AM 1070 The Ranch Classic Country

Home The Ranch Hands News and Stories Dugg's Corner of the World Country Music & Western Heroes Western Swing News The Ranch Online Tradin' Post Map E-Mail Country Music & Western Heroes In depth stories you won't find any place else. - Dugg Collins-Editor Boxcar Willie - King Of The Hobo's AKA Lecil Travis Martin Born Sep 1, 1931 in Sterret, TX Died Apr 12, 1999 Boxcar Willie is perhaps the most successful invented character in the history of country music. With his kitschy persona and stage act highlighted by his amazingly accurate impersonation of a train whistle Willie played into the stereotype of the loveable, good-natured hobo that spent his life riding the rails and singing songs. Since his popularity had more to do with his image than his music, it makes sense that he was massively successful in England, where he personified Americana. Willie's English success carried him over to American success in the early '80s, where he ironically was perceived as carrying the torch for traditional country, because he kept the stereotypes alive. Born Lecil Travis Martin, Boxcar Willie never worked on the railroads his father did. However, Willie loved the railroads and kept running away to ride the trains when he was a child. He also loved country music, particularly the songs of Jimmie Rodgers, Roy Acuff, and Ernest Tubb. As a teenager, Boxcar Willie would perform under his given name, eventually becoming a regular on the Big D Jamboree in Dallas, Texas. In his early 20s, he served in the Air Force. After he left the service, he continued to sing in clubs and radio shows. In the late '50s, he began performing as Marty Martin, while working blue collar jobs during the day. Marty Martin released an album, Marty Martin Sings Country Music and Stuff like That, around 1958, but it was ignored. In the mid-'60s, Martin wrote a song called "Boxcar Willie," based on a hobo he saw on a train. Martin continued to struggle in his musical career until the mid-'70s. By that time, he had become a DJ in Corpus Christi, TX. In 1975, he decided to risk everything he had on one final chance at stardom. He moved to Nashville and developed the Boxcar Willie character, using his song as the foundation. Initially, Boxcar Willie wasn't very successful, but he had a lucky break in 1976 when he was called in to replace a sick George Jones at a Nashville club. During that performance, he was spotted by Drew Taylor, a Scottish booking agent. Taylor brought Boxcar Willie over to England for a tour, where he was enthusiastically received. Later that year, he released his first album which was a moderate success in the U.K. Through the rest of the '70s, Willie toured Britain and every tour was more successful, culminating in a performance at the International Country Music Festival at Wembley in 1979. After his Wembley show was finished, he received a standing ovation the performance established Boxcar Willie as a star. His next album, King of the Road, became a humongous success in England, reaching number five on the album charts; the record was helped immeasurably by its accompanying television advertisements, which sold the record through the mail. By the end of 1980, Willie had become the most successful country artist in England and his American success had just begun. King of the Road was available through an American television advertisement. "Train Medley" was a minor hit on the country charts, and he was becoming a popular attraction on U.S. concert circuits. In 1981, he received a spot on the Country Music Hall of Fame's Walkway of the Stars and became a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Boxcar Willie enjoyed his time in the spotlight, becoming a regular on the television show Hee Haw in 1982 and turning out albums as fast as he could make them. "Bad News" became his only American country Top 40 hit in 1982. In 1985, he played a hobo in Sweet Dreams, a film about Patsy Cline. By the mid-'80s, his star had faded, but he remained a popular concert attraction, particularly in England, into the '90s. Stephen Thomas Erlewine -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Burl Ives Born Jun 14, 1909 in Huntington Township, Jaspar County, IL Died Apr 14, 1995 in Anacortes, WA With his grandfatherly image, Burl Ives parlayed his talent as a folksinger into a wide-ranging career as a radio personality and stage and screen actor. After spending his early 20s traveling the country as an itinerant singer, Ives moved to New York City in 1937. By the end of 1938, he had made his Broadway debut, and he also sang folk songs in Greenwich Village clubs. In 1940, Ives began to appear regularly on radio, including his own show, The Wayfarin' Stranger, on CBS. Ives made his first records for Stinson, a small folk label, then was signed to Decca, a major label. He made his movie debut in Smoky in 1946. In 1948, his first book, Wayfaring Stranger, was published. In 1949, he had his first chart hit with "Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly)." The same year, he moved to Columbia Records. With the advent of the long-playing record, Ives suddenly had a flurry of LP releases from his three labels: The Wayfaring Stranger on Stinson; three volumes of Ballads & Folk Songs, Women: Folk Songs About the Fair Sex, Folk Songs Dramatic and Humorous, and Christmas Day in the Morning on Decca; and Wayfaring Stranger, Return of the Wayfaring Stranger, More Folk Songs, American Hymns, The Animal Fair and Mother Goose Songs on Columbia. He also recorded a series of albums for Encyclopedia Brittanica Films under the overall title Historical America in Song. In 1951, he hit the Top Ten with "On Top of Old Smoky." In 1952, he returned to Decca. While continuing to publish books and to act on Broadway and in the movies, Ives made a series of albums that included Coronation Concert, The Wild Side of Life, Men, Down to the Sea in Ships, In the Quiet of the Night, Burl Ives Sings for Fun, Songs of Ireland, Old Time Varieties, Captain Burl Ives' Ark, Australian Folk Songs, and Cheers, all released in the second half of the 1950s. In 1961, Ives oriented himself toward country music, resulting in the hit "A Little Bitty Tear," which made the Top Ten in both the pop and country charts. The single was contained on The Versatile Burl Ives. "Funny Way of Laughin'" was another pop and country Top Ten in 1962; it appeared onIt's Just My Funny Way of Laughin' and won Ives a Grammy Award for Best Country Western Recording. He turned his attention primarily to movie work from 1963 on, especially with the Walt Disney studio. But he charted with Pearly Shells in 1964 and made a children's album, Chim Chim Cheree and Other Children's Choices, for Disney Buena Vista Records. At the end of the '60s, Ives returned to Columbia Records for The Times They Are A-Changin' and Softly and Tenderly. He gave up popular recording, but returned in 1973 with the country album Payin' My Dues Again. He also continued to record children's music and also released several religious albums on Word Records. Turning 70 in 1979, he became less active and finally retired to Washington State. In the '90s, Decca and the German Bear Family label reissued many of his recordings. William Ruhlmann -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carson Robison Born Aug 4, 1890 in Oswego, Labette County, Kansas Died Mar 24, 1957 in Pleasant Valley, NY Carson Robison, known in some circles as "the granddaddy of the hillbillies," has mysteriously missed the recognition that has come the way of such contemporaries as Vernon Dalhart, not to mention successors such as Gene Autry and Merle Travis. A singer, guitarist, whistler and actor, the sheer diversity of his talent, coupled with the relatively early beginning of his recording career, may have harmed him in terms of posterity. Robison's father was a champion fiddler while his mother was a singer and pianist, and by the time he was 14 years old, he was already playing guitar professionally. A year later he was playing in bands and singing, and by his 20's was proficient on a range of instruments, as well as an accomplished whistler. It was in the latter capacity that Robison first came into the recording studio, as part of backing groups behind Vernon Dalhart and Wendell Hall. Ultimately he teamed with Dalhart, and the two recorded and toured together from 1924 until 1928. Robison also worked with the Crowe Brothers, and co-wrote songs with Frank Luther Crowe ("My Blue Ridge Mountain Home," "Barnacle Bill The Sailor"). Other artists with whom Robison performed and recorded include singers Gene Austin and Frank Crumit and guitarist Roy Smeck. In 1931, Robison formed his own group, the Pioneers, later rechristened the Buckaroos, which included John and Bill Mitchell, Frank Novak, and Pearl Pickens. The first country & western group to tour England, they had a considerable recording and broadcast career abroad as well as America before World War II. Robison had a hit in 1942 with the old standard "Turkey in the Straw," and wrote songs on behalf of the war effort, including "We're Gonna Have to Slap That Dirty Little Jap." As late as 1948, he had a chart entry with "Life Gits Tee-Jus, Don't It?" and the year before his death, he recorded the novelty rock & roll number "Rockin' and Rollin' with Grandmaw." A fine technician as well as a good judge of songs, Carson Robison was perhaps too sophisticated to be grouped with hillbilly singers, cowboy singers, or country music in general. His music had a veneer of pop sophistication that, in some ways, made it at times closer in spirit to Bing Crosby, or even Eddie Cantor (check out "Everybody's Goin' But Me") than to Gene Autry, while also lacking the honest directness (as well as the extraordinary harmonies) of the Sons of the Pioneers. Under other circumstances, he might've made a name in movies providing musical backgrounds, but media exposure beyond the radio eluded him. In November, 2001, Carson Robinson was inducted into The Western Music Hall of Fame in Tucson, Arizona along with Johnny Western, Carolina Cotton and Monte Hale. Bruce Eder -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LEO FENDER - The Guitar Man: Leo Fender Born 1909- Died 1991 Clarence Leo Fender was born in Anaheim California in 1909. As a teenager Leo had an interest in radios, which eventually led to his interest in amplifiers and other electrical gadgets. Leo began to formulate the idea of a solid body guitar, he first built one in 1943 or 1944 which proved popular when hired out to local musicians. In the mid 1940s he established the K&F company with "Doc" Kauffman, who had helped design some of Rickenbacker Electro's electric guitars. K&F produced chiefly electric steel guitars and amplifiers, and lasted until 1946, when Leo formed The Fender Electric Instrument Company in nearby Fullerton, continuing the K&F lines. George Fullerton joined Fender in 1948. The two men designed the solid electric "Broadcaster." It was quickly changed to "Telecaster," when Gretsch pointed out their prior use. Some rare models known as "No-Casters" have no name at all on the headstock. After more guitar innovations, Leo Fender became ill and the company was sold to CBS in 1965 for $13 million. Leo's health improved and he rejoined CBS/Fender briefly before resigning in 1970. He went on to make instruments for Music Men and G&L. Leo Fender died in 1991. The Fender Broadcaster The Fender Broadcaster, launched around 1950, was the world's first commercially available guitar with a solid wooden body and bolt-on neck. Leo Fender's whole design was geared to mass production and to a simple, yet effective electric instrument. After George Fullerton joined Leo's Fender Electric Instrument company in 1948, the two men set about devising their production solid-bodied electric guitar, the Fender Broadcaster. The principle advantage being the ability of the solid body to deliver a clean amplified version of the strings inherent tone. Even if Leo Fender had only built this one guitar (thank god he didn't!!) his company's place in the history of the electric guitar would be assured. The Fender Telecaster 1955 Telecaster The fender Telecaster is the longest-running solid electric guitar still in production, a brilliantly simple piece of design which works as well today as it did when it was introduced in 1951. The Telecaster was fender's original Broadcaster electric. the company was forced to change it when Gretsch claimed prior rights to the name. But Leo fender and is small workforce in Fullerton, California must have been delighted with the new Telecaster name, is thoroughly modern reference to the emerging medium of television just right for an equally innovative device like the Telecaster, the first commercially marketed solid electric guitar. The Telecaster usually referred to as 'Tele" is known for its bright, cutting tone, and straightforward, no-nonsense operation. The guitar has been used by also sorts of players from all musical backgrounds. The guitar is able to emulate steel guitar sounds and is used to a great extent in country music. Blues players such as Albert Collins have also used the Telecaster. The secret to the Tele's sound centers on the bridge. The strings pass through the body and are anchored at the back by six ferrules, giving solidity and sustain to the resulting sound. A slanting-back pickup is incorporated into the bridge, enhancing the guitars treble tone. The Telecaster should continue to survive due to its simplicity, effectiveness and versatility. The Fender Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster is perhaps the most popular and most emulated solid electric guitar ever. Launched in early 1954, it was designed by Leo Fender together with his colleague Freddie Tavares. The two were also helped by the contributions of country musician Bill Carson. Fender had already pioneered the solid electric with their Telecaster. The stylish Strat, epitome of 1950s tallfin-flash design, built upon fender's idea of a guitar engineered for mass-production rather than hand-crafted for individual players. It had three pickups where most electrics had one or two, there was a vibrato arm to bend the pitch of the strings and return them more or less to accurate tuning. The strings could also be adjusted at the bridge. The guitar featured a contoured body for player comfort, and a jack-plug socket recessed into the front of the body. Fender Strats continue to be a very popular guitar today. Eldon Shamblin, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughan and many other famous players have used the Strat during their careers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Fiddlin" Arthur Smith Born Apr 10, 1898 in Humphreys County, TN Died Feb 28, 1971 There are many, many people named Arthur Smith in the world. There are at least two famous Arthur Smiths in country music, and each of them seem to have decided to use their instrument to identify themselves. So besides Fiddlin' Arthur Smith there is also Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith. And if one really wants to get Smith-happy, there is also a famous banjo builder, Arthur E. Smith. But let's say one was hanging out in the corner of Tennessee formed by the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. In that case, there would be one and only one Arthur Smith of any note, and that would be the one who fiddled. He was called the "king of the fiddlers" in this neck of the woods, and literally all one has to do is go for a drive to be reminded of it. One can hum "Chittlin' Cookin' Time in Cheatham County" while driving through Cheatham County; likewise Smith has documented "Dickson County Blues," "Indian Creek," "Sugar Tree Stomp." Oh, and Smith's "Paris Waltz" was hardly written while he chomped on a baguette. That's Paris, TN, the little town across the river. Smith is the giant of fiddle in the Tennessee valley, certainly one of the most influential fiddlers from the old-time school whose tunes, approach, and innovation continued to be copied by progressive bluegrass players decades later. He played professionally for nearly a half of a century, with only a few lulls in his career. Smith was born on a family farm and had no formal education beyond fifth grade. As was common in this time in the Tennessee hills he married quite young, just after the outbreak of World War I. Smith was 16, his bride Nettie was only 15. Already music was a big part of his life, although researchers have been unable to pinpoint exactly when he started playing. As a youngster he was already a fiddler, and good enough to work in some local bands, mostly playing dances. His wife played guitar in one of these groups. Nettie Smith recalled selling chickens to buy her husband a fiddle. The original price of this instrument was six dollars and 50 cents, and decades later it would be worth at least 100 times that much. The neighbor who sold this instrument was the appropriately named fiddler Grady Stringer, who would have to have been the first main influence on Smith as a musician. Another early influence was the fiddler Walter Warden, whose tunes are still part of the old-time repertoire. Smith continued performing in the area, working with his wife, his cousin Homer Smith, and a fiddler named Floyd Ethredge who went on to work with the early Grand Ole Opry stars the Crook Brothers. In 1921 Smith moved to Dickson and began a railroad career, first as a logger and then later a linesman. The job involved travel back and forth across the state. Smith would pack his fiddle and pick up music from people he met along the way. One of these musicians that recalls Smith from this time was Jack Jackson, the first country artist to record in Nashville. This era was the very beginning of that city's life as the world's country & western music capital. The radio station WDAD at first wouldn't touch country music, finding it undignified. That was until a fellow named George D. Hay was hired as station manager, and the wealthy Henry Ford decided to promote fiddle contests to "preserve authentic American values." This is where Smith could step in, as he was already winning fiddle contests across Tennessee. Smith's first appearance on the Opry was on December 23, 1927, for a 30-minute solo fiddle set. At this stage of his career he was not singing, but just played unaccompanied fiddle in the style of so many rural players. His cousin Homer re-joined Smith after several weeks on the Opry. The two of them wound up appearing on the show 28 times that year, more than any other act except the harmonica player DeFord Bailey. Nonetheless, he carried on with the railroad job, as nobody could have survived on the Opry wages of five dollars per man per show, regardless of how much farther a buck might have gone back then. But the travel in and out of Nashville definitely had an effect on Smith's ability to be in the right place at the right time to score a recording date with companies that were actively documenting the work of fiddlers, many of whom were much less popular than Smith. Smith and his cousin split up their relationship in the early '30s, and a new band called the