NEWS Tommy Overstreet (1937-2015) Tommy Overstreet, 78, died November 2 at home in Hillsboro, Oregon, of complications related to emphysema. His wife, Diane, said he suffered from heart and lung disease. Born in Oklahoma City and raised in Texas, he moved to Nashville to pursue a career in country music. His biggest hits were “Ann […]
By Bill Medley, with Mike Marino In 1963, Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield were singing together in southern California. They decided to record a few songs and they needed a name. “At that time, Orange County was about the whitest place in the country,” recalls Bill Medley in The Time Of My Life: A Righteous […]
FEATURED ARTIST – JAN HOWARD “If it sounds like fun, I’ll do it. If it doesn’t, I won’t.” That is the philosophy of Jan Howard, 83, who lives contentedly in her Nashville condo. “I’m thankful for every morning I wake up,” she told me when I called her the other day. “I’ve lost so many […]
NEWS Billy Joe Royal, 73, died in his sleep at his home in North Carolina on October 6. He had been planning to tour with Ronnie McDowell in November. He was born April 3, 1942, in Valdosta, Georgia. His debut single, “Down in the Boondocks,” was a pop hit in 1965. During the mid-1980s, he […]
FEATURED ARTIST – ED BRUCE “I’ve written a few hits,” Ed Bruce told me when I called him this past weekend. “That’s what I came to town to do–be a dedicated 24-hour-a-day musician/ songwriter.” His website lists some of those well-known songs, beginning with Charlie Louvin’s “See the Big Man Cry.” Ed was 23 at […]
This week we especially remember Marty Robbins, who would have been ninety years old this Saturday. He was born on a Saturday evening—9:55 on September 26, 1925, in the desert near Phoenix, Arizona. He only lived 57 years, but what memories he gave us. NEWS “I said all along I wasn’t going to tour […]
NEWS William Lee Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys married Simone Staley in Nashville on August 29, after re-kindling an old friendship. They first met In October 1980, and spent time together over the next several years, until losing touch after a show in 1982. A portrait she painted of him was one of the […]
FEATURED ARTIST – SYLVIA HUTTON Sylvia had eleven top-ten Billboard hits from 1980-1985, including “Snapshot” and the number one “Nobody.” I hadn’t heard anything about her in years, until Diane Jordan mentioned on Facebook they’d recently had lunch together. I asked Diane to put me in touch with Sylvia, and that led to an enjoyable […]
By Nina Ansary Jewels of Allah: The Untold Story of Women in Iran reveals “how a full-blown feminist movement developed and grew in the patriarchal climate of post-revolutionary Iran,” says author Nina Ansary. To illustrate the opposite lifestyles and beliefs portrayed in the book, she mentions her two grandmothers. One was a devout woman “who […]
NEWS Buddy Emmons (1937-2015) Buddy Gene Emmons, 78, was found July 21 at his home in Hermitage, Tennessee, near Nashville, where he had died of an apparent heart attack. Because all family members couldn’t be reached right away, the death wasn’t publicly reported until July 29. His career began when his father gave him a […]