NEWS The principal of Bakersfield High School recently presented Merle Haggard with his high school diploma–an honorary one. In 2013, Cal State University Bakersfield gave Merle an honorary doctorate, and Buck Owens was posthumously honored with the President’s Medal.
By Ann Dunwoody, with Tomago Collins A Higher Standard: Leadership Strategies From America’s First Female Four-Star General is the story of General Ann Dunwoody, United States Army (retired). As a retired U.S. Navy captain myself, I found her impressive and someone I would enjoy knowing. We were both commissioned in 1975, and she summarizes our experiences […]
NEWS Randy Travis is married! He wed Mary Davis in Denton, Texas, on March 21, 2015, with the Rev. Tommy Nelson of Denton Bible Church officiating. The Cooke County Marriage Licenses Office issued the license last month to Randy B. Travis, 55, Tioga, and Mary D. Beougher, 55, Tioga. A surprise attendee at the 50th […]
FEATURED ARTIST – THE QUEBE SISTERS BAND I first saw The Quebe Sisters Band (kway-bee) at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., the summer of 2008. I’ve been a fan ever since. I called Hulda Quebe Stipp the other day and said I wanted my readers to know who they are. Hulda told me […]
NEWS Jerry Brightman (1953-2015) One of Buck Owens’s Buckaroos, Gerald “Jerry” Warner Brightman, 61, died at his home in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, on March 9. At age 14 he joined the Wheeling Jamboree staff band in Wheeling, West Virginia. After Buck Owens asked him to play steel guitar on some recording sessions, he became a […]
FEATURED ARTIST – BILL ANDERSON “We’re still iced in down here,” Bill Anderson told me on the phone last week. He said Nashville had received snow on top of the layer of ice already on the ground, and it was “supposed to go down to single digits tonight.” I told him the temperature here had […]
As the biographer of Faron Young (whose birthday we remember today) and Marty Robbins, I bring you these newsletters to connect classic country music fans around the world. Feel free to forward this message to your friends, and tell them to email me if they want to be added to the list. I welcome your […]
By Laura Ingalls Wilder, with Pamela Smith Hill, editor Laura Ingalls Wilder told an audience in 1937: “I realized I had seen and lived it all—the successive phases of the frontier, first the frontiersman, then the pioneer, then the farmers and the towns. Then I understood that in my own life I represented a whole […]
NEWS Larry Fullam (1941-2015) Larry Fullam (former bass player and vocalist with George Jones, Bill Anderson, Connie Smith, Tex Ritter, Johnny Duncan, Tommy Cash & Charlie Louvin) died January 30, from pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed in September. He and Diane Jordan (former singer and Columbia Records artist who appeared frequently on The Ralph Emery […]
By Michael Jarrett Producing Country: The Inside Story of the Great Recordings examines how the process of recording country music has changed since Ralph Peer began capturing performances on acetate in 1927. “Musicians make music. Producers make recordings,” explains author Michael Jarrett, an English professor at Penn State University. He interviewed 51 record producers for […]