Dixieliners was formed with the very talented brothers Kirk and Sam McGee. In many ways this was one of the first supergroups, putting together three virtuoso string players. The three players all had a great deal of repertoire in common, all were in their mid-'30s, ambitious, determined, and energetic. It was, in short, a great match. It was in this combination that Smith began singing, an event about which Kirk McGee recalled, "Once he finally got to singing, and then we couldn't stop him." For the most part the group divided up chores thusly: Smith did the fiddling, Sam did the comedy, and Kirk and Sam did the vocals. A pianist was added to the group in due course, and Smith looked no farther than his daughter Lavonne Smith, who began to tour with the Dixieliners while still a high school student, picking up her five-dollar pay at the Opry like the rest of the country greats. Fans of dissonant country music have spent lifetimes searching for a tape of an early broadcast by this band in which Lavonne was so startled by a steam whistle being blown on stage that she pounded out a harsh chord in the style of avant-jazz pianist Cecil Taylor. This didn't make Smith very happy. "It was a goof, and Daddy didn't like goofs," she said. The Dixieliners became more and more professional through the Opry, the sponsorship of a glue company, and the hiring of an all-purpose booker, manager, and advance man. The group toured through the region, playing in many small communities. Sometimes they would be part of a larger Grand Ole Opry package tour that would feature performers such as Uncle Dave Macon. Some of these tours also involved the famous Delmore Brothers. Smith was working with both groups in various combinations through about 1934, then began working with the Delmores exclusively, and it was with this combination that he finally began recording a series of sides for the Gennet label. The first sessions were done in New Orleans, and it included two tunes that came to be known as Smith classics, "Blackberry Blossom" and "Red Apple Rag." On sessions for Victor the next year, Smith once again opened his mouth and recorded some vocal numbers, and according to Alton Delmore it was a matter of economics, not choice as the record label felt instrumental music wasn't going to sell. The first Smith vocal hit went on to become another standard repertoire number, as do so many country tunes that have such a basic philosophy included right in the title: "There's More Pretty Girls Than One." More than five sessions were cut with the Delmores in the next few years, the tracks coming out under the name of the Arthur Smith Trio rather than the Dixieliners, although later album reissues on County reverted back to the Dixieliners name. Listeners of the time would have no idea whether a new record was a Smith feature or a Delmore Brothers cut, so completely had their styles meshed. Corrupt business practices also added to the confusion, as the guys would sometimes cut a song for one label under Smith's name, then redo it for a competing label as the Delmore Brothers. More than 50 different songs were cut during this period, the most famous of the batch being Smith's song "Beautiful Brown Eyes," which would later lead to court action when the artists behind a cover version decided the song was in the public domain. Fiddle contests continued to be popular in these years, with promoters presenting bigger and bigger showdowns between fiddlers such as Curly Fox, Clark Kessenger, Clayton McMichen, and the native American fiddler Natchee the Indian. These players were all so hot it was often impossible to choose a winner, unless one of them happened to have organized the contest in which case he would sometimes present the first-place prize to himself. The railroad job was taking a back seat to touring, and sometimes the music on tour was taking a back seat to hard drinking. Smith fell in with a bunch of rowdies at a 1938 fiddle contest and didn't even show up to square off against a team of fiddlers that included the sponsor, a local sherrif. The lawman was so upset with the Smith no-show he tried to have him arrested. It did lead to an Opry suspension, and as was often the case this momentary vacancy helped someone else get his foot in the door, in this case a little curly-haired singer named Roy Acuff. In the late '30s Smith was hired by the Tennessee Valley Boys, a young band on the rise that needed a well-known, senior statesman on fiddle out front. By 1939 this band included three fiddlers: Smith, the young Howdy Forrester, and Georgia Slim Rutland. In 1940 Smith moved to Shreveport, LA, to join the Shelton Brothers on radio station KWKH. This job didn't keep Smith's interest and after roaming around the Gulf Coast he rejoined Lavonne in Decatur, AL, putting together a local radio band that somehow ended up consisting of players that all had the first name "Arthur," except of course for Lavonne. But unsure of how well the Band of Arthurs would fare on a 1940 recording date, Smith instead threw together a collaboration with the young Bill Monroe. This session was in many ways historic. It was the first recording Monroe would do and the last of Smith's Bluebird sessions. In the early 40s, as the world's attention was focused more and more on tragic events in Europe, Smith joined the Bailes Brothers in West Virginia. He had several featured solos with this show, and is credited with helping to popularize the song "Orange Blossom Special" as a feature for fiddlers. In 1943 Smith began emphasizing his singing and songwriting, and published two important songbooks, Songs From the Hills of Tennesse and Arthur Smith's Original Song Folio No. 1. Smith continued working with different groups during the '40s including a duo with his son Ernest Smith and a backup stint with the cowboy singer Rex Griffin. His flair backing up the increasingly popular western style of music led to gigs with Jimmy Wakely, a former backup singer to cowboy star Gene Autry. Smith rode this horse ride into Hollywood, where he wound up appearing with Wakely's band in a series of low-budget Monogram oaters such as Oklahoma Blues. But a cowboy Smith was not, and luckily his bowing arm wasn't injured when one director made the mistake of putting the fiddler on top of a horse without first attaching him to the saddle with a strong adhesive bond. His recording career continued while on the West coast, leading to a contract with Capitol, where he recorded "Orange Blossom Special" "Crazy Blues" and other successful numbers. For the first time he ran abreast of the North Carolina guitar picker with the same name, and the sides were released as The Original Arthur Smith and His Dixieliners to avoid confusion with the Guitar Boogie man. The next decade would be the low point of Smith's career. After backing several country singers including Billy Walker, he wound up in Nashville working as a carpenter rather than as a musician, a development that can be partially blamed on Smith's alcoholism, although its significance as a symbol of that city's cultural backwardness shouldn't be downplayed. In the middle of this low period, Smith had the pleasure of hearing Roy Acuff singing "Beautiful Brown Eyes," no doubt while he was sawing a board on some job. The song became so popular that there were scores of cover versions, but everyone followed Acuff's lead and declared the song "public domain," despite it having appeared in a published Smith song folio in 1943. Smith won the suit but it was settled for a lump sum rather than any actual account of royalties. By the mid-'50s rock & roll was on everyone's mind and it seemed a nadir for old-time music. But by 1956 Smith had been invited back to the west coast by Wakeley, where he struck up a new collaboration with the famous country guitarist Merle Travis. In the meantime a new folk revival had begun with groups such as the New Lost City Ramblers, whose member Mike Seeger was combing the hinterlands looking for authentic old-time musicians to research and document. His efforts led to combining Smith with his old pals the McGee brothers for a 1957 recording session held in Kirk's livingroom. Seeger was originally unsatisfied with the results, released one album, and then held onto the outtakes for nearly eight years, hoping a new session could be arranged. Finally the balance of the material was released. Fans of old-time music find this reunion of old friends, playing casually and with growing excitement at every tune, to be one of the finest recordings ever done in this genre. Another helpful development during this time was the interest in Smith's music coming from the modern bluegrass camp, as Flatt and Scruggs' fiddler Paul Warren began introducing a whole series of features based on Smith's material into the act. More work for the Opry old timers turned up in 1963 with the Starday label inaugurated a series of releases devoted to this music. The Smith album Rare Old Time Fiddle Tunes features fiddle accompanied only by son Ernest on guitar, and is considered another of Smith's masterpieces. Seeger issued invitations for Smith and the McGees to join the new folk circuit including appearances at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, where they received a thunderous ovation. The mainstream audience attraction for this type of music was shortlived, though, and Smith wound up in his later years travelling on the same old rural circuit that he had started out in, frequently performing for old friends who would go to trouble to record the event because they sensed Smith was on his way out. He made his last appearance in 1969 in Louisville in a group with Sleepy Marlin and Tommy Riggs. He was buried near McEwen, TN, just a few miles from where he had first learned to fiddle a tune. His music remains so strongly remembered, and completely influenced so much of the country fiddling that came after it, that it seems no exaggeration to say that he lives on in a form more like a part of the landscape than the legend of a man. Eugene Chadbourne -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cliffie Stone Born: Clifford Gilpin Snyder Mar 1, 1917 in Burbank, CA Died Jan 17, 1998 A native of California, Cliffie Stone was born Clifford Gilpin Snyder in Burbank on March 1, 1917. The son of entertainer, comedy star and banjo picker Herman the Hermit, Stone was known for his struggle to bring California's country & western music into favor in post-World War II America. He began playing bass in big bands with Freddie Slack and Anson Weeks as well as with other bands around Hollywood and Pasadena, but it was his work on radio stations KFUD and KFWB that brought him respect. Shows such as Covered Wagon Jubilee and Lucky Stars, broadcast out of Los Angeles, allowed him to show off his numerous skills. Working as a DJ, comedian, performer and host, Stone won fame doing 28 radio shows a week between 1943 and 1947. As a featured performer on the Hollywood Barn Dance, he made a place for himself in country music history. In 1946 he accepted a position with Capitol Records, who were gearing up for the still as yet undefined Bakersfield movement. An A&R executive with Capitol for 20 years, Stone discovered Tennessee Ernie Ford, whom he managed from 1947 to 1957, Molly Bee, Hank Thompson and others who were flocking to L.A. to record.Cliffie produced the Tennessee Ernie Ford Show for television. In spite of his success at Capitol, Stone was best remembered for his radio work. His show on Pasadena radio station KXLA, Dinner Bell Roundup, was a daily variety presentation that brought large numbers of country & western entertainers into the homes of his listeners. In 1944 the show picked up and moved to El Monte. The new location brought with it a new name, Hometown Jamboree. Recording six albums of his own he earned co-writing credits on hits "Divorce Me C.O.D.," "So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed" and in 1947, "Silver Stars, Purple Sage, Eyes of Blue." He recorded with various versions of his own band, including Cliffie Stone & His Orchestra, Cliffie Stone & His Barn Dance Band as well as Cliffie Stone's Country Hombres. Concentrating on the business side of things, the 1960s saw Stone's publishing company Central Songs flourish. He even headed up a label, Granite, for a time.The father of Curtis Stone, one of the founding members of Highway 101, Stone wrote several books including Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Songwriting But Didn't Know Who to Ask, published in 1991. He died of a heart attack on January 17, 1998. Jana Pendragon -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Johnny Cash - Country Music's "Real" Legendary Performer Born: J. R. Cash Born Feb 26, 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas A true country great, Johnny Cash was one of the most imposing and influential figures in post-World War II country music. With his deep, resonant baritone and spare, percussive guitar, he had a basic, distinctive sound. Cash didn't sound like Nashville, nor did he sound like honky tonk or rock & roll. He created his own subgenre, falling halfway between the blunt emotional honesty of folk, the rebelliousness of rock & roll, and the worldweariness of country. Cash's career coincided with the birth of rock & roll, and his rebellious attitude and simple, direct musical attack shared a lot of similarities with rock. However, there was a deep sense of history as he would later illustrate with his series of historical albums that kept him forever tied with country. And he was one of country music's biggest stars of the '50s and '60s, scoring well over 100 hit singles. Johnny Cash was born and raised in Arkansas, moving to Dyess when he was three. By the time he was 12 years old, Cash had begun writing his own songs. Johnny was inspired by the country songs he had heard on the radio. While he was in high school, he sang on the Arkansas radio station KLCN. Johnny Cash graduated from college in 1950, moving to Detroit to work in an auto factory for a brief while. With the outbreak of the Korean War, he enlisted in the Air Force. While he was in the Air Force, Cash bought his first guitar and taught himself to play. He began writing songs in earnest, including "Folsom Prison Blues." Cash left the Air Force in 1954, married a Texas woman named Vivian Leberto, and moved to Memphis, where he took a radio announcing course at a broadcasting school on the GI Bill. During the evenings, he played country music in a trio that also consisted of guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant. The trio occasionally played for free on a local radio station, KWEM, and tried to secure gigs and an audition at Sun Records. Cash finally landed an audition with Sun Records and its founder, Sam Phillips, in 1955. Initially, Cash presented himself as a gospel singer, but Phillips turned him down. Phillips asked him to come back with something more commercial. Cash returned with "Hey Porter," which immediately caught Phillips's ear. Soon, Cash released "Cry Cry Cry" / "Hey Porter" as his debut single for Sun. On the single, Phillips billed Cash as "Johnny" which upset the singer, because he felt it sounded too young; the record producer also dubbed Perkins and Grant the Tennessee Two. "Cry Cry Cry" became a success upon its release in 1955, entering the country charts at number 14 and leading to a spot on the Louisiana Hayride, where he stayed for nearly a year. A second single, "Folsom Prison Blues," reached the country Top Five in early 1956 and its follow-up, "I Walk the Line," was number one for six weeks and crossed over into the pop Top 20. Johnny Cash had an equally successful year in 1957, scoring several Top Ten country hits including the Top 15 "Give My Love to Rose." Cash also made his Grand Ole Opry debut that year, appearing all in black where the other performers were decked out in flamboyant, rhinestone-studded outfits. Eventually, he earned the nickname of "The Man in Black." Cash became the first Sun artist to release a long-playing album in November of 1957, when Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar hit the stores. Cash's success continued to roll throughout 1958, as he earned his biggest hit, "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" (number one for ten weeks), as well another number one single, "Guess Things Happen That Way." For most of 1958, Cash attempted to record a gospel album, but Sun refused to allow him to record one. Sun also was unwilling to increase Cash's record royalities. Both of these were deciding factors in the vocalist's decision to sign with Columbia Records in 1958. By the end of the year, he had released his first single for the label, "All Over Again," which became another Top Five success. Sun continued to release singles and albums of unissued Cash material into the '60s. "Don't Take Your Guns to Town," Cash's second single for Columbia, was one of his biggest hits, reaching thee top of the country charts and crossing over into the pop charts in the beginning of 1959. Throughout that year, Columbia and Sun singles vied for the top of the charts. Generally, the Columbia releases "Frankie's Man Johnny," "I Got Stripes," and "Five Feet High and Rising" fared better than the Sun singles, but "Luther Played the Boogie" did climb into the Top Ten. That same year, Cash had the chance to make his gospel record Hymns by Johnny Cash which kicked off a series of thematic albums that ran into the '70s. The Tennessee Two became the Tennessee Three in 1960 with the addition of drummer W.S. Holland. Though he was continuing to have hits, the relentless pace of his career was beginning to take toll on Cash. In 1959, he had begun taking amphetamines to help him get through his schedule of nearly 300 shows a year. By 1961, his drug intake had increased dramatically and his work was affected, which is reflected by a declining number of hit singles and albums. By 1963, he had moved to New York, leaving his family behind. He was running into trouble with the law, most notably for starting a forest fire out West. June Carter who was the wife of one of Cash's drinking buddies, Carl Smith would provide Cash with his return to the top of the charts with "Ring of Fire," which she co-wrote with Merle Kilgore. "Ring of Fire" spent seven weeks on the top of the charts and was a Top 20 pop hit. Cash continued his success in 1964, as "Understand Your Man" became a number one hit. However, Cash's comeback was shortlived, as he sank further into addiction and his hit singles arrived sporadically. Cash was arrested in El Paso for attempting to smuggle amphetamines into the country through his guitar case in 1965. That same year, the Grand Ole Opry refused to have him perform and he wrecked the establishment's footlights. In 1966, his wife Vivian filed for divorce. After the divorce, Cash moved to Nashville. At first, he was as destructive as he ever had been, but he became close friends with June Carter, who had divorced Carl Smith. With Carter's help, he was able to shake his addictions; she also converted Cash to fundamentalist Christianity. His career began to bounce back as "Jackson" and "Rosanna's Going Wild" became Top Three hits. Early in 1968, Cash proposed marriage to Carter during a concert; the pair were married in the spring of 1968. In 1968, Johnny Cash recorded and released his most popular album, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. Recorded during a prison concert, the album spawned the number one country hit "Folsom Prison Blues," which also crossed over into the pop charts. By the end of the year, the record had gone gold. The following year, he released a sequel, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, which had his only Top Ten pop single, "A Boy Named Sue," which peaked at number three; it also hit number one on the country charts. Johnny Cash guested on Bob Dylan's 1969 country-rock album, Nashville Skyline. Dylan returned the favor by appearing on the first episode of The Johnny Cash Show, the singer's television program for ABC. The Johnny Cash Show ran for two years, between 1969 and 1971. Johnny Cash was reaching a second peak of popularity in 1970. In addition to his television show, he performed for President Richard Nixon at the White House, acted with Kirk Douglas in The Gunfight, sang with John Willams and the Boston Pops Orchestra, and he was the subject of a documentary film. His record sales were equally healthy, as "Sunday Morning Coming Down" and "Flesh and Blood" were number one hits. Throughout 1971, Cash continued to have hits, including the Top Three "Man in Black." Both Cash and Carter became more socially active in the early '70s, campaigning for the civic rights of Native Americans and prisoners, as well as frequently working with Billy Graham. In the mid-'70s, Cash's presence on the country charts began to decline, but he continued to have a series of minor hits and the occasional chart topper like 1976's "One Piece at a Time," or Top Ten hits like the Waylon Jennings duet "There Ain't No Good Chain Gang" and "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky." Man in Black, Johnny Cash's autobiography, was published in 1975. In 1980, Johnny Cash became the youngest inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame. However, the '80s were a rough time for Cash, as his record sales continued to decline and he ran into trouble with Columbia. Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis teamed up to record The Survivors in 1982, which was a mild success. The Highwaymen a band featuring Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson released their first album in 1985, which was also moderately successful. The following year, Cash and Columbia Records ended their relationship and he signed with Mercury Nashville. The new label didn't prove to be a success, as the company and the singer fought over stylistic direction. Furthermore, country radio had begun to favor more contemporary artists, and Cash soon found himself shut out of the charts. Nevertheless, he continued to be a popular concert performer. The Highwaymen recorded a second album in 1992 and it was more commercially successful than any of Cash's Mercury records. Around that time, his contract with Mercury ended. In 1993, he signed a contract with American Records. His first album for the label, American Recordings, was produced by the label's founder, Rick Rubin, and was a stark, acoustic collection of songs. American Recordings, while not a blockbuster success, revived his career critically and brought him in touch with a younger, rock-oriented audience. In 1995, the Highwaymen released their third album, The Road Goes on Forever. The following year, Johnny Cash released his second album for American Records, Unchained, which featured support from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. His VH-1 Storytellers outing was released in 1998, and in the spring of 2000 Cash compiled Love, God, Murder, a three-disc retrospective focusing on the major songwriting themes dominant throughout his career. The new studio album American III: Solitary Man appeared later that year. Stephen Thomas Erlewine -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Del Wood Born: Polly Adelaide Hendricks Born Feb 22, 1920 in Nashville, TN Died:October 3, 1989 Del Wood was one of the best female musicians in the history of country music and one of the few to make it big playing the piano. She was known as the "Queen Of The Ivories."Her best-known song is her novelty version of "Down Yonder," which hit both the country and pop charts in 1951. It also earned her a gold record and a guest-starring appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. In 1952, she became a member of the Opry and remained so until her death in 1989. Del loved the Opry and was one of the fun people to talk to backstage.She worked many package shows over the years, including a six week tour of Viet Nam in 1968. Wood was born Polly Adelaide Hendricks in Nashville, Tennessee and began playing the piano at age five. Her stage name was created by combining part of her middle name with part of her married name (Hazelwood). Although she only had one hit, Wood recorded many albums during her long career. - Dugg Collins -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shot Jackson Born Sep 4, 1920 in Wilmington, NC Died January 24, 1991 Instruments Session Musician, Guitar (Steel), Dobro One of the premiere steel guitar and Dobro players of the postwar generation, Shot Jackson was a solo and session artist who also gained fame as a designer and manufacturer of musical instruments. Born Harold B. Jackson on September 4, 1920 in Wilmington, North Carolina, he earned the nickname "Buckshot"later abbreviated to simply "Shot"while still a child. His interest in music also began at an early age, and he became a devoted fan of the Grand Ole Opry, in particular of Roy Acuff's Smoky Mountain Boys and their Dobro player Bashful Brother Oswald. In 1941, Jackson joined the house band on a local country radio station, and in 1944, he moved to Nashville to sign on with the Opry as a sideman for Cousin Wilbur Westbrooks. After a year in the Navy, Jackson began playing electric steel guitar with the Bailes Brothers, and continued performing with the group throughout their tenure on the Shrevport, Lousiana station KWKH's Louisiana Hayride program. After the Bailes Brothers left the show, Jackson remained at KWKH, where he performed and recorded with the likes of Webb Pierce, Jimmie Osborne and Red Sovine. In 1951, he joined Johnnie & Jack's Tennessee Mountain Boys, and over the next half-dozen years, he played Dobro on virtually all of the group's live dates and studio sessions. He also played on many of Kitty Wells' first hits, in addition to recording a few solo sides. In 1957, Jackson fulfilled a personal dream by becoming the electric steel player for Acuff's Smoky Mountain Boys, and remained with the group for five years. During his affiliation with Acuff,Jackson and Buddy Emmons designed an electric pedal steel guitar; to market it, they founded their own company, Sho-Bud. Gradually, the company's success began to absorb more and more of Jackson's time, and he left the Smoky Mountain Boys, although he did remain an active musician, particularly as a steel player for Melba Montgomery, who had also left Acuff to go solo some time before. In addition to working with Montgomery (on both her solo work and her duets with George Jones), he recorded with many other artists, and even cut his own solo LP, Singing Strings of Steel Guitar and Dobro, in 1962. Jackson rejoined Acuff full-time in 1964, but his tenure abruptly ended in July of 1965 when he, Acuff and singer June Stearns were all sidelined by a near-fatal car crash. After a long recovery period, he began performing with his wife Donna Darlene, a former vocalist on the Jamboree program; in 1965, he also issued the solo record Bluegrass Dobro. His latest creation, a seven-string resonator guitar called the Sho-Bro, hit the market not long after, and again, Jackson distanced himself from music to focus on business. Still, he continued to play on occasion, rejoining the Bailes Brothers for a number of reunion concerts and recordings. He also hooked up with the Roy Clark Family Band for a pair of albums and appearances on the TV program Hee Haw. In 1980, Baldwin-Gretsch purchased Sho-Bud, and three years later, Jackson sold his instrument repair business as well. Soon after retirement, he suffered a stroke which left him unable to speak and play music. In 1986, he was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame; shortly after suffering another stroke several years later, Shot Jackson died on January 24, 1991. Jason Ankeny -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Larry Butler Mr. Hit Maker For 30 years Larry Butler has been part of the Nashville music scene. Butler has moved through the ranks of the recording industry, starting as a session musician for some of the biggest names in country music history, and finally solidifing his place in music history by becoming the only Nashville producer to win a Grammy award for producer of the year. Butler started his Nashville legend in 1963 by becoming a session musician, playing piano on the Conway Twitty hit "Hello Darlin'" and Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey." He went on to backup music legends such as Johnny Cash, Georte Jones, Roger Miller, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and more. Progressing from playing music to producing, he took Jean Shepard's 1969 "Seven Lonely Days" into the Billboard charts. It was his first production effort. He then moved to CBS Records where he produced several of Johnny Cash's biggest hits, later becoming Cash's producer, pianist, musical director, and studio manager. Butler left CBS in 1973 and went to United Artist Records to head their Nashville divison. There he brought in names like Kenny Rogers, Crystal Gayle and Dottie West. When Butler left UA, he decided to strike out on his own this time and formed Larry Butler Productions. This time the names were just as big, with acts such as Charlie Rich, Mac Davis, Debby Boone, Billie Jo Spears, Don McLean and John Denver. Without a doubt, Butler's biggest success came with Kenny Rogers. He convinced Rogers to sing country music, and it was their work together that brought about songs such as "Lucille," "She Believes in Me," and "The Gambler." And it was Butler who brought Kenny Rogers together with Dottie West to record "Every Time Two Fools Collide." Despite his success as a producer, Butler was not taken seriously as a songsmith. That all changed when he won his second Grammy for the B.J. Thomas recording of his "(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song." All told, Butler has earned two Grammy awards, 65 gold and platinum record awards, and has appeared on weekly music charts for 12 consecutive years. Rivers Edge is proud and honored to have had the opportunity to work with Larry Butler on their latest album, On The Edge. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hargus "Pig" Robbins Born Jan 18, 1938 in Spring City, TN For over three decades, Hargus "Pig" Robbins remained one of the top session keyboardists in Nashville, and played with some of country music's most illustrious stars. While a child in Spring City, Tennessee, Robbins accidentally put out his eye while playing with his father's knife and went totally blind by age four. He began learning classical piano at age seven while attending the Tennessee School for the Blind in Nashville, and was influenced by the music of Tex Ritter, his idol. Robbins learned country music by listening to records and the radio, and after leaving the school, he began playing in various Nashville clubs. After playing on a friend's demo, he joined the Musician's Union and became a session man, and in 1959, he played on George Jones' "White Lightning." In 1963, Robbins recorded a solo album, A Bit of Country Piano. He also played on non-country albums; a 1966 appearance on Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde left him in great demand with pop, folk and country artists. In 1978, Robbins released Pig in a Poke, his second album for Elektra. Even though younger keyboardists appeared continually in Nashville, Robbins remained the first choice of many artists, and played with Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Kenny Rogers, Tanya Tucker, Ronnie Milsap, Tom T. Hall, Alan Jackson, Mark Chesnutt, George Jones and Travis Tritt. Sandra Brennan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HANK WILLIAMS - COUNTRY MUSIC'S BEST KNOWN STAR Hiriam King Williams Born Sep 17, 1923 in Mount Olive, AL Died Jan 1, 1953 in Oak Hill, WV Hank Williams is the father of contemporary country music. Williams was a superstar by the age of 25; he was dead at the age of 29. In those four short years, he established the rules for all the country performers that followed him and, in the process, much of popular music. Williams wrote a body of songs that became popular classics, and his direct, emotional lyrics and vocals became the standard for most popular performers. Hank lived a life as troubled and reckless as that depicted in his songs. Hank Williams was born in Mount Olive, Alabama, on September 17, 1923. When he was eight years old, Williams was given a guitar by his mother. His musical education was provided by a local blues street singer, Rufus Payne, who was called Tee Tot. From Tee Tot, Hank learned how to play the guitar and sing the blues, which would come to provide a strong undercurrent in his songwriting. Williams began performing around the Georgiana and Greenville areas of Alabama in his early teens. His mother moved the family to Montgomery, AL, in 1937, where she opened a boarding house. In Montgomery, Hank formed a band called the Drifting Cowboys and landed a regular spot on the local radio station, WSFA, in 1941. During his shows, Williams would sing songs from his idol, Roy Acuff, as well as several other country hits of the day. WSFA dubbed him the Singing Kid and Williams stayed with the station for the rest of the decade. Williams met Audrey Mae Sheppard, a farmgirl from Banks, AL, in 1943 while he was playing a medicine show. The following year, the couple married and moved into Lilly's boarding house. Audrey became Hank's manager just before the marriage. By 1946, Williams was a local celebrity, but he was unable to make much headway nationally. That year, Hank and Audrey visited Nashville with the intent of meeting songwriter/music publisher Fred Rose, one of the heads of Acuff-Rose Publishing. Rose liked Williams's songs and asked him to record two sessions for Sterling Records, which resulted in two singles. Both of the singles "Never Again" in December, 1946 and "Honky Tonkin'" in February, 1947 were successful and Hank signed a contract with MGM Records early in 1947. Rose became the singer's manager and record producer. "Move It On Over," released later in 1947, became Hank Williams's first single for MGM. It was an immediate hit, climbing into the country Top Five. By the summer of 1948, he had joined the Louisiana Hayride, appearing both on its tours and radio programs. "Honky Tonkin'" was released in 1948, followed by "I'm a Long Gone Daddy." While neither song was as successful as "Move It On Over," they were popular, with the latter peaking in the Top Ten. Early in 1949, he recorded "Lovesick Blues," a Tin Pan Alley song initially recorded by Emmett Miller and made popular by Rex Griffin. The single became a huge hit upon its release in the spring of 1949, staying at number one for 16 weeks and crossing over into the pop Top 25. Willliams sang the song at the Grand Ole Opry, where he performed an unprecedented six encores. He had become a star. Hank and Audrey had their first child, Randall Hank, in the spring of 1949. Also in the spring, Hank assembled the most famous edition of the Drifting Cowboys, featuring guitarist Bob McNett, bassist Hillous Butrum, fiddler Jerry Rivers, and steel guitarist Don Helms. Soon, he and the band were earning $1, 000 per concert and were selling out shows across the country. Williams had no fewer than seven hits in 1949 after "Lovesick Blues," including the Top Fives "Wedding Bells," "Mind Your Own Business," "You're Gonna Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave)," and "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It." In addition to having a string of hit singles in 1950 including the number ones "Long Gone Lonesome Blues," "Why Don't You Love Me," and "Moanin' the Blues," as well as the Top Tens "I Just Don't Like This Kind of Livin'," "My Son Calls Another Man Daddy," "They'll Never Take Her Love from Me," "Why Should We Try," and "Nobody's Lonesome for Me." That same year, Williams began recording a series of spiritual records under the name Luke the Drifter. Williams continued to rack up hits in 1951, beginning with the Top Ten hit "Dear John" and its number one flip-side, "Cold Cold Heart." That same year, pop vocalist Tony Bennett recorded "Cold, Cold Heart" and had a hit, leading to a stream of covers from such mainstream artists as Jo Stafford, Guy Mitchell, Frankie Laine, Teresa Brewer, and several others. Hank had also begun to experience the fruits of crossover success, appearing on the Perry Como television show and being part of a package tour that also featured Bob Hope, Jack Benny, and Minny Pearl. In addition to "Dear John" and "Cold, Cold Heart," Hank had several other hits in 1951, including the number one "Hey, Good Lookin'" and "Howlin' at the Moon," "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)," "Crazy Heart," "Lonesome Whistle," and "Baby, We're Really in Love," which all charted in the Top Ten. Though his professional career was soaring, Hank Williams's personal life was beginning to spin out of control. Before he became a star, he had a mild drinking problem, but it had been more or less controlled during his first few years of fame. However, as he began to earn large amounts of money and spend long times away from home, he began to drink frequently. Furthermore, Hank's marriage to Audrey was deteriorating. Not only were they fighting, resulting in occasional separations, but Audrey was trying to create her own recording career without any success. In the fall of 1951, Hank was on a hunting trip on his Tennessee farm when he tripped and fell, re-activating a dormant back injury. Williams began taking morphine and other pain killers for his back and quickly became addicted. In January of 1952, Hank and Audrey separated for a final time and he headed back to Montgomery to live with his mother. The hits were still coming fast for Williams, with "Honky Tonk Blues" hitting number two in the spring. In fact, he released five more singles in 1952 "Half As Much," "Jambalaya," "Settin' the Woods on Fire," "You Win Again," and "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" which all went Top Ten. In spite of all of his success, Hank turned completely reckless in 1952, spending nearly all of his waking hours drunk and taking drugs, while he was frequently destroying property and playing with guns. Williams left his mother in early spring, moving in with Ray Price in Nashville. In May, Audrey