Yusuf Hazziez (born Joseph Arrington Jr.; August 8, 1935 – August 13, 1982), known professionally as Joe Tex, was an American singer and musician who gained success in the 1960s and 1970s with his brand of Southern soul, which mixed the styles of funk, country, gospel, and rhythm and blues.
His career started after he was signed to King Records in 1955 following four wins at the Apollo Theater. Between 1955 and 1964, he struggled to find hits, and by the time he finally recorded his first hit, “Hold What You’ve Got” in 1964, he had recorded 30 previous singles that were deemed failures on the charts. He went on to have four million-selling hits, “Hold What You’ve Got” (1965), “Skinny Legs and All” (1967),[4] “I Gotcha” (1972), and “Ain’t Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)” (1977). Joe Tex was nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame six times, most recently in 2017.
A convert to Islam in 1966, he changed his name to Yusuf Hazziez, and toured as a spiritual lecturer. He had two daughters, Eartha Doucet and Leslie Arrington, and four sons, Joseph Arrington III, Ramadan Hazziez, Jwaade Hazziez, and Joseph Hazziez.
Though he lived most of his life free of drugs and alcohol, according to his longtime producer Buddy Killen, Tex suffered from addiction during the last four years of his life. In his final performances as part of the Soul Clan he appeared gaunt and unwell, and Killen claimed that Tex had “lost his will to live”.
In early August, 1982, Tex was found at the bottom of a swimming pool at his home in Navasota, after which he was revived in hospital and sent home. Just a few days later, on August 13, 1982, five days after his 47th birthday, he died at Grimes Memorial Hospital in Navasota, following a heart attack.
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