Diane’s Country Music Newsletter — 16 April 2025
IN THE SPOTLIGHT – DAVID ROBBINS (SON OF PIG ROBBINS)
By the mid-1960s, Hargus “Pig” Robbins was a well-known session pianist, part of Nashville’s A-Team. He’d joined the musicians’ union in 1957, at age nineteen. For the first two years he sat by the phone, occasionally getting a call to work a session. Then came “White Lightning” with George Jones in 1959, and the calls increased significantly. The following year Floyd Cramer vacated his slot as number one session pianist when he went on the road to support his solo career. That opened the floodgates for Pig as the A-Team pianist.
To explain his nickname, he once told an interviewer, “I got ‘Pig’ at school. I had a supervisor who called me that because I used to sneak in through a fire escape and play when I wasn’t supposed to, and I’d get dirty as a pig.” He lost his sight in an accident with his father’s pocketknife in 1941, when he was three years old. He grazed his eye, resulting in an infection that spread to the other eye. From age seven, he attended the Tennessee School for the Blind and studied classical piano.
At work in Nashville one day, he called his answering service and heard the voice of Vicki West. Captivated by her voice and personality, he extended the conversation. Vicki had already heard of Pig. Carolyn Sells of Combine Music had tried to set them up for a date, and Vicki said no. But follow-on conversations with Pig must have captivated her, too, because they started dating and were married in 1967. Unable to have children, she and Pig decided to adopt. They were matched with a three-day-old baby in 1968, the son of a backup singer who’d had a brief romance with a guitar player and felt she couldn’t give a baby a proper home. Pig and Vicki named their son David Wayne Robbins.
I heard this story from David himself when I called him last week for an interview. “I was brought up in an ideal childhood,” he explains. “I had it made. I had everything I wanted or needed” The Robbins family lived in the affluent Nashville suburb of Brentwood, and David attended a private school. “Dad was working all the time when I was a kid, so I pretty much got raised by my mom,” he says. “I saw him on weekends and holidays. He did Dad things. We wrestled when I was a kid.” David was four when Pig pitched a ball for him to hit. “He threw it behind me, to the side, and hit me with it, but I never did hit one,” he recalls. “But I appreciate that he tried.” Pig and his driver sometimes took David to movies. He was almost seven when they attended the opening of Jaws, fifty years ago this summer.
When David got his driver’s license, he started spending more time with his dad, somewhat making up for lost time. After graduating from college in 1991, he drove Pig full-time for the next 20 years. Pig said the worst part about blindness was he couldn’t just get in a car and go. “He depended on me once I got of age to drive,” David says. “He liked to have a good time, tell a good joke. He liked to eat. I tell people he was as talented with a fork as he was at the piano.” They enjoyed eating at meat-and-three restaurants in Nashville. Pig’s favorite color was green. He could remember his dad having a green car. It was the only color he knew.
Pig had a phenomenal mind. “He could tell you who played on what session back in 1980, what studio, maybe a couple of the big songs,” David says. “If I forgot how to get to a certain studio, if I hadn’t been there in a while, Dad could tell me street by street—take a left on that second street, then watch on your right, there’s a red barn, go past that about a hundred yards—it was just uncanny.”
David remembers his dad’s one road tour. In 1985 Neil Young recorded a country album, Old Ways, and took country musicians with him on a tour that overlapped LiveAid and FarmAid. The six-or-seven-week tour covered about 25 cities. They stayed in nice hotels and ate good food, but traveling on the bus was too much for Pig. He was used to going to the studio and then home. Upon his return, he told David, “I thought I could party, until I got with that bunch.” He enjoyed the experience but preferred the studio environment.
Pig was adventurous and willing to try most anything. “One time he got on the lawnmower, and he mowed the whole yard, but it wasn’t rows—it was just hilarious,” David recalls. “He could put the Weedeater up against the fence and follow the feel of it all the way down the fence row.” There were stories about Pig firing a pistol and driving a boat. One famous story resulted when drummer Willie Ackerman asked, “Pig, you want to drive this car?” They drove up and down the alley after a recording session. Willie would say, “Put your brakes on. Get ready to turn. Okay, turn now.”
A friend was driving Pig one day, and they were listening to country music on the radio. The friend would ask, “Pig, you on this?” Yes. “Pig, you on this one?” Yes. For eight songs in a row, Pig was on piano. The ninth song was “Yesterday When I Was Young.” The friend said, “I know you weren’t on this.” Pig answered, “They didn’t have a piano part, but I played the triangle.”