and Hank were officially divorced. She was awarded the house and their child, as well as half of his future royalties. Williams continued to play a large number of concerts, but he was always drunk during the show, or he missed the gig altogether. In August, the Grand Ole Opry fired Hank for that very reason. He was told that he could return once he was sober. Instead of heeding the Opry's warning, he just sank deeper into his self-destructive behavior. Soon, his friends were leaving him, as the Drifting Cowboys began working with Ray Price and Fred Rose no longer supported him. Williams was still playing the Louisiana Hayride, but he was performing with local pickup bands and was earning reduced wages. That fall, he met Billie Jean Jones Eshlimar, the 19-year old daughter of a Lousiana policeman. By October, they were married. Hank also signed an agreement to support the baby who had yet to be delivered of one of his other girlfriends, Bobbie Jett, in October. By the end of the year, Williams was having heart problems and Toby Marshall, a con-man doctor, was giving him various prescription drugs to help soothe the pain. Hank Williams was scheduled to play a concert in Canton, OH, on January 1, 1953. He was scheduled to fly out of Knoxville, TN, on New Year's Eve, but the weather was so bad he had to hire a chaffeur to drive him to Ohio in his new Cadillac. Before they left for Ohio, Williams was injected with two shots of the vitamin B-12 and morphine by a doctor. Williams got into the backseat of the Cadillac with a bottle of whiskey and the teenage chaffeur headed out for Canton. The driver was stopped for speeding when the policeman noticed that Williams looked like a dead man. Williams was taken to a West Virginian hospital and he was officially declared dead at 7:00 AM on January 1, 1953. Hank Williams had died in the back of the Cadillac, on his way to a concert. The last single released in his lifetime was "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." Hank Williams was buried in Montgomery, AL, three days later. His funeral drew a record crowd, larger than any crowd since Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the President of the Confederacy in 1861. Dozens of country music stars attended, as did Audrey Williams, Billie Jean Jones, and Bobbie Jett, who happened to give birth to a daughter three days later. "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" reached number one immediately after his death and it was followed by a number of hit records throughout 1953, including the number ones "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Kaw-Liga," and "Take These Chains from My Heart." After his death, MGM wanted to keep issuing Hank Williams records, so they took some of his original demos and overdubbed bands onto the original recording. The first of these, "Weary Blues from Waitin'," was a hit but the others weren't quite as successful. In 1961, Hank Williams was one of the first inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Throughout the '60s, Williams's records were released in overdubbed versions featuring heavy strings, as well as reprocessed stereo. For years, these bastardized versions were the only records in print and only in the '80s, when his music was released on compact disc, was his catalog restored to its original form. Even during those years when only overdubbed versions of his hits existed, Hank Williams's impact never diminished. His songs have become classics, his recordings have stood the test of time, and his life story is legendary. It's easy to see why Hank Williams is considered by many as the defining figure of country music. Stephen Thomas Erlewine -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WIDTH=70%COLOR=CC0000> Red Steagall A/K/A Russell Steagall Born - December 22, 1937 in Gainesville, TX Red Steagall has had three overlapping careers in the space of little more than 30 years, and can take credit for discovering one great country talent, Reba McEntire. As a songwriter he's been responsible for over 200 compositions, several of which have become hits in the hands of other performers. As a Nashville-based artist, Steagall had his share of chart action in the 1970's and a few major hits. And as a singer of western songs as well as an author of poetry about the west, he is one of modern music's cowboy balladeers. Red Steagall was born Russe, , ll Steagall in Gainesville, Texas on December 22, 1937. He became a bull rider at rodeos while he was still a teenager, but at the age of 15 Steagall was stricken with polio, and took up the guitar and the mandolin as therapy to recover the strength and dexterity of his arms and hands. He attended West Texas State University, and while he was there he formed his first group, a country band. Steagall went to the West Coast, where he had some success playing the folk clubs in the area around Los Angeles, and had his first success as a songwriter in 1967, at age 30, when Ray Charles recorded his "Here We Go Again," which was later covered by Nancy Sinatra. Steagall was signed to Dot Records in 1968, but after three years he moved over to Capitol, where he had his first country hit, "Party Dolls And Wine," in 1972 under the name Red Steagall. Soon after, he had a top 20 country hit with "Somewhere My Love." He moved to Nashville in 1973, and followed up these two singles with two more hits, "True Love" and "If You've Got The Time." Steagall was a regular guest at rodeos, and while he was performing at the National Rodeo Finals in Oklahoma City in 1974 when he spotted a young singer named Reba McEntire, who was appearing with her family. He got her to record a demo and made sure that it was heard by anyone who could do McEntire some good, which resulted in her being signed to a recording contract while still in her teens. Steagall continued to have hits, including "I Gave Up Good Morning Darling" and "The Finer T, hings In Life," both of which made the top 20, and scored a top 15 single with "Lone Star Beer And Bob Wills Music" in 1976. His recording of "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" made the charts as well. In the late 1970's, he began moving toward western music as much as country. Steagall moved to Elektra Records in 1979, and in 1980, he decided to leave Nashville and took up residence at his ranch near Ft. Worth. His western recordings began yet another phase to Steagall's career. With his band,, , , , , , ,, ,, , ,,, , , , , , , , , ,, , ,, ,, ,, , , , , , the Coleman County Boys, he became singularly popular at rodeos and his records achieved a major following among fans of cowboy songs. His poems "Ride For The Brand" and "Born To This Land" were also extremely popular, and during the 1980's Steagall also had acting roles in several films, including Benji The Hunted, Dark Before Dawn, and Big Bad John. In 1991, the Texas legislature voted Steagall the Official Cowboy Poet of Texas. Soon after, he began recording for the Warner Western imprint, issuing Born to This Land in 1993. Steagall recorded steadily throughout the decade, releasing Faith and Values in 1995, Dear Mama, I'm a Cowbo, y i, n 1997 and Love of the West in 1999. Bruce Eder -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- H.W. "PAPPY"DAILY - TEXAS LEGEND [an article from 1977] H.W. Pappy Daily left the railroads for nickelodeons. The reason was simple: security. During the Great Depression, jukeboxes offered security; railroads didn't. "I was an accountant 14 years in the tax department at Southern Pacific", Pappy, 75 at this time recalls "I had less seniority that anyone else there, so with the Depression going on in 1931, I knew I'd better look around". Pappy found the security he sought when he wrote the Bally Manufacturing company in Chicago and asked them why Houston had no distributor for Bally's coin-operated phonographs. "They wrote back and said "You do it", says Pappy. thus he changed the course of his life and started on the path to a music career that led from Houston to Nashville and back again. At first Pappy kept his job at the railroad and worked part time in his new jukebox distributorship. Business grew and in 1933 he left the railroad and opened his store at 1419 Travis in front of a printing shop. Pappy's jukebox business boomed when WWII came along. Records were rationed beca, use the government said that a dealer had to turn in 2 records to get one. Then a ban on jukebox manufacturing came along. "That killed the sale of coin operated machines" said is Pappy. Pappy managed to stay in business a while longer. He found a small Los Angeles record manufacturer that would sell records to him. "I bought from them for my machines and for other machines and for other machine dealers" Pappy said. But he was looking around again for a more secure line of work. Soon he found what he was looking for. In 1946 he opened his first record store, a business that had little competition in Houston. records cost 23 cents and 45 cents wholesale, depending on the artist, and retailed for 35 cents and 75 cents. "Bing Crosby records retailed for 45 cents," said Pappy. "Tommy Dorsey and Kay Kaiser records sold for 75 cents" Gradually more record stores sprung up in Houston, and in 1951, Pappy went into wholesale records. In 1959 he sold the record business, Cactus Records and The Record Factory, to his two sons Bud and Don. "The parent company is named H.W. Daily Inc., but no one knows me by any other name than Pappy. I even have my phone listed as Pappy. No one would know H.W. Daily" says Pappy. He acquired the name Pappy when he started music publishing and recording in the late 40's. "New singers and writers would come to me, introduce themselves and call me Pappy. I did know why until I learned that my clients referred to me as Pappy when they talked about me, and when they sent newcomers to me the newcomers just thought that was my name." Pappy and Jack Stames started the Starday label in 1952, and Pappy was building a reputation as an A&R man, meaning artist and repertoire. He put the artist and songs together and supervised the record sessions. "Few people realized then or now how much recording goes on in Houston" , Pappy says. "Until 1956 we recorded many popular artist at the Gold Star Studio on Brock Street.. I expect there is a lot more recording going on here now than there was then." Pappy's most notable stars were the Big Bopper, George Jones, Jimmie Dean, Eddie Noack, Roger Miller and Hank Locklin. The Big Bopper's recording of "Chantilly Lace" in 1958 was Pappy's biggest seller of all and it is still selling. The Big Bopper was killed in a plane crash along with Buddy Holly and Richie Valens at the height of his career, but the record is still making money for his wife and two children. Pappy points to a stack of royalty checks and envelopes waiting on his desk. " We send these all out twice a year. It's about $60,000 in all and goes to 25 or 30 people." Not all of Pappy's artist recorded in Houston. Many such as Judy Lynn and Melba Montgomery recorded in Nashville. Jimmie Dean recorded in Washington D.C. where he did a tv show. Pappy "discovered" Roger Miller while staying at the Andrew Jackson Hotel in Nashville. "Miller was a bellhop at the hotel and George Jones brought him to my room and had him sing for me," Pappy recalls . As a result of the audition, Miller soon came to Houston to record for Pappy. "Everyone thought those records were,recorded in Nashville, but plenty were done here. Nashville did record most hits, but they also recorded most dogs too". Pappy says no one can tell a flop from a hit until the record is out. "There are no experts in this business, just a lot of people who think they are. I was never an expert - other peoples opinions are valuable to me." Daily says his only talent was his ears, his ability to listen and see if he thought a record would be a winner. He has 37 plaques and trophies on his wall to attest to his success. The winners are old , but still memorable: "She thinks I Still Care,"Walk Through This World With Me,"My Fathers Voice." The only hit record he missed was " Rag Mop". "I was in Beaumont to see a show when a writer came to me and asked me to go listen to a band play that song. My son and Jerry Jericho were with me, and we went to hear the group play." Pappy listened to "Rag Mop" and said, "that's not country and I don't see anything to it. It turned out to be a hit and I sure had passed it up." Other apparent flops made good too. "Willie Nelson recorded on my D label in the 1960's, but he wasn't a hit. Neither was Roger Miller on my starday label. Both changed from country & western and went on to be stars," Pappy says. Not everyone is lucky as Nelson and Miller. "Some people will go 10 or 20 years to make it. It reminds me of someone taking dope. They are addicted and they can't quit the music business. They'll go on although they they'll never make it." Pappy recalls a man in his 50's who never quit and never made it either. "He was less than mediocre at his peak. Now he makes personal appearances that supply just enough for him to eat." Pappy tried to tell him to get out of the business. "He told me he would never quit. That was 25 years ago and he still hasn't quit. Back then he made about $5.00 a night, maybe he makes $50.00 or so now." People will do anything to get into the music business. The mammas with the nine year olds were the worst. They couldn't realize that a nine year old might be cute on stage, but of no interest on a record, " he adds. Spending 45 years in the music business, Pappy has seen a wide range of human nature, "I didn't socialize much with show business people," says Pappy. "I could have taken the time, but I didn't." Pappy also says he didn't see the organized crime that is often said to go with the music business. "When I left the business there was no organized crime in the music business in Houston. When I left the business no one was shot while sitting on their porches and no policeman were shot while checking driver's licenses. Crime is the biggest business in the world now, but no gangsters were in the business in Houston," he maintains. While Pappy was in the music business, in his heyday, hardly a day passed without one person wanting to sing for Pappy. The phone rang constantl, y. Now Pappy and his long time secretary, Sunshine Tucker, preside over a quieter office style. "Now when the phone rings it's someone wanting to sell something," Pappy says. Pappy says he doesn't miss his heyday at all. "I never did like Nashville either," he says. "They didn't let you sleep. The time of night made no difference. At 4:00am they beat on my door. It was always a hassle." Pappy recorded his last session Febuary 1971, in Nashville, with four George Jones songs. None of the four were hits, Pappy says. Pappy, who has never tried to write a song, sing a lyric or play an instrument, says his career made him a lot of money. to attest to his financial comfort, he has a ranch between Wimberley and Dripping Springs that he enjoys with his wife of 53 years. Pappy made a quarter of a million dollars when his business was thriving and he is content with his life. "I was surprised by life. It was a natural flow. I didn't push. Things just came to me and I had no set goals." Pappy didn't plan to go into the coin-operated phonographs or music. "I would have stayed with the railroads if there had been any security, but they were cutting people off. I didn't know anything about the coin business or phonograph records or music." Pappy confided he didn't even like country and western music in the beginning. "It was all heartbreak stuff and I preferred happy music." Country and Western was at one time as unpleasant to him as rock music is now. He says he learned to like Country & Western music over the years. His son Bud is more outspoken. Sitting in his office within view of thousands of records, mostly rock, Bud say, "I can listen to a record and if I like it it is the kiss of death. I can be pretty sure it is a flop. They quit making my kind of music years ago." All three Dailys like "pretty music," Big bands. When Bud & Don bought the record business, it took Pappy a long time to keep his nose out of their business. "I had to educate myself to leave them alone and now the company is more progressive than when I had it. The record business is booming." The Daily brothers have 14,000 sq. ft. of warehouse and are opening soon a 35,000 sq. ft. warehouse on 34th street. About %65 of the business is records, but tapes are doing well, says Bud. "We make about %20 on each unit we sell." Right now the biggest sellers are Barry Manilow, Peter Frampton and Fleetwood Mac. "Acid Rock is out", Bud says with a grateful sigh, "but I don't expect big bands to come back." None of the three Dailys like to listen to the big sellers. "We probably don't understand it, but we don't have to sell it," says Bud. "But you need good advice obtained from listening to customers and sales people," Bud adds. "Music moves fast. It's like a load of vegetables. today you have a good load , tomorrow they're all rotten." Bud has a gold record in his office for ZZTop, a Houston rock group financed by Cactus records. The group has soldlf four records that made a million dollars. A platinum record hangs in the warehouse , signifying the sales of one million records, or $7 million, in records and tapes of "Frampton Comes Alive." Bud says Cactus does $9 million a year in South Texas and has no plans at present to expand. Pappy says he doesn't do anything now but oversee the distribution of royalties to past clients and keep up with Glad Music Co., his song publishing company. Now that the cheering has stopped, now that Pappy isn't sought after for his skills as a A&R man, he seems to be relieved. "I am extremely satisfied. I don't seek people out and I appreciate it if they don't seek me out." He says he does as he pleases and he likes that. " For so many years I was obligated and now I don't have to do anything because no one is depending on me. "The less I have to do with people, the better I like it," he says with a smile. But he isn't joking. Article by Barbara Wesolek (July 25th 1977) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I had the pleasure of meeting this wonderful man [2000] in Llano, Texas at the LanTex Opry.My album had just been finished that afternoon and I was asked to be on the Opry that night.A true gentleman and so greaton stage.He and I spent the better part of an hour talking.I was afforded the pleasure of being in the company of one of our great Country Pioneers and the experience will be forever in my memory.Dugg Collins "BIG" BILL LISTER Texan Big Bill Lister is best known for his early 1950s stint as Hank Williams' opening act and rhythm guitarist and for recording Williams' c, , ompositions "countryfied," "The Little House We Built Just Over The Hill," and "There's A Tear In My Beer," which became a posthumous 'duet' hit for Williams with Hank Williams, Jr. after Lister uncovered Williams' original demo acetate in the late 1980s. Lister is interesting for more reasons than that, however. He was an engaging and commanding performer and one of those rare Texans honky-tonkers, but Lister was no dyed-in-the-wool Texas honky-tonker; his influences straddled both sides of the Mississippi, but he was more a show singer than a dance hall musician. Today, he's still active and sounding as good as ever, a half century after he made his first recordings. Lister's raw, uncompromising country music may have limited his success in the rapidly changing climate of early 50s commercial country music, but it makes him a true treasure today. On the Bear Family CD are all of his 1951-53 Capitol recordings, as well as sides he cut prior to his move to Nashville for the San Antonio-based Everstate label in 1949-50. In addition to above-mentioned classics like "There's A Tear In My Beer," "Countryfied," and several unissued sides, under appreciated songs like "RC Cola And Moon Pie," "What The Heck Is Going On," and rare Texas recordings like "Local Yokel" and "This Time Sweetheart." