CONCERT REVIEW – DWIGHT YOAKAM Saturday night brought my first opportunity to see Dwight Yoakam in concert. He came to the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls for a sold-out show in a wonderful venue. I enjoyed the intermission more than the opening act. The recorded music gave promise of a show that respected classic country. […]
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – GARRY ROBBLE Willful Shadows: The Account of SONNY JAMES and the Southern Gentlemen is the title of a book being released May 1. Gary Robble, who cowrote the book with Barb Day, told me about it in a recent phone conversation. “Our book on Sonny is not about all the artists […]
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – GEORGETTE JONESLife changed for Georgette Jones in 2009, as the result of two men she met on a trip to Ireland. The daughter of Tammy Wynette and George Jones had been a registered nurse in Alabama for seventeen years. “I loved my job,” she told me when we talked on the […]
By Debra Gwartney Debra Gwartney’s memoir, I Am A Stranger Here Myself, opens with her driving away from her hometown of Salmon, Idaho, at age 55, after the funeral of her last remaining grandparent. She writes, “For reasons I have yet to decipher, I can’t seem to make peace with the place I’ve loved best […]
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 […]