Pig was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2012. A limo picked him up for the ride to the Hall of Fame, and “he didn’t understand,” David says about the limo. “He thought that was the silliest thing he’d ever heard of. He was just a humble guy.”
When David was 28 years old, it occurred to him one morning that he might have siblings. He wasn’t interested in finding his bio parents, but he did hope to find siblings. When he asked Vicki, she gave him the phone number of his bio mom, who lived in Nashville and had three children. His bio dad lived in Michigan and had two. David has since met four of the five and become friends with several of them.
In 2016, David quit his job at the Tennessee School for the Blind, where he had worked since 2012, to care for his mother. Vicki was experiencing worsening diabetes and dementia. David had promised her years earlier that he would never put her in a nursing home, and he fulfilled that promise. “They took such good care of me over the years,” he says. “And Dad was going downhill himself.” Vicki died in 2019 at age 89, after a 52-year marriage, and Pig died of heart and kidney disease in 2022 at age 84. Now, David enjoys listening to SiriusXM while traveling, with his dad appearing on 30-40 percent of the songs on Willie’s Roadhouse and Prime Country. “It makes me feel like he’s still with me a little bit,” he says.
David is currently talking with an author who wants to write a Pig Robbins biography. So we might find that book on the shelf in a few years.
NEWS
The GRAMMYs on the Hill® Awards kicked off three days of music advocacy on Capitol Hill in Washington DC–pairing the music industry with Congress to advocate for artists’ rights. Billboard reports the Tuesday evening ceremony on April 8 honored Randy Travis with the 2025 Creators Leadership Award for his tireless work in championing fair compensation and protections for artists in the digital age. In 2024, he testified on Capitol Hill in support of the American Music Fairness Act, which aims to ensure artists are fairly compensated when their songs air on AM/FM radio. His advocacy also focuses on the ethical use of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). Representatives Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) and Ron Estes (R-Kan.) were honored for their efforts to assist independent artists with the HITS Act (Help Independent Tracks Succeed), which allows tax relief for the cost of sound recordings. Performers during the 90-minute event included Paul Overstreet, who co-wrote “Forever and Ever, Amen” and urged the crowd of about 200 to sing along as he played guitar.
The following day at a press conference, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) reintroduced their Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (NO FAKES) Act designed, according to the Tennessean, to “protect the voice and visual likeness of creators from the proliferation of digital replicas created without their consent.” Randy Travis stood alongside his wife Mary as she read his statement that this bill was critical to ensure artists keep control of their own identities and careers. “In the past year, AI-enabled vocal production allowed me to release new music in my own voice for the first time in over 10 years,” Mary read. “These recordings . . . are very different from someone else stealing my voice and producing music. No one should be allowed to put words in someone else’s mouth or depict them doing something they never did. It is unconscionable that AI can take my voice and produce content without my consent or compensation.” Blackburn said the NO FAKES Act gives artists the ability to fight back if someone takes their image, likeness, or sound. It builds on Tennessee’s ELVIS Act and takes this protection to the federal level.
Three weeks before his 87th birthday, singer/songwriter Johnny Tillotson died on April 1. He is survived by his wife Nancy of 45 years. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1938, he began his music career in 1958. His first hit was “Poetry in Motion.” In 1962, he released his self-penned “It Keeps Right on A-Hurtin’,” which became a massive success and was covered by Elvis Presley, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, Wanda Jackson, and more than 100 other artists. Johnny sold tens of millions of pop and country records worldwide.
“NOW, THEREFORE I, Freddie O’Connell, tenth Mayor of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County do hereby proclaim April 7, 2025, as BOBBY BARE DAY in Nashville, Tennessee, and urge citizens to join me in celebrating his 90th birthday.” That’s the final paragraph of the mayor’s proclamation in honor of Bobby Bare, whose 90th birthday was celebrated at a sold-out event hosted by Bobby Bare Jr. The show, An American Salute to Bobby Bare, took place at Basement East and was a fundraiser for MusiCares®. Performers included Shawn Camp, Elizabeth Cook, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Jamey Johnson, Rodney Crowell, and Jim Lauderdale, among others. Bobby wasn’t there to see the entire room sing “Happy Birthday” as the final song.
A Change.org petition was launched in January to rename Nashville’s International Airport (BNA) to Dolly Parton International Airport. With more than 2,600 signatures by the end of January, it now has almost 50,000 signatures. “I think that’s probably more of a joke than anything,” Dolly initially told the Tennessean. BNA stands for Berry Field Nashville. The airport was originally named for U.S. Army Colonel Harry S. Berry, a World War I veteran who helped found the Nashville airport in 1937. It became Nashville International Airport in 1988.