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JACK GUTHRIE Born Nov 13, 1915 in Olive, OK Died Jan 15, 1948 If Jack Guthrie is remembered at all today, it is as the cousin of Woody Guthrie, but in his own lifetime, Jack Guthrie was far more commercially successful than Woody Guthrie ever was while he was alive. He was one of the most important and influential country singers of the mid-1940s, and only his early death from tuberculosis prevented his legacy from being better known to the generations since. Jack Guthrie was born in Olive, Oklahoma in 1915, the son of a blacksmith who also played the fiddle in his spare time. The family led a somewhat mobile existence in the area around Texas and Oklahoma, and Guthrie had little chance to put down deep roots. His main interests as a boy included roping and trick riding, at which he became very good. He also listened to his father's playing and the music of Jimmie Rodgers, and some sources indicate that he was taught guitar by Gene Autry in the years before Autry became a recording star. The family had little to hold them in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl era and eventually migrated to California, where they settled in the area around Sacramento. He performed in rodeos and was employed by the National Forest Service through the Works Progress Administration. In 1934, he married Ruth Henderson, and the two worked together for a time in an act together, in which he would use his skills with a bullwhip to snap cigarettes out of her mouth. By most accounts, the marriage was a lasting one, though not always happy, and the two spent a fair amount of time living apart from one another. Woody Guthrie's arrival in California three years later gave the cousins the opportunity to team up. Their act was heard on radio during the summer of 1937, under the name The Oklahoman and Woody Show it was a success in terms of listener response and fan mail, but it also paid no money, and the boost it generated for their club performances wasn't sufficient to provide either man with a living. The partnership broke up when Jack took a job in construction to earn more money and Woody found a new partner, Maxine ("Lefty Lou") Crissman, although Jack continued to appear occasionally with the duo. By 1939, Woody had headed to New York, where he first hooked up with the organized Left and political singers like Pete Seeger, and began the main body of his musical career. Jack stayed in California and continued to play before live audiences in bars and other local venues whenever he could, and one of the songs that he picked up was a Woody Guthrie original, "Oklahoma Hills." Jack made some changes and refinements in his cousin's song, effectively earning a co-authorship credit. At that time, California was populated by many thousands of transplanted Oklahomans, and Jack became well known for his version of "Oklahoma Hills." Guthrie became a well-known figure in the clubs around Los Angeles, where his brand of dance music was extremely popular and his flamboyance made him a memorable figure at rodeos, he was known for leaving the band and doing some trick riding during a set. By 1944, he was more than ready to begin recording. With the encouragement of Maxine Crissman's sister Mary Ruth, he approached Capitol Records, and she also put up the money for the demo record that he used to get in the door, "Oklahoma Hills." He recruited a band from among acquaintances, did the demo, and went to Capitol. In 1944, Capitol Records which had only been founded four years earlier had begun a new cycle of signing country and blues artists, which included Leadbelly and Merle Travis. Jack Guthrie was one of the new signings, in what turned out to be a seven-year contract. He made his Capitol recording debut in October of 1944 with "Oklahoma Hills," with a backing band called the Oklahomans, consisting of Porky Freedman (lead guitar), Red Murrell (rhythm guitar), Cliffie Stone (bass), and Billy Hughes (fiddle) he cut the B-side, "I'm Brandin My Darlin' With My Heart," and a cover of an Ernest Tubb number, "Careless Darlin'," at the same session on October 16, 1944. Nine days later, Guthrie had a second recording session that yielded four more songs, including his version of Jimmie Rodgers' "When the Cactus Is In Bloom," a number that highlighted Guthrie's yodeling ability. "Oklahoma Hills" was released early in 1945 and rose to number one on the country charts, spending six weeks in that spot. Before the song was even released, however, Jack Guthrie had been drafted and was serving in the Pacific, stationed as an entertainer in Special Services on Iwo Jima. He was unable to do anything about his record's success, and this led to decisions that would ultimately have tragic consequences. Desperate to return to the United States so he could resume recording, Guthrie signed up for an additional year's enlistment in Special Services in exchange to being sent Stateside. He returned to the United States in the first days of 1946, and tried to resume his performing career while still in uniform. He was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington State, and began playing with Buck Ritchey and His K-6 Wranglers in Tacoma, and returned to Capitol on January 29, 1946, for his first recording sessions since October of 1944. His personal appearances were so popular that a publisher felt confident enough to issue a Jack Guthrie songbook that proved very popular locally. In early 1946, just as he was resuming his career, Guthrie's weight began dropping rapidly, and a civilian doctor diagnosed his problem as tuberculosis. He was immediately released from the army, and had he used this chance to convalesce, it is possible that Guthrie might have made a full recovery. Instead, never believing his ailment to be a serious case of the disease, he kept working, organizing a new band and going out of the road. And the irony was that he was on his way to stardom. "Oklahoma Hills" brought Guthrie to the attention of Ernest Tubb, who got Guthrie a gig on the Grand Ole Opry and toured with him for two weeks, during which they became good friends. Guthrie's band, which was later inherited by T. Texas Tyler, was a success, though by the time they were back in California in the spring of 1946, his health had begun to deteriorate further. Advised to lay off for a year and go into a sanitarium, he instead insisted on pushing himself to take advantage of the success he had found. Moreover, he never gave up the smoking or drinking that further taxed his system. Guthrie continued recording and performing every chance that he could, and he even turned up in the movie Hollywood Barn Dance, singing "Okie Boogie." He signed a contract that summer to do a movie with cowboy B-movie star Russell Hayden, but it never happened. By the spring of 1947, he weighed less than a hundred pounds, and that summer he entered a veterans hospital near Sacramento and was informed by the doctors that the prognosis was terminal. This did nothing to slow him down. In fact, the result was the opposite as all of Guthrie's records were selling and Capitol wanted every side that they could get out of him, he became a willing participant in this musical death march, seeing this as his best chance to leave a lasting legacy. Guthrie's attitude had always been that if he was going to die anyway, that he should make the most of the time he did have. Additionally, although it sounds grisly in retrospect, the dedication was justified. Even in the songs from Guthrie's later sessions, there is a compelling quality to the music. His easygoing manner, his way with a phrase, and his studio band's virtuosity leave the listener wanting to hear more. The play of the words and music are startling in their attractiveness, and there's hardly a weak number in his output, despite the conditions under which most of it was recorded. Guthrie continued to record, despite being so weak that his wife had to set up a bed for him in the back of their car when he traveled anywhere. At his final sessions, he had to be transported in an ambulance, and he had to lie down and sleep between songs to regain what strength he still had. He finally amassed a body of more than 30 songs, in addition to radio transcription discs intended for broadcast. Guthrie lingered into the first weeks of 1948 and finally died in a sanitarium on January 15 of that year. Ironically, his records continued to sell for years after his death and remained in print, sometimes in redubbed form with extra instruments added. Meanwhile, Woody Guthrie's reputation as an author of topical and political songs grew in the folk community; the folk music boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the rise of such figures as Bob Dylan, who freely traded on Woody's image and legacy in his early days, eventually eclipsed the memory and reputation of his cousin, at least in the popular culture. In 1966, Capitol rather belatedly released an LP collection, Jack Guthrie and His Greatest Songs. It helped keep Jack Guthrie's legacy before the public, but it was Arlo Guthrie, Woody's son and Jack's nephew and the first member of the Guthrie family since Jack to achieve mass popularity and sell large numbers of records to the public in his own musical prime who played just as large a role, continuing to perform and record his uncle's music into the 1970s. Bruce Eder -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WILLIE NELSON - GENUINE LEGEND Willie Nelson began his legendary musical career as a young boy in Abbott, Texas. After his father passed away, his mother left Nelson and his sister Bobbie in the care of grandparents, who encouraged both children to play instruments. Willie had a quick affinity for the guitar, and by age seven was writing original songs. After paying his dues as a rambling honky tonk singer and sometime DJ, Nelson wound up in Nashville during the 1960s where he quickly attracted the notice of top country stars who recorded his compositions. Ray Price ("Nite Life"), Patsy Cline ("Crazy"), Faron Young ("Hello Walls"), and BillyWalker ("Funny How Time Slips Away") made huge commercial hits with songs that are still country standards today. Nelson's writing success gave him entrée to record his own music--though not a commercial success these early singles earned him a small but devoted following. In the early '70s, Nelson and Waylon Jennings became central figures in a blossoming "outlaw" country movement-a rock and folk influenced style that challenged the overly produced "Nashville Sound" embraced by the country music industry at the time. Nelson's commercial breakthrough came in 1975, when his album Red Headed Stranger was a giant hit for Columbia Records. His bittersweet rendition of Roy Acuff's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" put Nelson on the map for good. Nelson remained at the top of the country charts through the 1980s, when rebellious public antics and an infamous battle with the IRS brought about a temporary demise in his popularity. During the '90s, Nelson climbed back into the limelight with a steady stream of recordings both traditional and progressive, which became popular among a younger audience seeking an alternative to the homogenized pop sounds of contemporary country music. Now in the fortieth year of his musical career, Nelson remains a vital icon for alternative country and new traditionalist movements. His repertoire of classic songs and new recordings offer an essential legacy for generations to come. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Willie Nelson Can you describe the kind of music you heard growing up? Well, I heard everything. We lived just across the street from two houses of Mexicans, they played their music day and night with their radio. So I was educated early in life on "south of the border" music. Most of the people that I lived and grew up with around there in Abbot [Texas] were Czechoslovakians. I learned a lot of polkas and waltzes. And from working in the fields with a lot of the black folks there, I learned a lot of blues. And working and going to church, I learned gospel. So I was pretty educated on a lot of different kinds of music while I was still pretty young. That's great. In Texas, there's a kind of theme of dancing all Saturday night and praying all Sunday. People were all dispersed on the ranches, and they would come in and make community by having dances and so forth because the people were way out in the forests. Is that something you experienced? Well, the town that I grew up in was a dry county, so if anyone wanted a beer they had to drive six miles south to a town called West Texas. Now down there, they danced and partied, and I'm sure a lot of those, you'd see them in church on Sunday morning. Because I played a lot of those bars down there in the early part of my life, I saw a lot of people from Abbot down there on a Saturday night, and I'd see them again on Sunday morning. So it wasn't that unusual. How did you come to start playing music? My grandparents raised me from the time I was sixth months old, and they were both music teachers, so they started out giving us voice lessons. My sister didn't really take to singing that much, but I enjoyed it, so I took all the lessons that I cou, ld from them. And they taught me to play, they taught my sister to play. My grandmother played the organ, piano a little bit, so she got a piano and an organ for our house early. My granddad got me a guitar when I was six years old. So from that time on, we were picking. Where'd you get those early guitars? Guitars were just being mastered then, right? Mostly there were Harmonies and Stellas back in those days, and I had a six dollar Stella for my first guitar. When did you decide to become a musician, and what influenced you? I think I always thought I was. I never even thought about doing anything else. I take that back. There was a while when I thought maybe I might want to get a law degree or something, so I went to Baylor University in Waco. I decided pretty quickly that I'd rather stay in music. Can you describe your relationship with Johnny Gimble and who he was for somebody who wouldn't know? Well, I first met him when he was playing with Bob Wills. And he left Bob's band and came back to his hometown in Waco and put together a band. I played with him on a few dates when he would be looking for a guitar player or a vocalist. And he turned me on to Django Rheinhart and to some great music and musicians. Johnny Gimble was and is one of the greatest musicians, violinists, fiddle players, whatever you want to call him. We played a lot of music together around Waco and Texas. He played on my "Spirit" album, he played on the "Night and Day" instrumental album, and we've played on maybe eight or ten albums together over the years and an incredible amount of shows. Now he turned you on to Django, and Django's been a big influence on you for a long time. Yeah, Johnny Gimble gave me some Django tapes back in those days. And after listening to Django and his music, I began to see where a lot of other music had come from, including a lot of the Western Swing. I could see that a lot of guitar players had heard of Django, and fiddle players like Johnny Gimble had definitely heard of Stephan Gripelli. So there were a lot of things there that I had seen in the Django tapes that I had heard before. And my dad played pretty good fiddle and pretty good guitar, but he sounded a little bit like Django and the rhythms that Django and his brother played. Before I really knew it, I had been introduced to Django. Bob Wills was also a big influence, right? Can you describe him? Bob Wills was my hero in those days. He was a bandleader; I wanted to be a bandleader. He had an incredible,association and relation with his band. They watched him all the time, and he only had to nod or point his fiddle bow, and they would play. And they respected him a lot, and it was mutual respect. So I always thought that he was the greatest bandleader that I had seen. His music's a real American music, a real combination of different sounds. For somebody who's not familiar with it, can you kind of break it down? Well, the Bob Wills music, Western Swing music, is a combination of jazz and blues and that's about it, I think. Can you talk about the kind of music that came out of the honky-tonks? Well, again, I think it was the blues connection that made these songs - the blues and the jazz that made even the country songs that we were all playing. We played them with that Bob Wills-Django influence whether we knew it or not. So it came out different. I think that had a lot to do with it. Now when we play 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,' it still has a little blues feeling to it. Were there certain blues artists when you were growing up that were significant? Well, I loved Ray Charles and Satchmo (Louis Armstrong), and Louis Jordan. As far as blues were concerned, the first blues that I remember hearing, other than what I heard in the cotton fields and the juke boxes around West Texas, was the Bob Will's music - the 'Milk Cow Blues,' and 'Basin Street Blues,' and all this blues that was coming from Western Swing. He borrowed a lot of stuff called hokum blues. I don't know if you're aware of that - that was coming out of the black community, kind of bawdy stuff. Could you talk at all about that? Well, it was obvious that he was getting it somewhere. He was getting that blues feeling, and it was showing up in his music. That's why his music, I think, was so danceable. He was one of the biggest, greatest club bands, dance hall bands ever. I promoted him one time when I was fourteen years old, me and my brother-in-law. What does that mean? Well, I bought him and put on a show in Whitney, Texas. And Bob showed up, and he played, and we paid him, and it was a hell of a deal. How important was radio to him and his audience in that circuit that he played in the Southwest? Didn't radio kind of determine the touring circuit that he was on? Well, radio and jukebox. Plus, he had a radio show in, I think it was Dallas or Fort Worth and he played music daily there. Two different times in his career he had a radio show there in Dallas and Fort Worth. He came back years