NEWS
BookAuthority’s “81 Best Country Music Books of All Time” lists the 2019 Randy Travis memoir, Forever and Ever, Amen as its number one choice. Number four is 2016’s Whisperin’ Bill Anderson: An Unprecedented Life in Country Music. Imagine my surprise to find this title at number fourteen: Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins. It’s also number 8 of 46 on the ebook list. Read the rest of this entry »
NEWS
A second member of my favorite singing group, the Statler Brothers, is gone. Harold Reid, 80, died at home in Staunton, Virginia, on April 24, following a long battle with kidney failure. In 1964, the Statler Brothers (Harold, brother Don Reid, Lew DeWitt, and Phil Balsley) drove to Roanoke to see Johnny Cash in concert. Without having heard them perform, Johnny asked them to open an upcoming show. He then pushed for their record deal with Columbia Records. The first Statler Brothers hit, “Flowers on the Wall,” earned two Grammy Awards. Jimmy Fortune replaced Lou DeWitt in the early 1980s; DeWitt died in 1990. The Statler Brothers Show aired for seven seasons on The Nashville Network (TNN) in the 1990s. The Statler Brothers were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008. Read the rest of this entry »
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – BILL ANDERSON
When I checked in with Bill Anderson last week, he told me, “I’ve got a three-point thing I’ve been trying to do: Stay in, stay safe, and stay sane. I’m doing pretty good on the first two; I don’t know how I’m doing on the last one.”
Bill is working on his fourth book, following two autobiographies and his 1993 comedy book. This is a follow-up to “I Hope You’re Living as High on the Hog as the Pig You Turned Out To Be.” He is spending this pandemic at-home time putting stories together. Read the rest of this entry »
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – TERRY SMITH
The best $100 Terry Smith ever spent was for a 12-cassette course by Peter C. Knickles, called Doing Music and Nothing Else. He purchased it about the time he retired from teaching in 1996. The course “covered the music business from A to Z,” Terry told me during our telephone conversation on Monday. “I did not do everything he suggested, but one of the things he said–and I have followed this religiously–he said, if people buy your product, get their name and address, and when you get home, send them a thank you letter.” Read the rest of this entry »
NEWS
Kenny Rogers (1938-2020)
On March 20, Kenny Rogers, 81, died peacefully at home while in hospice care. He was surrounded by his family, Variety reports. Due to the national COVID-19 emergency, the family will hold a small private service now and a public memorial at a later date. Read the rest of this entry »
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – JEANNIE SEELY
“I’m so proud of this area of Nashville, that people are all pulling together to help each other,” Jeannie Seely told me when I called her last week. “The tornado has left such destruction here, and such heartache.” She knows of what she speaks. She lost all her possessions when the flood in May 2010 destroyed her home on the Cumberland River. “Coming ten years after the flood,” she says, “it brought back so many memories to a lot of us. This seemed to hit in a different area, that wasn’t affected by the flood. That would have been almost too much to take, I think.”
Read the rest of this entry »This week we think back 88 years, to February 25, 1932, the day a little boy was born in a two-bedroom rental home in Shreveport, Louisiana. Five-year-old Dorothy Young stood in the front yard and yelled at those passing by, “We got a new baby brother!” Faron Young remains in our hearts and in our musical selections today.
Read the rest of this entry »NEWS
The last original member of the Kingston Trio has died. Bob Shane of Phoenix, Arizona, died of complications from pneumonia on January 26, a few days before his 86th birthday. He, Dave Guard, and Nick Reynolds formed the Kingston Trio in the 1950s and won a Grammy for Country & Western Performance for “Tom Dooley” during the first Grammy awards ceremony. USA Today reports that Shane accepted the Grammy lifetime achievement award for the Kingston Trio in 2011; Guard had died in 1991 and Reynolds in 2008. Shane retired in 2004 but performed occasionally until 2016.
Read the rest of this entry »NEWS
Bakersfield.com reports the death of 67-year-old Mark Yeary, a California native who spent 19 years as pianist and occasional record producer for Merle Haggard and the Strangers. He died January 17 after suffering a heart attack at his home in Arizona City, Arizona. “He played music Thursday night,” his longtime girlfriend said in a phone call. “He seemed chipper and happy.” In 1992, he had decided it was time to leave the Strangers. He moved to Branson, Missouri, and then to Arizona. A stroke in 2008 limited the use of his right hand.
Read the rest of this entry »IN THE SPOTLIGHT – MO PITNEY
When Mo Pitney returned my call last Monday night, he said, “I just left the studio. We put the final vocal on our record. So we’re a little closer to having it put out.” He remembered seeing me at his Sisseton, South Dakota, concert in November. And he appeared in an earlier newsletter: Read the rest of this entry »