A longtime songwriter for Major Bob Publishing, Larry Bastian died April 6 in Porterville, California at age 90, reports MusicRow. He was born and raised in the San Joaquin Valley and worked for 15 years as a biologist for the Department of Agriculture for Kern and Tulare Counties. In the 1970s, he decided on full-time songwriting, after having been encouraged to send his music to Nashville. “This Ain’t Tennessee and He Ain’t You,” recorded by Janie Fricke in 1980, gave him his first success. He co-wrote such Garth Brooks hits as “Unanswered Prayers,” “Rodeo,” and “The Old Man’s Back in Town.” His songs include Conway Twitty’s “Saturday Night Special,” Sammy Kershaw’s “Yard Sale,” and Craig Morgan’s “Look at Us.” Other artists who recorded his songs include Sammi Smith, George Jones, Reba McEntire, Willie Nelson, Vern Gosdin, Eddy Arnold, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, David Frizzell, Tammy Wynette, Tracy Byrd, Lacy J. Dalton, Moe Bandy, Rhett Akins, The Whites, Neal McCoy, Con Hunley and many others. Surprisingly, he isn’t in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Perhaps that’s because he spent his life in California.
Billboard reports the death of Lesly Simon on March 27, at age 52, following a long battle with breast cancer. She served as general manager of Garth Brooks’s Pearl Records and Trisha Yearwood’s Gwendolyn Records. She’d previously worked at Arista Nashville, overseeing publicity campaigns. Her team helped score more than 40 No. 1 singles for artists such as Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, Brooks & Dunn, and Alan Jackson. Simon graduated from the University of Alabama with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration. She served on the Board of Directors for Country Radio Broadcasters and was named to Billboard’s Country Power Players list in 2018.
Dolly Parton: Journey of a Seeker opens May 20 at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and runs through September 2026. According to MusicRow, “The exhibition will trace Parton’s extraordinary career across more than six decades, highlighting pivotal moments where she defied expectations, overcame setbacks and forged her own path to become a global icon.” Artifacts on display will include handwritten lyrics, stage wear, instruments, awards, photographs and rare interview footage. Formative stories from her life include her Opry debut at age 13, when she persuaded Jimmy C. Newman to give his performance slot to her, and her bold personal style, when early industry gatekeepers feared her appearance might overshadow her talent. Dolly is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has also received the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors.
The Patsy Cline Museum, located on the second floor of the Johnny Cash Museum on 3rd Avenue South in Nashville, will be permanently closed on May 15. WSMV 4 reports CEO Bill Miller as saying, “It has been our privilege and honor to be able to showcase the incredible legacy of the great Patsy Cline over the past eight years in the Patsy Cline Museum. It has been a pleasure to work with her family, and we are proud of what has been accomplished. The Johnny Cash Museum will expand into the present Patsy space, and we anticipate an opening in mid-summer 2025.”
The Tennessee Songwriters Association International recently presented Bill Anderson with its Lifetime Achievement Award during a ceremony at Harken Hall. Bobby Tomberlin sang a few of the hits Bill wrote over the past 70 years, and songwriter Danny Wells presented him with the award. “I have been trying to write songs for most of my adult life, so to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, especially from other songwriters, is a very special and humbling honor,” Bill said. “My sincere appreciation to the members of TSAI for recognizing me with such a meaningful award.” MusicRow reports, “Anderson is the rare songwriter whose first major label cut went to No. 1 on the charts, was named Song of The Year and sparked a writing career that is currently in its seventh decade.” That song was “City Lights.” Bill was voted country songwriter of the year six times during his first decade in Music City and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.
Imagine That: The Lost Recordings (1954-1963) is a limited-edition two-LP set of brand-new Patsy Cline recordings being released this week, with a two-CD set to follow next week. PEOPLE reports that the 48 tracks, all retrieved from live performances, feature 15 never-released songs, along with several classics. Cline discographer George Hewitt co-produced the project for the Elemental Music/Deep Digs label. Hewitt recalls being contacted several years ago by a man in the Washington DC area who’d found a 78-rpm record in his parents’ vinyl collection. Hewitt had never heard those song titles on any other Cline recording. He enlisted sound engineer Dylan Utz, producer Zev Feldman, and Patsy’s daughter, Julie Fudge, to help him find more songs. The sources for the album came from hobbyists who recorded original broadcasts as well as recordings stored in vaults, such as four new performances from the Grand Ole Opry archives. The original acetate 78 is believed to hold Patsy’s earliest recordings, demos likely made in September 1954. Patsy never released any duets, and the new album has nine, including one with Cowboy Copas, who died in the plane crash with 30-year-old Patsy in 1963.