later when he opened up what later turned into Dewey Grove's Lawn-mowing Club - it used to be Bob Will's Lawn-mowing Club. And he had a radio show there, daily, from Arlington, Texas. I went over a couple times and sang with him on his radio show. I'd sing 'San Antonio Rose,' and my phrasing was a little different from Tommy Duncan's, so he didn't really know where to come in and "Ah-ha" at. The honky-tonk scene, how did that develop in the dance scene in Texas? Early in life, I wound up in the beer joints in Texas, in West and Waco and different places, because that's where I earned my money. I learned to play Lefty Frizzell and Bob Wills and Ernest Tubb and Roy Acuff, and whoever was hot at the moment on the jukebox. Did you play that Jacksboro Highway? Can you describe what that is? Well, I played a lot in Fort Worth in those early days, and I played a lot out on the Jacksboro Highway, which was the location of a whole lot of beer joints. Back in those days, Fort Worth itself was a pretty wild place, so naturally all the beer joints were subject to be wild at any given time. When did you first become aware of Ernest Tubb? I listened to Ernest Tubb on the radio when I was a kid growing up. He had a radio show in Fort Worth, and he came on every day and did a fifteen-minute radio show. I couldn't have been over 6 or 8 years old. So I was turned on to his music real early. I learned most all his songs, 'Walking the Floor Over You.' Back there in the war he did 'On My Way to Italy.' Remember that? I don't. Floyd Tillman did a song called 'Each Night At Nine.' It was about a soldier. I was turned on to Ernest Tubb, Floyd Tillman, Leon Payneback in those days those were the folks that I really listened to. Do you remember when you started hearing the electric guitar in Ernest's music at all? Well, I heard some guitar... naturally in Bob Wills's music, he had electric guitar in there. Ernest Tubb had electric guitar in his music. So I was hearing electric guitars in country music pretty early. Do you think the music was played a little louder in these dance halls because people were dancing? One time I was flying on an airplane, and I just happened to sit next to Bill Anderson. He says, "You do pretty good in those clubs in Texas. I just can't seem to catch on down there. Can you give me any pointers?" I said, "Well, I think they drink beer louder than you sing." And he laughed a little and said, "You're probably right." What about Ernest's vocal style? Can you describe that? It's a little different. I was one of the few guys who could do a pretty good Ernest Tubb imitation. He had, to me, the perfect Texas voice. I thought that he personified what I thought someone from Texas should sound like. He was a gentleman, he could talk well and intelligently, and I just loved his voice. Later you joined up with him, and when you went into Nashville you had a role on his TV show. Ernest and I did about, I don't know, a hundred and fifty television shows together. With Jack Green and Cal Smith and the Johnson Sisters and Wade Ray, and that was probably some of the best times of my life. You sang a lot of gospel songs on that show, right? Well, I had written some songs, 'Family Bible,' and two or three different songs, 'Kneeling at the Foot of Jesus.' So I did them occasionally on those television shows. Can you tell us how you got to Houston from the circuit that you were playing? Well, I was playing around Waco and decided to go to Houston and play. I went down there to look for a job, stopped at a place called Esquire Club, it was a Monday afternoon, I went in, and there was a band rehearsing. And it was Larry Butler (not the Larry Butler from Nashville but the Larry Butler from Houston, it's a different Larry Butler). And I listened to them rehearse and drank a beer, and after they took a break I introduced myself to Larry, and told him I wanted to sell him some songs. And he said, "Well, OK, play me some of them." I played him two or three of the songs, and he said, "Well, I love the songs. How much you want for them?" I said, "Ten dollars a piece." He said, "No, they're worth more than that, but I'll loan you some money and give you a job if that'll help you." So he did. Some of those songs were 'Night Life,' 'Crazy.' 'Mr. Record Man,' 'I Gotta Get Drunk, I Sure Do Regret It,' 'Hello Walls,' no, 'Hello Walls' I hadn't written yet When did you meet Billy Walker? Well, I met Billy first in Waco. He was called the Traveling Texan, the Masked Texan, and he played the guitar and sang, and went up and down the highway, and played the Big D Jamboree in Dallas. I got to meet him one time when I played the Jamboree. And then later on in life I found myself in Springfield, Illinois, and it just so happened that Billy Walker was on the Springfield Jamboree up there with Red Foley and all the guys. I wanted to try out for a job there, so I looked up Billy Walker, and he took me to his house and took care of me and tried to get me a job with a publishing company there. I stayed around a few days and couldn't really find a job and moved on South down to Houston. When you were growing up, Lefty was somebody that influenced you. Can you talk about him, what made him special? Well, I heard his music on the jukebox all the time in Texas. He had songs like 'If You Got the Money, I Got the Time,' 'Always Late,' 'I Love You a Thousand Ways,' 'Blue Quiet Thoughts Will Do,' and these were all very hot tunes in Texas. I didn't get to meet Lefty until years later when we were both in Nashville, but I was a big, huge fan of his. Did a tribute record to him? Yes, I did. Also, Hank Williams was probably coming into prominence as you were emerging? Yeah, well, Hank and Lefty were moving along about the same time there. And Hank had big hits like 'Lovesick Blues,' and 'Move It On Over,' and 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry,' and I knew all those songs because they were always requested. They were on the jukebox, and I learned everything on the jukebox. What made him special as a writer? He could really deal with pain and loneliness. Well, that's exactly right. He knew how to write about it, and write about life in terms that all of us can understand. With both those guys, their careers were kind of cut short. Can you talk about that? Hank died, I think, when he was 29 years old. Lefty Frizell lived longer than that. They both lived pretty hard and fast. When did you decide to go to Nashville? I was living in Houston, and I had a song called 'Family Bible,' that had been recorded by Claude Gray. It had become a number one song, and I decided that if I was ever going to, it was time to make a trip to Nashville and check it out. So I left my family in Houston and drove up there and again ran into Billy Walker, and he took me in again. My family got up there, and he took them in. And we lived with him for a couple of three weeks. Billy describes you meeting him in a barn. I guess you were in a car because you had just come up and you were trying to get established, and he invited you to live at the house. Is that right? That's right. It was a nice period. I went up there not knowing anything hardly, or anybody, and pretty quick I happened to sort of get inside thanks to guys like Billy Walker and Faron Young and people like that. One of the first guys I met there was Charlie Dig who happened to be married to Patsy Cline. What was the music business like in Nashville? When you went there, what did you find in terms of the way the writers and the artists were controlled and how records were made? Well, I don't think there's any difference today than there was then. Whoever puts up the money wants to call the shots. If you can get by that, if you can get somebody to put up the money or put up your own money, go in and record your own album and say here it is, you might be better off. You might have a better chance becau,,, se it's real competitive. It's more competitive, probably, in Nashville now than it was when I went there. You had almost no problem getting established as a songwriter, right? I mean, your talents were really pretty quickly recognized as a songwriter. Yeah, I was very fortunate to get listened to by some people who could really do something. For instance, Charlie Dig, Faron Young who went to the studio and recorded 'Hello Walls,' and 'Congratulations.' It was a lot easier than I expected it to be. But you also wanted to be a performer. I was a performer when I came to town, and it was difficult to find places to perform in Nashville. The bars and the clubs weren't as plentiful as they were in Texas. You were playing with Ray Price too, or was that later? When I was there in Nashville, after a while Ray Price called me. He owned the publishing company that I was writing for. He called me and asked me if I could play bass. I said, "Of course, can't everybody?" Johnny Paycheck, who, at that time, was going under the name of Donny Young, was playing ba, ss for Ray Price, and Donny quit and went to California. So Ray called, and I was writing for him. So I joined up with Ray, and I played with him for over a year. By the way, I learned to play bass in Nashville on the way to the first gig. Some people described the music that was coming out of there as being pretty cookie-cutter during that time: lush arrangements; artists didn't really have a say. Very controlled. Not a lot of individuality. One of the biggest problems, I thought, is that you had three hours to do four songs. That's hard to do, especially if the band is not familiar with the songs when they get there. I always wanted to go in with my band and do it, because I knew we could knock them out. And it would be something that we could go out and perform, and it would be like the record. But that's hard to do now. What made you decide to leave Nashville? I was working, most of my dates in Texas, driving back to Nashville mainly to work the Grand Ole Opry. Because you had to be there six months out of the year you had to work the Opry. You had to be there on Saturday night. I was working in Texas a lot, and it was really wearing me out, going back and forth just to get there Saturday night, and then go back to Fort Worth on Sunday. I finally left the Opry and decided that I would move to Texas. My house burned, so it gave me a real good excuse to leave early. When that happened, you kind of found a new audience. Well, I found the old audience again. I was raised up in the Texas beer joints, and they knew me a lot better when I left Nashville than they probably do in Nashville now. So when I got back to my old beer joints, I was at home again and met a lot of my old waitresses that took care of me. So, no, I got back to Texas, I got back in my element. You seem to pick up a young element, a hippie element not usually associated with country music. That's true. I started playing places where a lot of hippies hung out, like Devil Road Headquarters in Austin, and different places around different towns. They would have their special places - the hippies went here, the rednecks went here. I tried to play in both places. Your music didn't really change during this period. I think you may have changed a little physically, but your music pretty much stayed on course, right? I was trying to prove the point that the same people would like the same thing if they ever got together and listened to it. Hank Williams never fails. He would bring [people] together wherever [I went]. When I was playing with Ray Price, we'd always do a little Hank Williams. Of course, nobody knew who I was, so everything I did on those shows were other people's songs, until 'Bela Walsh,' came out. But Hank Williams was my savior every night. How did the whole outlaw thing come about? Was that marketing or a real thing, I mean, I know that there was this record that came out with you and Tom [Collins]. What was really behind that? I think a lady wrote an article at the time that calls us outlaws. And someone picked up on it. I think her name was Helen. I should know her name. She was a writer in Nashville, and she wrote an article about me and Waylan and Chris and a bunch of us and called us the Outlaws. I loved her for it, I thought it was great. Someone came along and decided it was a good marketing name, so all of a sudden now we were Outlaws, and there was an album out called "Outlaws" with me and Jesse and Tom and Waylan on it, and we did pretty go, od. Where did 'Red-headed Stranger' come in? 'The Red-headed Stranger' is a song that was written by Arthur Smith.- no, I think it was written by two more people. But Arthur Smith recorded it back in the '50s. I was a disc jockey then in Fort Worth, and I used to play it every day. I had a kiddie show from 1-1:30 in the daytime, when it was time for kids to take a nap, I would play children's music, I'd play 'Red-headed Stranger,' and I played Tex Ritter's 'Blood on the Saddle,' and all the different kid songs that I could come up with, and 'Red-headed Stranger' was one of the most popular songs that I played. I sang it to my kids every night. So several years later I had the opportunity to go on and do an album when I first signed with CBS. In our agreement, I could go in and do what I wanted to do any way I wanted to do it, and they would take it and put it down. So that's when I wrote the 'Red-headed Stranger' album, and I took that song and I wrote from the first song from the time of the preacher all the way up to the Red-headed stranger, and imagined what would have happened after that. I wrote the concept album, recorded it, and gave it to CBS. They thought I'd gone insane because there wasn't that much there. It was very sparse. But they put it out. I think Waylan shamed them into putting it out. And that really changed it. There were some good songs in there. 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain' was a big hit out of the album, and the album itself sold very well. A lot of young people liked it. They still like it. It was re-released last year. How would you describe how you gained control of your own music? What were the steps that you went through to gain control of your own career? Well, as I say, I had a clause in my contract which gave me artistic freedom. That was all I needed, I thought. That's really all anyone needs. If you think you can do it yourself, do it. That makes less for them to do, and they can just sell it. And if it doesn't sell, you're screwed. So you assumed total responsibility for everything, right? Yeah, I bet everything I had on this one album. It was the first album with CBS, and it had to be good or else the second one they don't normally get excited about. Can you talk about Fourth of July? I was living in Texas, picking a , lot, and this was about some of the same time there had been a concert in Wichita where a lot of the young pickers were coming together and listening to all kinds of music - rock and roll, mostly, I suppose. But they were coming together. Big crowd, I forget how many thousands of people, and I thought it was a good idea. Someone did the same thing in Austin at a place in Dripping Springs, and it was the First Annual Dripping Springs Reunion in March. I was on the show with Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, Roger Miller - a bunch of the traditional country people - Bill Anderson. And it wasn't promoted, so it didn't do that good, but I thought it was such a great idea, I felt like if we did the same thing further down in the year when the weather wasn't so cold, like the fourth of July, it would be worthwhile trying to do it. So I started calling up friends and seeing who all wanted to come and work for nothing. And I rustled Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall, Charlie Rich, and the Bees-in-Slaws, Asleep at the Wheel, and a whole lot of great talent was there. We showed up, and we played, and we had about fifty thousand people, so everybody got paid, and we decided it worked and we should do it again. As you were doing that, another guy you liked a lot, Merle Haggard. He had some of the same heroes, Bob Wills, like that. What do you think he brought to country music? Merle Haggard is one of my favorite artists and writers. He's been good ever since he , started. His first records were good ones. People immediately liked Merle because they knew talent when they heard it. He was an original, and he still is. He's one of the few guys that are still out here beating the bushes up and down the highway. His writing is just as good as it gets, and his singing iswell, he's Haggard. Everybody loves him. Was his 'Okie from Muskogee' sort of tongue in cheek, or did that reflect his politics at the time? I don't know. I've sung it many times, sort of tongue-in-cheek. I'm not sure where he was mentally when he wrote it. Farm Aid was also something that you established. Can you talk about that and what was involved? Well, I remember talking to a lot of friends of mine that were farmers. And they were telling me that there was a big problem. And we traveled around the country a lot and talked to a lot of farmers in different parts of the country. But I asked some of my friends in Texas around Abbot and Hills Vern West where I came from if they were having any problems. They said, "Well, it's getting kind of tight, but they're really having problems in the midwest." A few weeks later I was playing in Springfield, Illinois, and the governor, Big Jim Thompson, a good friend of mine, was there. And we used to have a ritual where every year he'd come on the bus and have a bowl of chili and talk. And this particular time, I ask him about the farm situation, and he says, "Yeah, it's really bad." So I said, "What can we do about it? Can we do a Farm Aid, or something like that?" He said, "I don't know, we can try." So he got the venue in Champagne, Illinois, and we did the first one 21 days later. And how many years has that been? I forgot. It's fifteen or sixteen, I guess. Raised a lot of money. Not as much as we need. The problem is as bad if not worse than it was when we started, and we're still losing three to four hundred farmers every week with all the droughts and the floods and all the problems they have. Their prices are way down, and what they buy is way up. We need a new farm bill, the Freedom to Farm Bill that both the Democrats and the Republicans sign into is horrible. So both the Democrats and the Republicans have got to get together and come up with a farm bill, or else we're going to lose all our small family farmers, and when we do that, we lose the next rung on the ladder. Whenever five farmers go out in an area, one business in that town goes under, and the schools and the hospitals fall right along behind it. So all these people who get thrown off the land wind up in a big city somewhere becoming a part of the problem there. So we need to reverse that. We need to get them a farm bill that will get people back on the land. Yesterday, I think, or the day before, I played over in Harvard, and we played a show for a school for young farmers, and I thought that was one of the greatest ideas I had heard. A lot of the people there are bringing kids out of the city, putting them