IN THE SPOTLIGHT – BRUCE WILLIAMS

While doing research for my Randy Travis biography, I called Bruce Williams (of Williams & Ree) to talk about their USO tours; he had emailed me his phone number. He and Terry were in Minot, North Dakota. “There you are, Diane, just calling me right out of the blue, like I knew you might,” he said as a hello. “We are sitting in the break room at the Norsk Høstfest.” They were giving five performances during the four-day event that had just started back up after its two-year pandemic hiatus.

Bruce Williams and Terry Ree met in 1968 at Black Hills State College in Spearfish, South Dakota, when a music professor suggested they perform together during freshman week festivities. (more…)

IN THE SPOTLIGHT – DON REID

Since the Statler Brothers retired in 2002, lead singer Don Reid has spent much of his time writing books. Last year he published The Music of The Statler Brothers: An Anthology. We talked about that book when I spotlighted him in my newsletter: https://dianediekman.com/dianes-country-music-newsletter-5-may-2021/. Now, he has published a novel, thanks to the encouragement of his sons, Langdon and Debo, who reminded him it had been ten years since his last novel and therefore time for another one. He told them he’d see what he could do, and the result was Piano Days.