NEW RELEASE OF TWENTIETH CENTURY DRIFTER: THE LIFE OF MARTY ROBBINS The University of Illinois Press is issuing the paperback version of Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins in August. Any suggestions as to what I should do to publicize the release? FEATURED ARTIST – SAMMY KERSHAW I Won’t Back Down is the […]
NEWS Johnny Gimble (1926-2015) One of the greatest fiddlers of all time, Johnny Gimble, died May 9, three weeks before his 89th birthday, due to complications from several strokes. John Paul Gimble spent most of his life in Texas, other than the Nashville period and World War II, when he was drafted into the U.S. […]
NEWS The principal of Bakersfield High School recently presented Merle Haggard with his high school diploma–an honorary one. In 2013, Cal State University Bakersfield gave Merle an honorary doctorate, and Buck Owens was posthumously honored with the President’s Medal.
NEWS Randy Travis is married! He wed Mary Davis in Denton, Texas, on March 21, 2015, with the Rev. Tommy Nelson of Denton Bible Church officiating. The Cooke County Marriage Licenses Office issued the license last month to Randy B. Travis, 55, Tioga, and Mary D. Beougher, 55, Tioga. A surprise attendee at the 50th […]
FEATURED ARTIST – THE QUEBE SISTERS BAND I first saw The Quebe Sisters Band (kway-bee) at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., the summer of 2008. I’ve been a fan ever since. I called Hulda Quebe Stipp the other day and said I wanted my readers to know who they are. Hulda told me […]
NEWS Jerry Brightman (1953-2015) One of Buck Owens’s Buckaroos, Gerald “Jerry” Warner Brightman, 61, died at his home in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, on March 9. At age 14 he joined the Wheeling Jamboree staff band in Wheeling, West Virginia. After Buck Owens asked him to play steel guitar on some recording sessions, he became a […]
FEATURED ARTIST – BILL ANDERSON “We’re still iced in down here,” Bill Anderson told me on the phone last week. He said Nashville had received snow on top of the layer of ice already on the ground, and it was “supposed to go down to single digits tonight.” I told him the temperature here had […]
As the biographer of Faron Young (whose birthday we remember today) and Marty Robbins, I bring you these newsletters to connect classic country music fans around the world. Feel free to forward this message to your friends, and tell them to email me if they want to be added to the list. I welcome your […]
NEWS Larry Fullam (1941-2015) Larry Fullam (former bass player and vocalist with George Jones, Bill Anderson, Connie Smith, Tex Ritter, Johnny Duncan, Tommy Cash & Charlie Louvin) died January 30, from pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed in September. He and Diane Jordan (former singer and Columbia Records artist who appeared frequently on The Ralph Emery […]
FEATURED ARTIST – TOMMY CASH Tommy Cash is celebrating fifty years as a recording and touring artist. His first single, released in January 1965, was “If the World Don’t End, I Guess I’ll Live.” He worked over 225 dates a year with his band, the Tomcats, for 25 years, much of it traveling in the […]