A three-hour tribute was recently held at the Opry House to honor songwriter and guitar pioneer Duane Eddy. The Tennessean reports that host Jim Lauderdale introduced artists throughout the night who shared stories and played music written and performed by Eddy or inspired by him. Vince Gill flew in from Las Vegas during a night off from touring with The Eagles. He played a 1959 Fender Stratocaster guitar that originally belonged to Eddy. He said, “I am old enough to remember when great melodies and great instrumental music were hit records, and it was fantastic.” Peter Frampton, Molly Tuttle, Steve Earle, The Del McCoury Band, and the McCrary Sisters are some of those who performed and shared stories. One of America’s early guitar heroes who took 1950s rock ‘n roll and added a sound that became distinctly his own, he went on to become one of the most successful instrumentalists in history. Duane Eddy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2008. He died of cancer on April 30, 2024, at age 86
Carrie Underwood wrapped her three-plus year run of Reflection: The Las Vegas Residency at Resorts World Las Vegas on April 12. According to MusicRow, her 72 shows made her the first and longest-running resident headliner at Resorts World Theatre, as well as the longest-running Las Vegas residency of any solo female country music artist. She performed to over 300,000 fans in multiple sold-out runs. One dollar from each ticket sold was donated to Make-A-Wish America. On the final evening, she presented Make-A-Wish with a check for $236,844 on behalf of all the fans who attended the show over the past few years. Carrie has been involved with the organization as a WishMaker for nearly 20 years. April is World Wish Month and 2025 is the 45th anniversary of Make-A-Wish.
LETTERS
Jackie Thomas writes from Arizona, “Wow, thank you so much for this great newsletter. Singing in the Saddle sounds like a must-have book as Gene Autry was my first heartthrob. And was so lucky to have spent about 20 minutes with Dan Seals many years ago, Had my picture taken with him and what a nice guy he was. Gone too soon. Thanks again for the great read.”
Michael Green says, “Great as always, and looking forward to your next book–and I hope another book after that! Technically, Jerry Braswell wasn’t an Opry member, but he performed on there with members. That brings me to the Hall of Fame, and how it hasn’t recognized instrumentalists like Bashful Brother Oswald, and I wonder if it’s because he worked with Roy Acuff (just as Kenny Baker worked with Bill Monroe, and Chubby Wise with Mr. Monroe and Hank Snow). I’m sad that while June Carter Cash made important contributions, they haven’t honored the likes of Archie Campbell or the Wilburn Brothers, and I can make what I think is a strong case for George Hamilton IV, Jimmy C. Newman, and Jeannie Seely.”
Elliot Mclanahan writes, “Enjoyed the newsletter very much, as always. I agree with everything you said about the Country Music Hall of Fame; and I sure do wish they’d put Miss Seely in there. She deserves it.”
June Thompson says, “Such a wonderful newsletter. When I was a young’un on the farm with my daddy, carrying staples while he mended fence, or other chores, he taught me all kinds of cowboy songs. One I remember so well was ‘Lead me Gently Home Father.’ He also taught lots of J. Rogers old songs and those are precious memories for me. Thanks again for your wonderful letter.”
James Akenson in Nashville says, “Things have been busy. I always enjoy your newsletter. I particularly enjoyed reading your review of Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy.”
Roger Rounce writes, “Here in the U.K. we are mourning the loss of Mike Berry, singer and actor. I have known him for a very long time as a co-writer and valued friend. His hits were ‘Tribute to Buddy Holly’, ‘Don’t You Think It’s Time’ and ‘Sunshine of Your Smile’. As an actor, he is probably best known in America as Mr. Spooner in Are You Being Served. Such a loss. He died Friday 11th April 2025, aged 82. He was known early on in his career as the British Buddy Holly.”
Diane: My condolences to you, Roger. I did find an announcement of his death in the Independent, so I’ll add that: Singer Mike Berry, who was the last surviving star of the BBC sitcom Are You Being Served?, has died, aged 82. The British star, who starred in the much-loved series as Mr. Spooner from 1981 to 1985, died peacefully at his home on Friday, 11 April.Berry launched his career in the entertainment industry as a singer and had two hit singles in the Sixties: “Don’t You Think It’s Time” and “Tribute to Buddy Holly”. At the time, he was referred to as Britain’s answer to “Peggy Sue” singer Buddy Holly. The singer toured with both The Beatles and The Rolling Stones as he rose to fame and had another hit in the Eighties with “Sunshine of Your Smile”.
