Deborah Jo White was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the youngest of seven children. Her parents, Doc and Hazel Billingsley, soon moved to Senatobia, Mississippi from Harmontown, Mississippi, where Deborah Jo was raised. She started singing at the age of three. Much of her inspiration and singing style developed from listening to workers (employed on her father’s cattle farm) as they sang. The workers had their own church and Deborah Jo would sit on the back church steps and listen to them sing.
She began singing in the choir of the First Baptist Church of Senatobia and was a soloist by the age of twelve. Several people influenced her while she was growing up, including her mother who always sang while working around the home, but none more than two teachers she had while attending Senatobia City schools.
"I was in the Glee Club and Mrs. Otho Monroe would pick me out to sing at assemblies," Deborah Jo said. "She instilled self – confidence in the Glee Club members and strongly supported us. After she transferred to another school, Mrs. Kathryn Gabbert took over the Glee Club. She offered us the same assistance to Mrs. Monroe and I continued to sing in school until I graduated. The encouragement those teachers gave me is something I remember even today."
Her father died when she was seventeen years old. Not only did she lose someone she dearly loved, he had also been the family provider. Deborah Jo had never worked a day in her life and suddenly found herself needing a job.
She began singing in a local band out of high school and in late 1972 joined up with "Oil Can Harry". Deborah Jo got her first taste of life on the road when the band traveled to fifteen countries in eleven weeks. She had been with the group for sixteen months when she spoke with a friend, Bob O’Neil.

He was doing lights for "Lynyrd Skynyrd" and told her the band was planning to hire some female singers. Shortly after, she got a call from Kevin Elson, the group’s sound engineer. He said the band would be performing in Nashville and asked her to attend. She accepted the invitation and sat with Bob and Kevin at the sound board during the show. Deborah Jo was told the group wanted to meet her after their performance.
"After the show, members of the band began leaving," Deborah Jo said. "I wondered if anyone would be left to meet. Bob, Kevin, and I went back stage. Kevin went through some doors and then came back out. He led me through the same doors and that is where I met Skynyrd headman, Ronnie Van Zant, and Peter Rudge, who was the Skynyrd’s manager as well as that of "The Who." Ronnie was sitting in a chair, bare feet propped up, and wearing a black Stetson with a rattlesnake band around it. He pushed the hat up and said, "She’ll do just fine." He then asked me if I would like to go on the road and sing with the band."
She joined the group that night. Leslie Hawkins had already been secured as a band member when Deborah Jo was hired. The group still needed one more female singer and Deborah Jo suggested her friend, Cassie Gaines. She was hired and two weeks later they were performing in London, England. The pace with Lynyrd Skynyrd would be hectic.
"There were two hundred bookings (or more) a year out of three hundred sixty-five days." Deborah Jo recalls. "We rehearsed during open dates with very few days off. We hit major cities around the world during the three and one-half years I was with the band. We flew in during the morning and flew out at night."
She last sang with Skynyrd in Las Vegas during August of 1977.
"I had been told the group was going back to all male members," Deborah Jo said. "I was tired of the road anyway and went home to Mississippi. Later, I heard Leslie and Cassie were back with the group. Two nights before the crash Ronnie called me at my mother’s home. He wanted me to fly to Greenville, South Carolina and rejoin the band. Their schedule called for them to do a show in Greenville then Baton Rouge and then Little Rock. Since I was within driving distance of Little Rock I told him I would join them there."
That night Deborah Jo had a horrible dream. "I didn’t know it at the time, but the Holy Spirit was warning me," she said. "The night Ronnie called, I had a dream their plane was gonna crash. I made desparate phone calls to all the names on the list in Greenville, but couldn’t reach anyone. Finally, Allen Collins, a guitarist for the group, returned my call. He said, "There are messages all over town from you." I told him about my dream and begged them not to fly on the plane. He told me he had seen fire coming out from one of the engines earlier. I told him that only reaffirmed my fears. He was to talk to the other members and call me back. Later, he did call and told me the band had voted to fly commercial after that flight and that would be their last time on that plane. Well, it was. 

Jo Jo Left the music industry 1980, became a "born again christian". Now is an evangelist in Alabama, as Deborah Jo Billingsley White, Timothy White being her husband. They have 2 children.

 Site Creator Bruce Wall with JoJo just prior to taking stage together