NEWS The newest member of the Country Music Hall of Fame is RANDY TRAVIS. The Country Music Association hosted a press conference March 29 to present the 2016 inductees for the Country Music Hall of Fame. Brenda Lee introduced the three inductees–Fred Foster in the non-performer division, Charlie Daniels in the veterans’ era artist category, […]
FEATURED ARTIST – BECKY HOBBS I’ve been a fan of Becky Hobbs since hearing her songs on the radio while I lived in Oklahoma City in the late ’70s. We’re the same age, and I identified with her music. I’ve played All Keyed Up many, many times since the album came out in 1988. I […]
NEWS Sonny James 1928-2016 Sonny James, 87, died February 22 in hospice in Nashville, Tennessee. James Hugh “Sonny Boy” Loden, born May 1, 1928, in Hackleburg, Alabama, received his first mandolin at age three. His father made it from a molasses bucket. He also learned to play guitar and fiddle, and became a teenaged fiddle […]
FEATURED ARTIST – JOE STAMPLEY Joe Stampley is recovering from unplanned heart bypass surgery. He had just returned from a tour and was carrying a fifty-pound sack of corn out to feed the deer on December 21, when his chest started hurting enough to make him drop the bag off his shoulder. It was a […]
NEWS Mel Tillis, 83, underwent emergency colon surgery at Nashville’s Centennial Medical Center on January 8. The Tennessean reported on January 15 that reports indicating Mel was in frail health were overstated. After several weeks of recovery, he plans to be back in action. The surgery prevented him from joining the scheduled Country Music Cruise […]
FEATURED ARTIST – RED STEAGALL When I called Red Steagall at his Fort Worth, Texas, office the other day, he told me he’d first visited Sioux Falls at age twelve. Although he grew up in a “little bitty town in Texas,” he spent the five most important summers of his life on his uncle’s farm […]
NEWS A five-time national country music disc jockey of the year is retiring. Billy Parker, 78, made his radio debut in 1959 and has been on KVOO Radio in Tulsa continuously since 1971. The last taping of Billy Parker’s Country Junction took place on December 22. The playlist for his farewell show, which aired twice […]
FEATURED ARTIST – JOHNNY WESTERN “For the first time in 64 years, I have no schedule–and I’m loving it.” That’s what Johnny Western told me when I called him last week at his home in Mesa, Arizona. The little boy who lived in a CCC camp in the Minnesota north woods and dreamed of being […]
REMEMBERING FARON AND MARTY It’s been 19 years since Faron Young left this life on December 10, 1996, and 33 years since a heart attack took Marty Robbins on December 8, 1982. We remember them both fondly and never tire of listening to their music.
NEWS Tommy Overstreet (1937-2015) Tommy Overstreet, 78, died November 2 at home in Hillsboro, Oregon, of complications related to emphysema. His wife, Diane, said he suffered from heart and lung disease. Born in Oklahoma City and raised in Texas, he moved to Nashville to pursue a career in country music. His biggest hits were “Ann […]