FEATURED ARTIST – RONNY ROBBINS When I asked Ronny Robbins the other day if he still tours, he said he stopped in 1985 when daughter Courtney was born. “I knew what it felt like for Dad to be gone 200 days a year and I never wanted her to know what that felt like,” he […]
NEWS 2017 inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame are Jerry Reed as the veteran era artist, Don Schlitz as songwriter, and Alan Jackson in the modern era artist. Vince Gill announced the winners at a ceremony at the Hall on April 5, 2017. The National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress […]
NEWS After the long-running Flatt and Scruggs Grand Ole Opry Show ended in 1969, there seemed to be no surviving copies of the TV show. Twenty years later, an advertising executive discovered a box of 16-mm film in his garage. It contained 24 half-hour episodes of the show sponsored by Martha White Flour and starring […]
Today would have been Carl Smith’s 90th birthday. FEATURED ARTIST – TOM T. HALL I’ve been trying to contact Tom T. Hall for a while now for an interview. Bill Anderson told me, “I have not spoken with Tom T. in quite some time, but Peter Cooper has been working with him on a book […]
NEWS Shania Twain is releasing her first album in 15 years–and her first since being diagnosed with dysphonia. She spent years in voice therapy to overcome hoarseness and speech difficulties caused by the vocal-cord disorder. Her voice is still recognizable, but deeper than it used to be. “I’m a different singer now,” she told Rolling […]
FEATURED ARTIST – LARRY CORDLE Before calling Larry Cordle last week for an interview, I checked his website. His bio said he’d spent four years in the Navy. When I asked him what he’d done in the Navy, he said, “I was an aviation electrician in a squadron called VP-16.” I exclaimed. “I was in […]
NEWS At the Grand Ole Opry on January 21, Loretta Lynn inducted little sister Crystal Gayle as an Opry member, fifty years after Crystal made her Opry debut. At age 16, she had sung the Marty Robbins hit, “Ribbon of Darkness.” Loretta said, “It was the greatest moment of my life when they made me […]
FEATURED ARTIST – RONI STONEMAN Roni Stoneman is recovering from her October knee replacement surgery. All those years of carrying around a 30-pound banjo had damaged it. She was back on the stage for the first time on New Year’s Eve when she and sister Donna hosted the Ernest Tubb Midnite Jamboree. After three months […]
NEWS George Edwards (1937-2016) Sherie Edwards reports the death of her father, George Edwards, on December 29, in Hendersonville, Tennessee, following a brief illness and 16 years after a stroke. “He loved playing steel guitar almost as much as he loved his family,” she wrote on the Steel Guitar Forum, “and his steel guitar friends […]
NEWS Gordie Tapp (1922-2016) CBC-Radio Canada reports the death of Canadian radio and television entertainer and former CBC broadcaster Gordie Tapp, 94. The Hee Haw country bumpkin Cousin Clem died December 18 in hospital, surrounded by family and friends. Born in 1922 in London, Ontario, Gordie hosted the CBC variety show Country Hoedown for 13 […]