CONCERT REVIEW — ALABAMA

My plans to attend the Alabama concert Saturday night at the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls took an unexpected turn at the last minute. I’d contacted Alabama’s merch manager, Terry Tyson, to ask if he was on the tour, and he responded with a backstage pass and a spot for my car in the bus parking lot. I first met Terry when Kayo and I went to Nashville in 2019, where we visited Alana and Hilda Young. Alana told us stop by the Ernest Tubb Record Shop to meet the manager, her dear friend Terry Tyson. We did. Terry later went to work for Richard’s & Southern, which has provided merchandise to Alabama for forty years. It began in 1959 as a company that delivered postcards in a station wagon to gas stations across the South. It has grown to design, manufacture, store, and sell t-shirts and souvenirs for dozens of entertainers, who only have to accept their share of the merch profits.

CONCERT REVIEW

I planned to see Brooks & Dunn when they came to the Sanford Premiere Center in Sioux Falls, but I didn’t expect to have such great seats or a meet & greet with Scotty McCreery. Thanks to Scott Stem of Triple 8 Management for making that happen. The meet & greet was well-organized, with each group going into the room to chat for a moment with Scotty and have their photo taken by tour manager Nathan Thomas, before exiting for the next group to enter. When my turn came, I told Scotty I’d interviewed him a year ago for my Randy Travis biography. He and Nathan asked about progress on my book, and Scotty said he missed seeing Randy by one night in Louisiana. He arrived at the Cajun Country Jam in Denham Springs the day after Randy’s induction into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. (more…)

BIOGRAPHY CONFERENCE IN NEW YORK CITY

I’ve been waiting since 2020 to travel to New York City for the Biographers International Organization conference. I’m a plank owner of BIO, which grew out of the Washington Biography Group in D.C. I attended those meetings while I lived in Maryland and was writing Live Fast, Love Hard and Twentieth Century Drifter. After signing a new book contract in 2019, I registered for the BIO conference, looking forward to reconnecting with the Washington writers and becoming known as “Randy Travis’s biographer.”

NEWS

The latest class of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has been announced. It includes Willie Nelson, 90, along with Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Kate Bush, George Michael, The Spinners, and Rage Against the Machine. The induction ceremony will be held in November at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. CMT News reports more than 1,000 artists, historians, and music industry professionals voted on this year’s candidates.

NEWS

Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot, 84, died May 1 at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, Canada. He first gained fame in the early 1960s when Ian and Sylvia Tyson recorded two of his songs, “Early Morning Rain” and “For Lovin’ Me.” His reputation soared when Marty Robbins recorded “Ribbon of Darkness.” He had his own hits, such as “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway,” “Rainy Day People,” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” (more…)

NEWS

Joe Vincent, the first steel player in the Nashville bands of both Marty Robbins and Faron Young, died at age 92 in Nashville on April 6. Joe Mack Vincent served in the US Army during the Korean War. Following his music career, he worked at and retired from Baptist Hospital. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Sylvia Webb Vincent, and his son, Joseph Michael Vincent. His funeral was held at Forest Lawn Funeral Home on April 11, followed by burial with military honors in the Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens.

NEWS

Ray Pillow (1937-2023)

Herbert Raymond “Ray” Pillow, 85, died March 26 in Nashville. The Lynchburg, Virginia, native was born July 4, 1937, and served in the U.S. Navy. He joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1966 and performed regularly until formally retiring in 2018. I remember listening to him on the Opry for many years. And I always enjoyed him and Jean Shepard singing “I’ll Take the Dog.” Ray started Sycamore Records and later worked in the Arts and Repertoire department of Capitol Records. He was a presence at the Nashville Palace and helped Randy Travis get started. Ray is survived by his wife of 66 years, Joanne Pillow, and two of his three children, Selena and Daryl Ray. His eldest son, Ronnie “Dale” Pillow, died February 27. A celebration of life will be announced at a later date.

NEWS

The owner of the 23,000-member Steel Guitar Forum, Bobby Lee, died March 7 at age 73. His daughter, Shoshanah Marohn, says he was at home in Petaluma, California. listening to the Beatles sing “All You Need Is Love.” He grew up in the hills of Western Pennsylvania, the eldest of six children in a musical family. In the fall of 1967, he hitchhiked to San Francisco. He started playing a lap steel somewhere around 1970. While working at the Mesa Boogie amp factory in Petaluma in the early 1980s, he started a quarterly newsletter for musicians, mailed by his wife and four daughters. He then got a job writing computer software, all the while playing regularly in bands. He had a vision of using the internet to connect everyone in the world who played steel guitar. The current iteration of the Steel Guitar Forum has been going since 1997.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT – GORDON MOTE

A month or so ago, I called David Ball to ask about his 1994 Warner Bros. showcase when he sang “Thinkin’ Problem.” During our conversation, he asked, “Do you know who Gordon Mote is? I think people would love to hear about him.” So I contacted Gordon, and the session piano player agreed to talk to me. “You are so sweet to want me to be a part of your newsletter,” he said. “Tell David I appreciate the shoutout. We haven’t worked together in quite a while, but he’s a great talent and a super-duper guy.”

Gordon was born and raised in Attalla, Alabama, a little town near Gadsden. He started playing the piano at age three. They were at his grandmother’s house in 1973 for Thanksgiving. The children all banged occasionally on her old upright piano, but this particular day Gordon sat down and played “Jesus Loves Me” with both hands. “It was a total miracle,” Gordon says. “There’s just no explaining it except that it was a God thing.” He’s been playing ever since.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT – JOHN ANDERSON

Patience can be a virtue when trying to schedule an interview. It took more than 16 months before the stars aligned and I got a call from John Anderson to talk about my Randy Travis biography. It’s quite a thrill to hear such a recognizable voice on the other end of the phone line.

John and Randy first met in the late 1970s, when John was singing with house bands because he couldn’t afford his own band. Randy was in one of those house bands. Fifteen years later, when John was honored with the Academy of Country Music’s Career Achievement Award, he was thrilled to have it presented by superstar Randy Travis. “That was a big, big night for me,” he says. “I felt very flattered and honored. That particular award was for inspiring the younger people to move into country music.”