NEWS Where to begin to summarize news reports of the Garth Brooks sexual assault scandal? CNN first broke the story by reporting that Garth’s former hair and makeup artist (“Jane Roe”) had filed a lawsuit with the California Supreme Court in Los Angeles County, accusing Garth of raping and sexually assaulting her in 2019. In […]
BOOK REVIEW – AMONG THE ASHES by DON REID Can you picture Don Reid of the Statler Brothers “sitting in a dark room alone, in front of a computer screen for hours and days at a time, creating people and making up stories”? That’s how he describes writing his latest novel, Among the Ashes. In […]
NEWS Tommy Cash (1940-2024): The little brother of Johnny Cash, Tommy Cash, 84, died September 13. The Johnny Cash Museum confirmed his death without giving a cause of death. Tommy was born in Dyess, Arkansas, in 1940. He served in the U.S. Army, where he worked as a DJ for the Armed Forces Radio Network. […]
NEWS Guitarist Pete Wade, 89, a member of Nashville’s A-Team and recognized by the Nashville Cats, died August 27, surrounded by friends and family. According to American Songwriter, no cause of death was reported, and funeral services will be private. Born in 1934 in Norfolk, Virginia, Herman “Pete” B. Wade moved to Nashville in 1954. […]
NEWS At a luncheon on August 15, The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (NaSHOF) announced its 2024 inductees: David Bellamy (Veteran Songwriter/Artist), Al Anderson and Liz Rose (Contemporary Songwriters), Dan Penn and Victoria Shaw (Veteran Songwriters), with Brad Paisley (Contemporary Songwriter/Artist) being inducted next year as a member of the 2025 class because a scheduling […]
CONCERT REVIEW—LONESTAR Lonestar gave a crowd-participation concert at the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls on July 25. Founding member Dean Sams is one of the best I’ve seen in talking to his audience. Of course, a smaller venue with people sitting below him in the orchestra pit makes possible a connection that can’t happen in […]
Speech at Sertoma Club by Diane Diekman, July 23, 2024 Good afternoon. Thank you, Ray [Brooks], for inviting me here today, and thanks to all of you for being interested in the Battleship South Dakota Memorial. I would like to introduce Karen Dunham, one of my fellow board members, who is with me today. She […]
NEWS Congratulations to Jeannie Seely, who was featured last week in PEOPLE, shortly after celebrating her 84th birthday. She has released a new single, a Dottie West song called “Suffertime.” Jeannie says, “I’m not retired; I just quit working. They’re two different things. I only do what I enjoy. If it sounds like too much […]
CONCERT REVIEW—NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND After nearly 60 years, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is on its farewell tour. Playing its “last traditionally scheduled gigs,” the band isn’t saying goodbye forever, only to multi-city runs and long bus rides. All the Good Times: The Farewell Tour lasts from March through July. It stopped at the […]
NEWS George Wayne Hobbs, 72, of New Carlisle, Ohio, died June 10, 2024, surrounded by loved ones at home, after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Born in 1951 in Virginia, he moved with his family to New Carlisle and later graduated from Tecumseh High School. His obituary says his two passions in his early years […]