NEWS

Johnny Bush (1935-2020)

Texas Country Music Hall of Famer Johnny Bush, 85, died of pneumonia on October 16 in San Antonio, Texas. The Houston Chronicle reports, “John Bush Shinn III’s story began in northeast Houston in Kashmere Gardens in a house with no electricity or running water on a street paved with oyster shells. He remembers wandering the streets at night as a kid hearing the R&B sounds coming from the Bronze Peacock nightclub, sounds that would course through his young mind along with the Western swing favored by his family. Both would play a formidable part in the music he’d make years later.” He received his big break when Willie Nelson got him a job as drummer in Ray Price’s band, the Cherokee Cowboys. He had his biggest Billboard single (#7) with the Marty Robbins song, “You Gave Me a Mountain.” At the time he was reaching for stardom with his own song, “Whiskey River” (which became Willie Nelson’s signature number), he was hit with a neurological disorder, adductor spasmodic dysphonia, that took almost three decades to diagnose and recover from.

NEWS

Mac Davis (1942-2020)

Mac Davis, 78, died September 29, the day after his family tweeted that he was “critically ill following heart surgery in Nashville.” Born in Lubbock, Texas, in 1942, he belonged to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the National Songwriters Hall of Fame. My favorites of his hits were “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me,” “It’s Hard to Be Humble,” and “Texas in My Rearview Mirror.” When I lived in Los Angeles at the turn of the century, I always listened to his Sunday afternoon radio show. I enjoyed the portion where he’d make up songs from topics listeners sent him. (more…)