on the farm, letting them learn how to farm, and teaching them what it's like, teaching them where their food comes from. And that's what we need to see - more of that. You know, we focus on some of the tejano musicians that I think you know and like. Little Joe Hernadez is one. Tell us about Little Joe and how you know him and what you think of his music. Well, Little Joe and I are real good friends, and we've been playing music together for a long time. He's done Farm Aids, and we've recorded together. I've done a couple of songs in Spanish with him - hope to do some more. We were talking not too long ago about getting together, doing some more recording, and maybe going to Mexico and doing a couple of shows down there. What about Flaco Jimenez? Is he somebody that you've worked with? Oh yes. Tell me about Flaco and his music. Well, Flaco's a great accordion player. He and his brother both received the Texas Music Art Award. Several of us did, Tommy Lee Jones, a bunch of us. And both Flaco and his brother got the award. They both deserve it. I know that you also are good friends with B.B. King and that he's influenced you. I love the way he plays. And if you're going to play the blues, you need to listen to B.B. and start from there and do the best you can. As far as I'm concerned, he's the guy. And he's the guy that's lived that Delta experience and brought it up and electrified it. And stayed with it. He stayed with the blues. He hasn't tried to go into this direction or that direction because he didn't need to. Another type of music that we're looking at that's been kind of negated in America is that of Native Americans. Native American music is starting to cross over. And it's the first music in America. Is there anything you can say to help people realize the importance and the beauty of that music? Well, if you've heard it than it's not necessary to explain it. It's different music, and it's coming from a different part of life. The Native American rituals, I think, are an important part of life, and they've put a lot of this in their music, and there's great education there, if one would listen. Their music is not something that you go around whistling and humming all the time (unless you're an Indian, I guess you would), but I think a lot of those bands out there are capable of playing blues, they're capable of playing country. I mean, just because they're Indians doesn't mean they can't pick. So they can play their traditional stuff, and they can play all kinds of music. In the explosion of American musics that occurred during the 20th Century, how important is radio and records? I mean, this music came out of different ethnic groups, different regions of the country, and it seems like it exploded all of a sudden and was being recorded for the first time and being broadcast. How important is the radio to American music of the 20th Century? For one, it's important in trying to get people to hear you on radio. If you can get your music on the radio, which is harder to do these days. There's not a lot of radio stations playing traditional like they used to be. There are a few, and there seems to be more and more coming along. But radio used to be really important to me because I didn't get a lot of airplay. Still don't get a lot of airplay. But it was important to me whenever I'd work for Alice Ray to have some radio station in that town would play my records before I come to town so I would be ensured of having a pretty good crowd, maybe. So I would promote all these stations and try to find somebody in town that would play. So radio was very important. When you were growing up, what were some of the first things that you remember over the radio or on records very early on? The Grand Ole Opry. I used to listen to WSM every Saturday night. That was Roy Acuff, it was Minnie Pearl... If you were to summarize your music and what you've done so beautifully and so consistently for quite a while now, what do you think that you brought into the mix that was different that you feel is distinctly yours? Well, I don't really know about that. I know that I like to have freedom to play. I'm not locked into a lot of arrangement and things. Our band jams a lot. It's fun, what we do, and I think people can see that we're having fun, and that, I think, is infectious. You like to see a band that's having fun. If you were to summarize the main influences on your music... I don't know. I listened to everybody, so I've got to give everybody a little credit. But what about those early influences. I hear a lot of different ethnic groups in your music. Well, somewhere in there is a little gypsy music, a little Spanish, a little country, and a little blues. I think it's a lot of different things. Why do you feel that there's such an explosion of American music in the 20th Century? At the beginning, almost no one really thought America had a musical tradition, it was such a young country, it comes from Europe, it comes from Africa. And we get all these things: gospel, Cajun, jazz, blues, country, tejano, just comes out. And it's not the music that came over from Europe, it's something that's unique in America. Why does that happen in such a short time? Well, I don't know, but I think every country has it's uniqueness, its own musical heritage. But it was a while before they discovered that we had one over here. And maybe it's because it took it a while to develop. Maybe Jimmie Rodgers and Ray Charles and Hank Williams and Bob Wills had to sort of melt together into something. What do you think the earliest strands of American music were? Well, I don't really know. The first music I remember hearing was on the radio like The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, and I'm sure before radio there were singers that I don't know. Out of the songs that other people have done of your own material, which one is probably the one that opened up your career the most? Would it be 'Crazy' or 'Hello Walls?' Well, definitely, 'Crazy' would have to be in there somewhere. Can you sing a little for us? Sure. [singing] "Crazy. Crazy for feeling so lonely. Crazy. Crazy for feeling so blue. You'd love me as long as you wanted. And then someday you'd leave me for somebody new. Worry. Why do I let myself worry? Wondering what in the world did I do? Crazy for thinking that my love could hold you. Crazy for trying, crazy for crying, and I'm crazy for loving you." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JOHNNY WESTERN TO THE WESTERN MUSIC ASSOCIATION "HALL OF FAME" KFDI's Johnny Western grew up with a keen sense of Cowboys and Outlaws. He was raised in Northfield, Minnesota,the town where the James Gang had their raid on the First National Bank in 1876.Thank goodness,Johnny chose to favor the good guys in the white hats, like Gene Autry,Roy Rogers,Rex Allen and all the other great stars of the Western Movies.He knew from a very early age what he wanted to do in life.He wanted to be exactly like his Western heroes. At age 15, while still in High School, Johnny became a deejay andsinging cowboy on KDHL in Northfield. Billboard Magazine stated he was the youngest deejay and singer on commercial radio in the United States at that time. By age 16, he became a singing cowboy on KMMT-TVand got hi, s first recording contract with J.O.C.O. Records, a Minneapolis-St. Paul label.In 1953- 1954, Western had his own television show, "Circle 6 Ranch Time," where he introducedthe daily western movie.This helped make it possible for him to open shows for the likes of Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, Rex Allen and others when they performed in the area. In the early 1950's, he began performing on the rodeo circuit with the Sons Of The Pioneers.In 1954,he moved to Hollywood and toured Canada with Gene Autry in 1956,where he met Johnny Cash, the man who would forever change his life. Johnny wrote "The Ballad of Paladin," theme song for the TV series "Have Gun Will Travel," starring Richard Boone, which ran from 1957 - 1963.Western was signed to Columbia Records by Mitch Miller. In 1958, Johnny Cash asked Western to join his show as emcee and singer.At Columbia, both Cash and Western were produced by the legendary Don Law.Johnny was a featured musician on most of Johnny Cash's recordings fromAugust 1959 through April 1963. Johnny Western has appeared in over 50 western movies and TV westerns such as "Have Gun Will Travel," "Pony Express," "Gunsmoke," "Boots & Saddles," "Wells Fargo," and "Bat Masterson."In 1993, he recorded an album,Johnny Western, The Sons Of The Pioneers and Friends. Stars include Rex Allen, Rex Allen Jr, Sons of the San Joaquin, Red Stegall and Michael Martin Murphey. It's only fitting that the Western Music Hall of Fame honored this life long movie and television cowboy star November 8, 2001.His contribution to the cowboy culture rates right up there with all the folks he calls his friends and heroes of the silver screen. He gladly took his rightful place in the Hall of Fame and Rex Allen Jr. performed the honor.Johnny is also a member of the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame in Nashville and America's Old Time Country Music Hall of Fame in Avoca, Iowa.In addition to his constant touring schedule,he holds down his daily radio show on Classic Country AM 1070-KFDI in Wichita,Kansas. Johnny Western,we salute you my dear friend. -Dugg Collins -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOTTIE WEST- COUNTRY SUNSHINE Born Oct 11, 1932 in McMinnville, TN Died Sep 4, 1991 in Nashville, TN Dottie West was one of the most successful, and controversial, performers to rise to popularity during the Nashville Sound era; like her friend and mentor Patsy Cline, West's battles for identity and respect within the male-dominated country music hierarchy were instrumental in enabling other female artists to gain control over the directions of their careers. Born Dorothy Marie Walsh outside McMinnville, Tennessee on October 11, 1932, she was the oldest of ten children; after her abusive, alcoholic father abandoned the family, her mother opened a small cafe. West began appearing on local radio just shy of her 13th birthday, and went on to study music at Tennessee Tech, where she also sang in a band; the group's steel guitar player, Bill West, became her first husband in 1953. After graduation, the Wests and their two children moved to Cleveland, Ohio; there, Dottie began appearing on the television program Landmark Jamboree as one half of a country-pop vocal duo called the Kay-Dots alongside partner Kathy Dee. At the same time, West made numerous trips to Nashville in the hopes of landing a recording deal; in 1959, she and Bill auditioned for Starday's Don Pierce, and were immediately offered a contract. Although the resulting singles West cut for the label proved unsuccessful, she nonethless moved to Nashville in 1961. There, she and her husband fell in with a group of aspiring songwriters like Willie Nelson, Roger Miller, Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard; they also became close friends with Patsy Cline and her husband Charlie Dick. West earned her first Top 40 hit in 1963 with "Let Me Off at the Corner," followed a year later by the Top Ten "Love Is No Excuse," a duet with Jim Reeves (who had scored a major success with her "Is This Me?"). Also in 1964, she auditioned for producer Chet Atkins, the architect of the Nashville Sound, who agreed to produce her composition "Here Comes My Baby; " the single made West the f, irst female country artist to win a Grammy Award, leading to an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry. In Atkins, West found the perfect producer for her plaintive vocals and heart-wrenching songs; after releasing the Here Comes My Baby LP in 1965, they reunited for the following year's Suffer Time, which generated her biggest hit yet in "Would You Hold It Against Me." In 1967, the West/Atkins pairing issued three separate albumsWith All My Heart and Soul (featuring the smash "Paper Mansions"), Dottie West Sings Sacred Ballads, and I'll Help You Forget Her; she also appeared in a pair of films, Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar and There's a Still on the Hill. After the 1968 LP Country Girl, West teamed with Don Gibson for a record of duets, 1969's Dottie and Don, featuring the Number Two hit "Rings of Gold." The album was her last with Chet Atkins, and she followed it with two 1970 releases, Forever Yours and Country Boy and Country Girl, a collection of pairings with Jimmy Dean. Around the time of 1971's Have You Heard...Dottie West, she left Bill West, and in 1972 married drummer Bryan Metcalf, who was a dozen years her junior. Suddenly, West's image underwent a huge metamorphosis; the woman who once performed dressed in conservative gingham dresses and refused to record Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through the Night" because it was "too sexy" began appearing in skin-tight stage attire. As the sexual revolution peaked, so did West's career; after the 1973 success of the crossover smash "Country Sunshine," written for Coca-Cola, her material became far more provocative and, much to the chagrin of country purists, more commericially successful as well. After the release of House of Love in 1974, West notched a number of Top 40 hits , like "Last Time I Saw Him," "When It's Just You and Me," and "Tonight You Belong to Me." In 1977, she was recording the song "Every Time Two Fools Collide" when, according to legend, Kenny Rogers suddenly entered the studio and began singing along. Released as a duet, the single hit Number One, West's first; the duo's 1979 "All I Ever Need Is You" and 1981 "What Are We Doin' in Love" topped the charts as well, and a 1979 duets album titled Classics also proved successful. As a solo artist, West notched a pair of Number Ones in 1980"A Lesson in Leavin'" and "Are You Happy Baby?" As the 1980s progressed, West's popularity began to slip; she appeared in a revealing photo spread in the men's magazine Oui, and toured with a production of the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. In 1983, she married for the third time, to soundman Al Winters, who was some 23 years younger than she; a year later, she appeared in the play Bring It on Home. Her last chart hit, "We Know Better Now," reached only Number 53 in 1985. Although she remained a popular touring act, West's financial problems mounted, and in 1990,,after divorcing Winters, she declared bankruptcy, culminating in the foreclosure of her Nashville mansion. After a car accident and a public auction of her possessions, she began making plans for a comeback, including an album of duets and autobiography. But en route to a September 4, 1991 appearance at Opryland, the car she was riding in flipped, and a few days later West died of her injuries. A made-for-television biography followed a few years later. Jason Ankeny -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ONE OF COUNTRY MUSIC'S FIRST SUPERSTARS UNCLE DAVE MACON Uncle Dave Macon A/K/A- Dixie Dewdrop Born Oct 7, 1870 in Smart Station, TN Died Mar 22, 1952 in Readyville, TN David Harrison Macon, born in Smartt Station, TN, didn't perform professionally until he was past 50, but he became one of the first superstars of country music. A talented banjoist and comic (and sometimes preacher and farmer), Uncle Dave Macon was the Grand Ole Opry's first major star and an audience favorite from 1925 until his death in 1952. He derived much of his repertoire and stage patter from vaudeville and minstrel shows, but his songs reflected on a wide variety of subjects from political corruption to current events like the advent of the automobile. His presence affect, ed country music like none before it; even today a three-day festival, Uncle Dave Macon Days, is held in Murfreesboro, TN, the site of the National Old-Time Banjo Championship. Brian Mansfield -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GENE AUTRY-AMERICAN HERO Gene Autry Born: Orvin Gene Autry Born Sep 29, 1907 in Tioga Springs, TX Died Oct 2, 1998 Gene Autry was more than a musician. His music, coupled with his careers in movies and on radio and television, made him a part of the mythos that has made up the American identity for the past hundred years John Wayne wi, th,a little bit of Sam Houston and Davy Crockett all rolled into one, with a great singing voice and an ear for music added on. He defined country music for two generations of listeners, and cowboy songs for much of this century, and American music for much of the world. He was country music's first genuine "multi-media" star, the best known country & western singer on records, in movies, on radio, and television from the early-'30s until the mid-'50s. His 300 songs cut between 1929 and 1964 include nine gold-record awards and one platinum record; his 93 movies saved one big chunk of the movie industry, delighted millions, and made millionaires of several producers (as well as Autry himself); his radio and television shows were even more popular and successful; and a number of his songs outside of the country & western field have become American pop-culture touchstones. The biggest selling country & western singer of the middle of the century was born Orvin Gene Autry on September 29, 1907 in the tiny Texas town of Tioga, the son of Delbert and Elnora Ozmont Autry. He was first taught to sing at age five by his grandfather, William T. Autry, a Baptist preacher and descendant of some of the earliest settlers in Texas, contemporaries of the Houstons and the Crocketts (an Autry had died at the Alamo). The boy's interest in music was encouraged by his mother,,who taught him hymns and folk songs, and reading psalms to him at night. Autry got his first guitar at age 12, bought from the Sears, Roebuck catalog for eight dollars (saved from his work as a hired hand on his uncle's farm baling and stacking hay). By the time he was 15, he had played anyplace there was to perform in Tioga, including school plays and the local cafe, but made most of his living working for the railroad as an apprentice at $35 a month. Later on, as a proper telegraph operator, he was making $150 a month which, in those days, was a comfortable income in their part of Texas. He was working the four-to-midnight shift at the local telegraph office in Chelsea, Oklahoma one summer night in 1927 when, to break up the monotony, he began strumming a guitar and singing quietly to himself. A customer came into the office; rather than insisting upon immediate service, he motioned for Autry to continue singing, then sat down to watch and listen while he looked over the pages he was preparing to send. At one point, the visitor asked him to sing another. Finally, after dropping his copy on the counter, the customer told Autry that with some hard work, he might have a future on the radio, and should consider going to New York to pursue a singing career. The man, whom Autry had recognized instantly, was Will Rogers, the humorist, writer, movie actor, and one of the most popular figures in the entertainment world of that era. Autry didn't immediately give up his job, but just over a year later, he was in New York auditioning