk Man” for the wrestler of the same name which he managed, “Girls in Cars” for the tag team Strike Force,”, and a new original song which he performed called “Crank it Up.”
Over the next number of years Jimmy Hart continued to compose entrance music for the WWF, including music for Jimmy Snuka, The Nasty Boys, The Rockers, Dusty Rhodes, Brutus Beefcake, Kane and The Legion of Doom. He’d continue this career path when he defected to the WCW in 1994 which had him writing entrance music for the nWo, 3 Count and Hulk Hogan.
But possibly his most popular entrance song would be the one he wrote for fan favorite Shawn Michaels titled “Sexy Boy.” Performed by Michaels himself (an original version was performed by female wrestler Sherri Martel, but disposed of when she left the organization shortly after), it is currently the most streamed song from the world of wrestling on both iTunes and Spotify and, the one that Jimmy told me that he was the most proud of. “Shawn was a much better singer than any of us ever imagined he’d be” Jimmy told me.
In 2005 Jimmy Hart was inducted into the Wrestling Hall of Fame, and in 2024 he was inducted, alongside the Gentrys, into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. So is Jimmy a wrestling guy, or a music guy? The true answer is both. Although his music career has been spotty, and his success often underplayed and gone unrecognized, no performer in the world of wrestling has had more success with music than Jimmy Hart. The result is an interesting life where he has planted his feet into two very different industries, which, as he said to me, have been very good to him.
