Donald Edmond Rollins, of Vidor, died Saturday February 8. He was 63. Rollins served as band director in Humble, Little Cypress, Hemphill, Vidor and Woodville, Texas.
In 2003 Rollins, along with Jim “Moose” Brown wrote “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” for Jimmy Buffet and Alan Jackson, the song would eventually go on to spend eight weeks at Number 1 on the Billboard charts and win a Grammy for Best County Song 2003.
Rollins was a 1983 graduate of Lamar University in Beaumont and he went on to have careers as a song writer, and as a studio musician playing saxophone. He played in bands for Joe Williams, Bob Crosby, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Martha and The Vandellas, Little Anthony and The Imperials, Bobby Vinton Lawrence Welk, and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus as well as a band director. He is survived by a daughter, Ashley Rollins of Vidor. Memorials may be made to Music Cares and Hospice.