NEWS Johnny Rodriguez (December 10, 1951 – May 9, 2025) One of my favorite singers, Johnny Rodriguez, 73, died May 9 after a few days in home hospice. His daughter Aubry, 27, announced his death. Juan Raoul Davis Rodriguez was born December 10, 1951, in Sabinal, Texas. At age 21, he moved to Nashville. According to MusicRow, “Discovered […]
NEWS Famed Hee Haw cast member Lulu Roman, 78, died unexpectedly April 22 in Bellingham, Washington. According to MusicRow, the Dallas, Texas, native was born with a thyroid condition and placed in an orphanage at birth. Before moving to Nashville, she worked in Jack Ruby’s Dallas nightclubs under the stage name “Lulu Roman, the World’s […]
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – DAVID ROBBINS (SON OF PIG ROBBINS) By the mid-1960s, Hargus “Pig” Robbins was a well-known session pianist, part of Nashville’s A-Team. He’d joined the musicians’ union in 1957, at age nineteen. For the first two years he sat by the phone, occasionally getting a call to work a session. Then came […]
BOOK REVIEW – SINGING IN THE SADDLE: THE HISTORY OF THE SINGING COWBOY Gene Autry. Roy Rogers. Tex Ritter. These are the three most famous singing cowboys from the western movies of the 1930s-1950s. But there were hundreds more. Most of them are documented in Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy, […]
NEWS The Grand Ole Opry is presenting Opry 100: A Live Celebration tonight. The three-hour special airs on NBC TV from 7-10 and will be hosted by Blake Shelton. Country Now reports the stages of the Opry House and the Ryman Auditorium will both be used. The show will honor legendary Opry moments by featuring […]
NEWS I was listening to Bill Anderson singing on the Opry last Saturday night when he announced that his fiddle player, Gail Johnson, had collapsed onstage. He said she had been taken backstage and was being attended by paramedics. He later provided an update in his fan club newsletter. She was taken to Vanderbilt University […]
Happy birthday to my sister, Lorraine “Kayo” Paver, known in our family as the “blizzard baby” who came home from the hospital to sleep in a dresser drawer. CONCERT REVIEW – CLINT BLACK A younger-generation version of Dolly Parton opened the sold-out show for Clint Black at the Washington Pavilion on Valentine’s Day in Sioux […]
NEWS Terry Smith, 80, of Nashville, Tennessee, died January 21, 2025. Born in Oklahoma in 1944 and reared in Texas, he earned a bachelor’s degree in education at North Texas State University. In 1972 he moved to Nashville to pursue a songwriting career and teach middle school English. He released thirteen albums of original material […]
BOOK REVIEW – IN-LAW COUNTRY Geoffrey Himes looked back at the history of modern country music to define a movement that took place between 1968 and 1985, beginning in Los Angeles and moving to Nashville. Its musicians wanted to change and update traditional country music through songwriting and performances that resonated with young baby boomers. […]
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – RONNIE MCDOWELL When Ronnie McDowell called me last week for our phone interview (thanks to Debbie Grisham for setting it up), we began the conversation by talking about our Navy days. We both graduated from high school in 1968. I headed off to college and he enlisted in the Navy to […]