NEWS Veronica Loretta “Roni” Stoneman, 85, member of the famous Stoneman Family and banjo player and comedian on Hee Haw, died February 22. No cause of death or funeral information was announced. Born in 1938, Roni was the 12th of Hattie and Ernest “Pop” Stoneman’s 13 children. After Pop Stoneman’s death in 1968, his children […]
On these cold, dark winter mornings, do you long for daylight to arrive? Think what it would be like if daylight saving time (DST) were in effect all year long. The sun wouldn’t be up until nine a.m. Our children would be heading to school in darkness. And we’d be commuting in the dark, navigating […]
NEWS The former Ernest Tubb Record Shop on Nashville’s Lower Broadway will become a bar and live music venue, reports Nashville Scene. To recap: David McCormick bought the record shop business and three-story building from ET’s family in 1992 for $128,000. He sold it for $4.75 million in 2020 to JesseLee Jones of the Brazilbilly […]
NEWS Toby Keith (1961-2024) Toby Keith, 62, died the evening of February 5, peacefully and surrounded by family. He had been battling stomach cancer for almost two years. He was born in Clinton, Oklahoma on July 8, 1961. MusicRow reports he got his first guitar when he was eight, and he formed the Easy Money […]
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – WILSON FAIRCHILD When Langdon Reid called me a week ago for our scheduled interview, his first question was, did we have any snow. I said we had a foot of snow, and the temperature was below zero. He told me they’d had an unexpected snowstorm in Staunton, Virginia, the previous night, […]
NEWS Vintage Guitar Magazine reports that rockabilly guitar great Larry Collins, 79, died January 5 at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Santa Clarita, California. He was 10 and his sister Lorrie was 12 when they joined the cast of Los Angeles television’s Town Hall Party as the Collins Kids in 1954. The Collins family had […]
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – TONY JACKSON One of the performers at A Heroes & Friends Tribute to Randy Travis – 1 Night, 1 Place, 1 Time in Huntsville, Alabama, was Tony Jackson. He agreed when I asked to spotlight him in my newsletter, and I called him several weeks ago for a conversation. His latest […]
This month, we especially honor the memories of Faron Young and Marty Robbins. Marty died December 8, 1982, at age 57. Faron died December 10, 1996, at age 64. IN THE SPOTLIGHT – THE TENNESSEE FOUR When Johnny Cash recorded “Hey Porter” in 1955 with Luther Perkins on guitar and Marshall Grant on upright bass, […]
By CAPT Diane Diekman, USN (ret), at Deuel School, Clear Lake, South Dakota, November 9, 2023 Good morning. It’s always great to be back in my hometown. Thanks to Superintendent Schiernbeck for inviting me here today. I would like to talk about what is possibly the most amazing document ever written, the United States Constitution. […]
NEWS Fifty-year music industry executive and former CRB/CRS Executive Director Bill Mayne, 72, died November 28 after a long-term illness, reports MusicRow. I called him a year ago to ask if he would speak with me for Randy Travis’s biography; he told me his health was too poor for him to do interviews. He began […]