Doug Davis of Country Music Classics writes, “Howdy Folks; Well after a year of not sending a Country Music Classics newsletter – I’ve finally had to give in and give up…due to age and health problems. I will try to post a classic update on my Country Music Classics Facebook page at least once a week. To go to my Facebook page, type in ‘Doug Davis Country Music Classics’ and it takes you there. I haven’t started my updates yet but hope to do so in a week or so.”
Kate Davis writes from Oregon,“Thank you for yet another great newsletter. I do so appreciate them and appreciate your hard work in putting them together.”
Bobby Fischer in Nashville says, “This picture is a one-in-a-million music memory of mine. A long time ago I went to Hank Williams’s house on Franklin Road in Nashville. We tried on Hank’s jackets; I played the great Hank’s guitar. It gave me chills. Love to brag about that.”
Wendy Williams, WTSB radio host of The Cross, asks from Smithfield, North Carolina: “My faithful listener, Robin, who is excited each time your newsletter comes out, wanted me to contact you. His favorite artist of all time is Charley Pride. Was there an album that he was working on before he died? If so, what is the name of it, and will it ever be released? Thank you for taking my email on behalf of Robin.”
Diane: I don’t know the answer. At the time of his death, I wrote in my newsletter, “He was still recording new music.” But I haven’t found evidence of anything released after his 2017 album, Music in my Heart. That is a great album. Good songs, Charley sounded good, and having Billy Yates as producer is a recommendation in itself. Charley died from complications related to COVID-19 in Dallas, on December 12, 2020, at age 86.
MUSICIANS HALL OF FAME IN NASHVILLE – 2014 (first third)
The Musicians Hall of Fame museum had only been operating for three years when the city of Nashville took the building through eminent domain in 2009—demolishing it to construct The Music City Center on Demonbreun Street. The museum’s artifacts were stored in various buildings until 2013, when the museum reopened on the lower floor of the Nashville Municipal Auditorium. The 4th annualinduction ceremony washeld there in 2014. Here are the first four of the twelve inductees:
Rock and roll guitarist Randy Bachman is best known for his time with The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive. He is also a songwriter, session musician, and producer. His work has appeared in dozens of TV shows, movie soundtracks, and commercial spots. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1943, he won a singing contest at age three and was studying the violin by age five. He has earned over 110 gold and platinum awards around the world for performing and producing. He is 82 years old and has a website at https://www.randybachman.com.
North Carolina native Jimmy Capps started playing guitar for the Louvin Brothers when he was 19. He became known as one of country music’s finest guitarists, playing on such classics as “Stand By Your Man,” “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” and “The Gambler”. He started working at the Grand Ole Opry in the early 1960s and, at the time of his death, had played on that stage more times than anyone else in the Opry’s history. He was “The Sheriff” on RFD-TV’s Larry’s Country Diner and was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2016. Here’s my review of The Man In Back: Jimmy Capps, The Autobiography from 2019. Jimmy died of congestive heart failure in 2020, at age 81.
Peter Frampton is one of the most celebrated artists and guitarists in rock history. Born in 1950 in Beckenham, England, he taught himself to play the guitar at age 7. At 16, he was lead singer and guitarist for British band The Herd. At 18, he co-founded rock act Humble Pie, one of the first super groups. He is best known for his hit album Frampton Comes Alive!, which sold more than 10 million copies. He is the only artist who appears on two songs on Dolly Parton’s Rockstar album. In 2019, he was diagnosed with the inflammatory muscle disease Inclusion-Body Myositis. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last October and has a website at https://www.frampton.com. Peter, 74, is currently on his Let’s Do It Again tour, which began in Connecticut and will end in Las Vegas.
Buddy Guy, a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, was known for his showmanship on stage—playing his guitar with drumsticks or strolling into the audience while playing solos. Born George Guy in 1936 in Lettsworth, Louisiana, he grew up the son of sharecroppers. In the mid-1950s, he began performing with bands in Baton Rouge, before moving to Chicago in1957 and falling under the influence of Muddy Waters. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 by Eric Clapton and B.B. King. He was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. Last summer he headlined the Chicago Blues Festival as part of his Buddy Guy Damn Right Farewell Tour. He is 78 years old.