“Dear Faron — When you’re good, you’re very very good. But when you’re bad, you’re the opposite!” These words of a speech teacher can be found in Faron Young’s 1951 high school yearbook. They accurately predicted the life of this future country music legend. From a teenager who cleaned fishing boats and sold manure […]
Willie Nelson was an unknown songwriter when he pitched Hello Walls to Faron Young, one of the hottest singers in country music. Faron recorded the song in 1961, and it stayed at number one on the Billboard country music charts for nine weeks. Faron later explained in a radio interview that artists get paid […]
Faron Young–the Singing Sheriff–recorded country songs and entertained for more than forty years. His hits included Goin’ Steady, Sweet Dreams, Hello Walls, Alone With You, It’s Four In the Morning, and Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young. The Country Deputies backed him from 1954 until his death in 1996. When Faron completed […]
[I wrote this for Newsweek’s “My Turn” column but didn’t get my turn.] Country music legend Faron Young died December 10, 1996, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. News reports said depression over health problems and a feeling that the music industry had passed him by contributed to his suicide. My friendship with Faron […]
Nashville songwriter Jerry Chesnut remembers well that pre-dawn morning in 1971 when he could not sleep. He picked up his guitar, looked at his watch, and said, “It’s four in the morning and a new day is dawning.” Then he started writing a song. The first two verses and chorus came easily, but he […]
I first met Faron Young on St. Patrick’s Day, 1970, at a concert in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He wouldn’t let me walk the three miles back to my college dorm after the late show, and he insisted on taking me there in his bus. Over the years, after graduating from college and […]
Front/Lead guitar Doyle Wilburn (deceased) Jimmy Fautheree (deceased)
Diane loved Little Joe Cartwright. It didn’t matter that he was a television character she saw every Sunday evening on Bonanza. “Hurry, Kayo. It’s almost a quarter to eight,” Diane said as she pulled on her hooded gray parka and zipped it. “I’m coming,” her younger sister replied. “It’s only half a mile […]
Live Fast, Love Hard: The Faron Young Story By Diane Diekman Published by the University of Illinois Press — Fall 2007 Who is Faron Young? Faron gained fame as a country singer in the 1950s, in the mold of his friend Hank Williams, and was eventually inducted into the Country Music Hall of […]