Texas Country Music Hall of Famer Johnny Bush, 85, died of pneumonia on October 16 in San Antonio, Texas. The Houston Chronicle reports, “John Bush Shinn III’s story began in northeast Houston in Kashmere Gardens in a house with no electricity or running water on a street paved with oyster shells. He remembers wandering the streets at night as a kid hearing the R&B sounds coming from the Bronze Peacock nightclub, sounds that would course through his young mind along with the Western swing favored by his family. Both would play a formidable part in the music he’d make years later.” He received his big break when Willie Nelson got him a job as drummer in Ray Price’s band, the Cherokee Cowboys. He had his biggest Billboard single (#7) with the Marty Robbins song, “You Gave Me a Mountain.” At the time he was reaching for stardom with his own song, “Whiskey River” (which became Willie Nelson’s signature number), he was hit with a neurological disorder, adductor spasmodic dysphonia, that took almost three decades to diagnose and recover from.
Mac Davis, 78, died September 29, the day after his family tweeted that he was “critically ill following heart surgery in Nashville.” Born in Lubbock, Texas, in 1942, he belonged to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the National Songwriters Hall of Fame. My favorites of his hits were “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me,” “It’s Hard to Be Humble,” and “Texas in My Rearview Mirror.” When I lived in Los Angeles at the turn of the century, I always listened to his Sunday afternoon radio show. I enjoyed the portion where he’d make up songs from topics listeners sent him. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Newsletter | Comments Off on Diane’s Country Music Newsletter — 7 October 2020
The Country Daily reports on country music reactions to the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, on September 18. Dolly Parton tweeted, “She was small in stature but even the tallest looked up to her. Her voice was soft but her message rang loud and clear and will echo forever. Thank you, RBG. Rest In Peace. Respectfully, Dolly Parton.” Travis Tritt tweeted, “I’m so saddened over what has happened to open political discourse. Supreme court justices Scalia and Ginsburg disagreed on almost all political decisions and yet, they had a very close personal friendship. God, how I long for those days again.”
William “Bill” Pursell, Grammy-nominated composer and studio musician, died September 3 in Nashville at the age of 94. The Los Angeles Times obituary reports his death came after a “very fast, tough battle with COVID pneumonia,” according to his daughter, Laura Pursell. He had been in the hospital for a week. The California native, born in 1926, served in the military during World War II as an arranger for the U.S. Air Force Band. He moved to Nashville in 1960 at the invitation of Eddy Arnold. For two decades, he worked as a session pianist, recording with Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan, among many others. He became a composition professor at the Belmont University School of Music in 1980, retiring after 37 years. His students included Trisha Yearwood and Brad Paisley.
At the South Dakota State Fair in Huron, on September 3, Sherwin Linton invited me to talk about my books and my Navy career. Here is my speech. (Thanks to John Mogen for the photo.)
As the biographer of Faron Young and Marty Robbins, I bring these newsletters to classic country music fans around the world. Send me your comments and ideas. Please forward this message and tell your friends to email me if they want to be added to the list. Randy Travis is the subject of my third University of Illinois Press biography. I’d appreciate any information you might have that would help me in researching his life.
NEWS
The 2020 selections for the Country Music Hall of Fame have been announced. Dean Dillon will be inducted in the “Songwriter” category, Marty Stuart in the “Modern Era Artist” category, and Hank Williams Jr. as the “Veterans Era Artist.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Newsletter, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Diane’s Country Music Newsletter — 26 August 2020
At age 90, Leroy Van Dyke is not slowing down. Except for the COVID-19 pandemic, that is. He’s anxious to get back on the road. During our phone conversation Monday evening, I commented that he sounded as young as ever. “Well, my voice has not left,” he said. “It hasn’t changed any. When you get that old man sound in the voice, you’re done. I think a part of it is, I’ve been an auctioneer all these years, and it made my voice stronger than just singing songs.” He did acknowledge, “I don’t hear as well as I did when I was thirty years old. Some of the parts wear out.”
When Dallas Wayne, 64, announced he had moved from Austin, Texas, to Bristol, Tennessee, I decided it was time for an update from the Willie’s Roadhouse (SiriusXM) deejay. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Newsletter, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Diane’s Country Music Newsletter — 29 July 2020
When Jeff Chandler woke up in the middle of the night, unable to breathe and with the feeling of an elephant sitting on his chest, his wife immediately called 9-1-1. By daybreak, he had four stents in his heart and was in the recovery room. Carole’s phone call saved his life, Jeff told me during our telephone conversation last week. His heart attack occurred early on a Friday morning, and he spend the holiday weekend in the hospital, returning home on Memorial Day. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Newsletter | Comments Off on Diane’s Country Music Newsletter — 15 July 2020
It’s been fifty years since Ray Benson dropped out of college at age 18 to form a band. When we connected last week for a phone conversation, and I asked him to summarize the early days, he told me, “I was in college and realized I was not going to continue, so I got two friends of mine who had the same idea.” They worked as caretakers at an old apple and peach orchard outside of Paw Paw, West Virginia, in exchange for a place to live, while putting their band together. They lived in a 125-year-old log cabin that had been a stage stop in the 1800s. After several years of playing in little bars and honky tonks in West Virginia, they moved Asleep at the Wheel to California, where they got a record deal and then moved to Texas. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Newsletter | Comments Off on Diane’s Country Music Newsletter — 1 July 2020
