FARON YOUNG BIRTHDAY In two days we celebrate Faron Young’s 79th birthday–and we wish Faron could be here to celebrate with us. He was born in a tiny rental house in Shreveport, Louisiana, on February 25, 1932. MARTY ROBBINS AT THE 1975 DAYTONA 500 On February 16, 1975, Marty ran the Daytona 500. “I wanted […]
By Gregory L. Vistica Secretary of the Navy John Lehman largely orchestrated the Reagan military buildup of the 1980s. To obtain funding for a massive force of aircraft carriers and new strategic homeports, designed to counter a perceived Soviet threat, Lehman suppressed intelligence reports and studies that described a defensive, submarine-based Soviet navy. So says […]
By Christopher Corbett Polly Bemis became a nationwide news sensation when she arrived in the town of Grangeville, Idaho, in 1923, coming out of the mountains for the first time in fifty years. The 70-year-old Chinese woman, who had never heard of trains or automobiles or electricity, wanted dental work and eyeglasses. About emigrating from […]
MARTY ROBBINS AND FARON YOUNG ON THE OPRY Today’s date is normally reported as when Marty Robbins joined the Grand Ole Opry. Since January 19, 1953, was a Monday, it may be the day he signed a contract. His first performance was Saturday, the 24th. At that time, Faron Young, already an Opry member, was […]
By Oscar Andrew Hammerstein The Hammersteins: A Musical Theatre Family, by Oscar Andrew Hammerstein, commemorates the author’s grandfather and great-great grandfather, the first two Oscar Hammersteins. Oscar I turned the future Times Square into the theater capital of the world. Oscar II gave us some of our best-known musicals, from Showboat to Oklahoma! to The […]
MARTY ROBBINS HEART ATTACK Marty Robbins wrapped up the year of 1980 with a three-performance New Year’s Eve show in Evansville, Indiana. After returning home to Nashville, he experienced chest pains. “I thought it was just an extra bad case of indigestion,” he said later, “because I’ve had a heart attack, and it was nothing […]
WE LOST MARTY ROBBINS AND FARON YOUNG IN DECEMBER This evening 28 years ago (also a Wednesday) Marty Robbins died, a week after being hospitalized during his final heart attack. I’d known from news reports that he was in serious condition, but his death still came as a complete shock. He’d survived heart attacks and […]
MILITARY VETERANS, MARTY ROBBINS AND FARON YOUNG Seaman Second Class Martin David Robinson stayed on Bougainville after the November 1943 Allied invasion of the Solomon Islands. He advanced to U.S. Navy seaman 1st class, celebrated his 19th birthday, and was still on the island in November 1944. Ten years later, he had become Marty Robbins […]
By Eileen Sisk “This biography paints an unprecedented portrait of not only country’s biggest star of the ’60s, but perhaps its biggest son of a bitch.” So says the jacket cover of Buck Owens: The Biography. Following 19 number one songs on Billboard’s charts, Buck Owens spent 17 years as co-host of syndicated television show […]
REMEMBERING MARTY ROBBINS SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS AGOThis week in 1943, Seaman Second Class Martin David Robinson was on the attack transport USS Crescent City (APA 21), part of the task force preparing to hit Bougainville Island in the Solomon chain. Assigned as ramp operator on the four-man crew of a fifty-foot LCM (landing craft, mechanized), Martin […]