Dorsey Murdock Dixon (October 14, 1897, Darlington, South Carolina – April 18, 1968, Plant City, Florida) was an American old-time and country music songwriter and musician.
Dixon's best known songs were "Wreck on the Highway", which resulted in a copyright dispute with country musician Roy Acuff, and "Babies in the Mill", which was about the Southern textile industry's exploitation of child labor in the early 20th century.
[1] During World War I, Dixon and his brother Howard were employed by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in Darlington as signalmen, but lost their jobs in 1919 along with thousands of mill workers.
[1] Interest in the duo grew in 1934 when they started performing regularly on J. W. Fincher's Crazy Water Crystals Saturday Night Jamboree on WBT, a radio station in Charlotte, North Carolina.
[1][2] In 1936 an RCA Victor field crew started recording the Dixon Brothers in Charlotte, and over the next few years a total of 61 songs were released.
[1] In the early 1960s folkloristics Archie Green and Eugene Earle visited Dixon and helped him record a 19-track album, Babies in the Mill.
[10][11] The title track was a new composition by Dixon that was about the Southern textile industry's "shameful abuse and exploitation" of child labor in the early 20th century.
He relocated to Plant City, Florida, to live with his son, the Reverend Dorsey Dixon, Jr., where he remained until his death of heart failure at the age 70 on April 18, 1968.