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Jimmy "Mad Man" Wages was a Rock 'n Roll and Country musician born in 1931 in Tupelo, Lee County, Mississippi. He passed away on March 22, 1999, in his hometown at the age of 68. Wages was known for his wild unreleased tapes from Sun Records, where he recorded five sessions in 1956, producing eight to ten songs that were never published. Despite efforts to release tracks like "Mad Man" and "Miss Pearl," doubts from his producer Jack Clement led to their shelving. Wages worked with notable studio musicians, including Jerry Lee Lewis and Charlie Rich, but often lacked his own band. His songs, exclusively self-written, featured ambiguous lyrics that straddled conservative and modern youth themes, making them unsuitable for the charts. In addition to his work with Sun Records, Wages recorded for TomBigBee Records and Cavalcade International Records. There are rumors of unreleased tapes at Hi Records from a session in 1960 alongside Ray Harris, but none have surfaced. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he gained success performing in Europe while living with his mother in Tupelo on a modest income. Wages is remembered as "The King of the Unissued" and "Mad Man," with his known material from Sun dating back to 1956.

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