This week we especially remember Faron Young, born in Shreveport, Louisiana, on February 25, 1932. He would be turning 87 on Monday. IN THE SPOTLIGHT – HILDA YOUNG AND ALANA YOUNGWhen I tried to catch up with Hilda Young and daughter Alana for a telephone conversation, it took several attempts to find the busy pair […]
With Scot England Jimmy Capps has been a Grand Ole Opry guitarist since the early 1960s. “When I was a little boy, I would lie in my bed and dream about being on the Grand Ole Opry,” he says on the opening page of The Man In Back: Jimmy Capps, The Autobiography. “There was no […]
NEWS Harold Bradley (1926-2019) Harold Bradley, 93, died peacefully in his sleep on January 31 in Nashville. The Tennessean reports he grew up in Nashville and played the banjo as his first instrument. He and his older brother, Owen Bradley, opened Bradley Film and Recording on Sixteenth Avenue South in 1955. Columbia Records purchased the […]
With Scot England Moe Bandy has been one of my favorite entertainers since his music first hit radio airwaves in the early 1970s. A genuine Texas cowboy, he sang songs that made me want to dance. So I was excited to receive a copy of Moe Bandy, Lucky Me. I looked forward to connecting his […]
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – DALLAS WAYNE When I called Dallas Wayne the other day and asked what is his current highest priority, the 62-year-old Willie’s Roadhouse deejay immediately responded, “I’ve got to lose fifty pounds by Sunday because we’re going on the Outlaw Country Cruise, and I want to make sure I look good in […]
NEWS The leader of country-rock band The Tractors has died. Steve Ripley, 69, died January 3 at his home in Pawnee, Oklahoma. He had been suffering from cancer, according to a statement from Alison Auerbach Public Relations. Born January 1, 1950, he grew up on his family’s Oklahoma Land Run homestead in Pawnee County. He […]
By Jesse Jarnow Wasn’t That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America is the story of a singing group that brought folk music to the pop charts in spite of having its own career derailed by the Red Scare following World War II. In his thoroughly researched book, […]
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – TONY BOOTH Tony Booth initially planned to be a school teacher. He was majoring in education at the University of New Mexico when a friend invited him to join a band. Realizing music was his calling, he dropped out of school. “I started playing when I was 18 or 19 years […]
Today we remember Faron Young and Marty Robbins on the anniversaries of their deaths. Marty died December 8, 1982, at age 57. Faron died December 10, 1996, at age 64. Both gone too soon. Both never forgotten. IN THE SPOTLIGHT – NORMA JEAN About the time I started watching The Porter Wagoner Show in the […]
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – JUSTIN TREVINO Justin Trevino doesn’t remember his first public performance. He was three years old, sitting in a grocery cart while his mother did her shopping, when he belted out, “First time I shot her, I shot her in the side, hard to watch her suffer, but with the second shot […]