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 Began 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 spirituals. 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 desperate 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.

"The next day some friends and I were in Memphis celebrating my return to Skynyrd when the phone rang, Deborah Jo said. It was my mother. She was trying to tell me something, but was crying and couldn’t speak. She put my brother, Neal, on the phone and he told me about the crash."

The crash devastated Deborah Jo. She still has emotional scars but is overcoming with Jesus’ help. Six were killed: Two pilots; one assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick; lead singer, Ronnie Van Zant; female vocalist, Cassie Gaines and her brother, third guitarist, Steve Gaines.

"Twenty-two survived and some were critically injured," Deborah Jo said. "I was close to all members of the group killed, but especially, Ronnie, because he always liked me to ride with him in his limo so he could talk to me. Also, Cassie, because we had known each other for several years before Skynyrd, when we worked together in Memphis."

Within a year of the crash, Jo Jo had recovered sufficiently to regroup with Billy, Artimus and Leon on the "Contraband" album by Alias.

Afterwards, she went on to sing with "The Atlantic Rhythm Section," did a recording with Billy Joe Royal and performed live show concerts with ".38 Special." In 1980 she was attacked backstage by an acquaintance and quit singing. Shortly after, she met her husband, Timothy L. White, moved to Texas, and had her first child, a son named Justin, who was born in 1983.

In February of 1985 she came back to the Lord in a little Baptist church in Texas.
"I had drifted away from the Lord over a period of years," Deborah Jo said. "I shut the door to God after the death of my father. I even thought God was mad at me for a while due to my lack of knowledge of His Word. I then got mad at God when I should have gotten mad at the devil. All the time the Lord had loved, forgave and restored me and He is still working miracles in my life. I gave him my confusion and broken life. He gave me peace, joy, and a purpose and plan to live his life through me."

Also in 1985, Deborah Jo and her husband lost a daughter, Shannon Lacey, who was pre mature at birth and lived only twenty seven days.

"After this happened I wasn’t suppose to be able to have any more children, but I prayed and stood on the Word of God when the Lord blessed us with another girl, Destiny Faith, in August of 1991"

In 1987 Deborah Jo and her family moved to Cullman, Alabama, A friend, Marth Burchell, began encouraging her to sing. "Martha asked me to sing at her church," Deborah Jo said. "I didn’t have the proper equipment, music, etc., but she was persistent. Every time I would come up with a reason I couldn’t sing, she came up with an answer. The night I sang at her church was when I gave my talent back to the Lord and he immediately gave it back to me after He blessed it."

Deborah Jo released two cassette tapes after her rebirth into singing. The first tape is titled, In Jesus Name and the other tape is Double Portion. A gospel rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama" is included in Double Portion and is titled "Sweet Home Heaven."

Deborah Jo also appeared in the film "Freebird the Movie" released in 1995. It contained archive film footage of the group as they appeared in the 1970’s and also interviews with various band members. Along with all the survivors of the group, Deborah Jo viewed the film at the World Premiere, held at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia on December 29,1995.

"It was a volcano of emotions," Deborah Jo said. "There was extreme joy to be a part of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the film, but footage of the band leaving on their last flight was heartbreaking. It was a blessing to realize God loved me so very much and saved my life."

Deborah Jo’s dynamic music ministry is now well known to many churches throughout the South. Her message is both spiritual and inspirational as she unashamedly speaks of her total commitment to God.