for a representative of RCA-Victor. The judgment was that he had a good voice, but should stay away from pop hits, find his own kind of songs and his own sound, and get some experience. He was back six months later, on October 9, 1929, cutting his first record, "My Dreaming of You"/"My Alabama Home," for Victor. Two weeks later, Autry was making a demo record for the Columbia label of Jimmie Rodgers' "Blue Yodel No. 5." Present that same day in the studio were two up-and-coming singers, Rudy Vallee and Kate Smith. Autry found himself being pressured to sign an exclusive contract with Victor, but chose instead to sign with the American Record Corporation. Their general manager, Arthur Sattherly (who would later record Leadbelly, among many other acts), persuaded Autry that while Victor was a large company and could offer more money and a better marketing apparatus, he would be lost at Victor amid its existing stable of stars, whereas ARC would treat him as their most important star. Additionally, Sattherly through a series of arrangements involving major retail and chain stores across the country now had the means to get Autry's records into peoples' hands as easily as Victor. His first recordings had just been released when his mother, who'd been ill for months, died at the age of 45, apparently of cancer. Autry's father began drifting away soon afterward, and he became the head of the family and the main supporter of himself, two sisters, and a younger brother. In early December of 1929, Autry cut his first six sides for ARC. The music was a mix of hillbilly, blues, country, yodel songs, and cowboy ballads. His breakthrough record, "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine," co-written by Autry and his friend Jimmy Long one night at the railroad depot, was released in 1931. The song had sold 30,000 copies within a month, and by the end of a year 500, 000 had been sold, an occasion that American Records decided to mark with the public presentation of a gold-plated copy of the record. Autry received a second gold record when sales later broke one million. And that was where the notion of the Gold Record Award was born. The record also led him into a new career on the radio as Oklahoma's Yodeling Cowboy on the National Barn Dance show sponsored by WLS out of Chicago. It was there that Autry became a major national star his record sales rose assisted by his exposure on radio. During the early years of his career, Autry took a number of important collaborators and musicians aboard. Among them were Fred Rose, the songwriter (later responsible for "Your Cheatin' Heart") with whom he collaborated on many of his hits; and fiddle-player Carl Cotner (who also played sax, clarinet, and piano), who became his arranger. Autry had a knack for knowing a good song when he heard it (though he almost passed on the biggest hit of his career), and for knowing when a song needed something extra in its arrangement, but it was Cotner who was able to translate his sensibilities into musical notes and arrangements. Mary Ford, later of Les Paul fame, was in Autry's band at one time, and in 1936, Autry signed up a 17-year-old guitar player named Merle Travis, the future country star and songwriter. By the early '30s, Autry became one of the most beloved singers in country & western music. By 1933, he was getting fan letters by the hundreds every week, and his record sales were only going up. Autry's career might've been made right there, but fate intervened again that year, in the form of the movie business. The western especially the "B" western, the bottom-of-the-bill, low-budget action oater had been hit very hard by the coming of sound in the years 1927 to 1929. Audiences expected dialogue in their movies, and most western stars up to that time were a lot better at riding, roping, and shooting than reading lines. Not only did producers and directors need something to fill up the soundtracks of their movies, especially on the limited budgets of the B-westerns, but something to substitute for violent action, which was being increasingly criticized by citizen groups. Cowboy star Ken Maynard, who was a great trick rider and stuntman but no singer, had tried singing songs in a few of his movies, and the producers noticed that the songs had gone over well despite his vocal limitations. Maynard was making another western, In Old Santa Fe (1934), for Mascot Pictures, and producer Nat Levine decided to try an experiment, putting in a musical number sung by a professional. By sheer chance, the American Record Company and Mascot Pictures were locked together financially, though indirectly, and with the help from the president of ARC, Levine was steered toward Autry. A phone call brought the young singer and another ARC performer multi-instrumentalist/comedian Smiley Burnette out to Hollywood, where, after a quick meeting and screen test, the two were put into In Old Santa Fe. Autry had only one scene, singing a song and calling a square dance, but that scene proved to be one of the most popular parts of the movie. Levine next stuck Autry and Burnette into a Ken Maynard serial, Mystery Mountain, in minor supporting roles. But Autry's next appearance was much more important, as the star of the highly successful 12-chapter serial The Phantom Empire. Perhaps recognizing that Autry was no "actor," and that he had an audience of millions already, he, the writers, and the producer agreed that he should simply play "Gene Autry," a good-natured radio singer and sometime cowboy. The success of Autry's early films was not enough to save Mascot Pictures, which collapsed under the weight of debts held by Consolidated Film Laboratories, which did Mascot's film processing. In 1935, Consolidated forced a merger of Mascot and a handful of other small studios and formed Republic Pictures, with Consolidated's president Herbert J. Yates at the helm. Republic thrived in the B-movie market, ultimately dominating the entire field for the next 20 years. And central to Republic's success were the westerns of Gene Autry. His first starring western for the newly organized Republic Pictures, Tumbling Tumbleweeds (released Sept. 5, 1935), which also included the singing group the Sons of the Pioneers, was a huge hit, and was followed by Melody Trail, The Sagebrush Troubador, and The Singing Vagabond, all released during the final three months of 1935. Autry settled into a schedule of one movie every six weeks, or eight-per-year, at $5000 per movie, and a formula was quickly established. The production values on these movies were modest, in keeping with their low budgets and tight shooting schedules, but within the framework of B-westerns, and the context of their music, they were first-rate productions. By 1937, and for five years after a string that was only broken when he enlisted in the army during World War II Autry was rated in an industry survey of theater owners as one of the top ten box-office attractions in the country, alongside the likes of James Cagney and Clark Gable. Autry was the only cowboy star to make the list, and the only actor from B-movies on the list. For Republic Pictures, his movies were such a cash cow, and so popular in the southern, border, and western states, that the tiny studio was able to use them as a way to force "block booking" on theater owners and chains that is, theaters only got access to the Autry movies scheduled each season if they bought all of Republic's titles for that season. It was Autry's discovery of this policy (which, in fairness, was practiced by every major studio at the time, and led to the anti-trust suit by the government that ultimately forced the studios to give up their theater chains) in early 1938 that led to his first break with Republic. The problems had been brewing for some time, over Autry's unhappi, ness at never having gotten a raise from his original Mascot-era $5000-per-movie deal, and contractual clauses which had never been exercised, but worried him nonetheless giving Republic a share of his radio, personal appearance, and endorsement earnings. After trying unsuccessfully to work out the problems with Yates, Autry walked out of the studio chief's office and thereafter refused to report for the first day's shooting on a movie called Washington Cowboy, later re-titled Under Western Stars when it became the debut of Roy Rogers. After eight months of legal sparring, Autry was left enjoined from making live appearances. Republic, however, found itself with an uprising of theater owners and chains on its handswithout a guarantee that they would have any Autry movies to release, the studio's entire annual distribution plans were jeopardized. By the fall of 1938 the two sides had come to terms, with raises for Autry and freedom from the most onerous clauses in his old contract. Despite his best efforts, however, he couldn't help the theater owners over the block-booking policy, for it was now entrenched in the industry and an integral part of Republic's business plan. Meanwhile, his recording career continued, often in tandem with the movies. Whenever Republic could, they licensed the rights to whatever hit song Autry had most recently recorded to use it as the title of his newest picture when they did this, they always charged the theater owners somewhat more for the film, and they paid it, because the song had "pre-sold" the movie to the public. The songs kept coming, sometimes out of the movies themselves, and not always his own: Autry's friend Ray Whitley had written "Back in the Saddle Again" for a 1938 George O'Brien western called Border G-Man, and when Autry was looking for a theme song for his own radio show, he went back to Whitley's song, made a few changes, and recorded it himself. Along with "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine," it was the song he would be most closely associated with. Autry's career was interrupted by his service in the military during World War II, but when he returned to the recording and movie studios in 1945, he resumed both his singing and film careers without skipping a beat. He was still a name to be reckoned with at the box office, although he was never again ranked among the top-ten money-making stars of movies. The cultural dislocations caused by World War II and their effect upon rural and small-town America, and on the movie business, as well as the impending arrival of television, had shrunk the B-movie market to a shadow of its 1930s glory. His movies still made money, however, and he kept making them right into the beginning of the 1950s, after which he moved into television production Autry had already begun buying up radio stations before the war, and by the early '50s he was owner of several television stations, a studio, and his own production company, where he made his own television program as well as others that he owned. His singing career was bigger than ever, however. Even before the war, Autry had occasionally moved away from country music and scored big, as with his 1940 hit version of "Blueberry Hill," which predated Fats Domino's recording by 16 years. After the war, he still did cowboy and country songs such as "Silver Spurs" and "Sioux City Sue," sprinkled with occasional folk songs and pop numbers. In 1949, however, Autry scored the biggest single hit of his career and possibly the second- or third-biggest hit song ever recorded up to that time with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," a song by Johnny Marks that Autry had recorded only reluctantly, in a single take at the end of a session.That same year, he cut "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky," a number by a former forest ranger named Stan Jon, es, which became both a country and pop music standard, cut by everyone from Vaughan Monroe to Johnny Cash. By the mid-'50s, Autry's career had slowed. Rock & roll and rhythm & blues were attracting younger listeners, and a new generation of country music stars, heralded by Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins, were beginning to attract serious sales. Autry, then in his forties, still had his audience, but he gradually receded from the limelight to attend to his burgeoning business interests. He died October 2, 1998. Bruce Eder -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LES PAUL AND MARY FORD The guitar wizard and his lady of song Les Paul has had such a staggeringly huge influence over the way American popular music sounds today that many tend to overlook his significant impact upon the jazz world. Before his attention was diverted toward recording multi-layered hits for the pop market, he made his name as a brilliant jazz guitarist whose exposure on coast-to-coast radio programs guaranteed a wide audience of susceptible young musicians. Heavily influenced by Django Reinhardt at first, Paul eventually developed an astonishingly fluid, hard-swinging style of his own, one that featured extremely rapid runs, fluttered and repeated single notes, and chunking rhythm support, mixing in country & western licks and humorous crowd-pleasing effects. No doubt his brassy style gave critics a bad time, but the gregarious, garrulous Paul didn't much care; he was bent on showing his audiences a good time. Though he couldn't read music, Paul had a magnificent ear and innate sense of structure, conceiving complete arrangements entirely in his head before he set them down track by track on disc or tape. Even on his many pop hits for Capitol in the late '40s and early '50s, one can always hear a jazz sensibility at work in the rapid lead solo lines and bluesy bent notes and no one could close a record as suavely as Les. And of course, his early use of the electric guitar and pioneering experiments with multitrack recording, guitar design and electronic effects devices have filtered down to countless jazz musicians. Among the jazzers who acknowledge his influence are George Benson, Al DiMeola, Stanley Jordan (whose neck-tapping sound is very reminiscent of Paul's records), Pat Martino and Bucky Pizzarelli. Paul's interest in music began when he took up the harmonica at age eight, inspired by a Waukesha ditchdigger. Paul's only formal training consisted of a few unsuccessful piano lessons as a child and a, lthough he later took up the piano again professionally, exposure to a few Art Tatum records put an end to that. After a fling with the banjo, Paul took up the guitar under the influences of Nick Lucas, Eddie Lang and regional players like Pie Plant Pete and Sunny Joe Wolverton, who gave Les the stage name Rhubarb Red. At 17, Les played with Rube Tronson's Cowboys and then dropped out of high school to join Wolverton's radio band in St. Louis on KMOX. By 1934, he was in Chicago, and before long, he took on a dual radio persona, doing a hillbilly act as Rhubarb Red and playing jazz as Les Paul, often with an imitation Django Reinhardt quartet. His first records in 1936 were issued on the Montgomery Ward label as Rhubarb Red and on Decca backing blues shouter Georgia White on acoustic guitar. Dissatisfied with the electric guitars circulating in the mid-'30s, Paul, assisted by tech-minded friends, began experimenting with designs of his own. By 1937, Paul had formed a trio, and the following year, he moved to New York and landed a featured spot with Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians, which gave Les nationwide exposure through its broadcasts. That job ended in 1941 shortly after he was nearly electrocuted in an accident during a jam session in his Queens basement. After a long recovery period and more radio jobs, Paul moved to Hollywood in 1943, where he formed a new trio that made several V-Discs and transcriptions for MacGregor (some available on Laserlight). As a last-minute substitute for Oscar Moore, Paul played in the inaugural Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in Los Angeles on July 2, 1944; his witty chase sequence with Nat Cole on "Blues" and fleet work elsewhere (now on Verve's Jazz at the Philharmonic: The First Concert) are the most indelible reminders of his prowess as a jazzman. Later that year, Paul hooked up with Bing Crosby, who featured the Trio on his radio show, sponsored Les' recording experiments, and recorded six sides with him, including a 1945 number one hit, "It's Been a Long, Long Time." On his own, Paul also made several records with his Trio for Decca from 1944 to 1947, including jazz, country and Hawaiian sides, and backed singers like Dick Haymes, Helen Forrest and the Andrews Sisters. Meanwhile, in 1947, after experimenting in his garage studio and discarding some 500 test discs, Paul came up with a kooky version of "Lover" for eight electric guitars, all played by himself with dizzying multi-speed effects. He talked Capitol Records into releasing this futuristic disc, which became a hit the following year. Alas, a bad automobile accident in Oklahoma in January 1948 put Les out of action again for a year and a half; as an alternative to amputation, his right arm had to be set at a permanent right angle suitable for guitar playing. After his recovery, he teamed up with his soon-to-be second wife, a young country singer/guitarist named Colleen Summers whom he renamed Mary Ford, and reeled off a long string of spectacular multi-layered pop discs for Capitol, making smash hits out of jazz standards like "How High the Moon" and "Tiger Rag." The hits ran out suddenly in 1955, and not even a Mitch Miller-promoted stint at Columbia from 1958 to 1963 could get the streak going again. After a bitter divorce from Ford in 1964, a gig in Tokyo the following year, and an LP of mostly remakes for London in 1967, Paul went into semi-retirement from music. Aside from a pair of wonderfully relaxed country/jazz albums with Chet Atkins for RCA in 1976 and 1978, and a blazing duet with DiMeola on "Spanish Eyes" from the latter's 1980 Splendido Hotel CD, Paul has been long absent from the record scene (some rumored sessions for Epic in the '90s have not materialized). However, a 1991 four-CD retrospective, The Legend and the Legacy, contained an entire disc of 34 unreleased tracks, including a breathtaking electrified tribute to the Benny Goodman Sextet, "Cookin'." More significantly, Paul began a regular series of Monday night appearances at New York's Fat Tuesday's club in 1984 (from 1996, Les held court at the Iridium club across from Lincoln Center), attended by visiting celebrities and fans for whom he became an icon in the '80s. Arthritis has slowed Les' playing down in recent years, and his repertoire is largely unchanged from the '30s and '40s. But at any given gig, one can still learn a lot from the Wizard of Waukesha. Richard S. Ginell -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GREAT JERRY CLOWER Heard daily on the Johnny Western Show-Classic Country AM 1070 Born Sep 28, 1926 in Liberty, MS Died Aug 24, 1998 in Jackson, MS Style: Country Comedy If Homer & Jethro are the Abbott & Costello of country humor, then Jerry Clower is certainly country's answer to Bob Hope. As its crown prince of comedy, the rotund comic has made many generations laugh with his down-home humor but he has never crossed over, making him country's best-kept comic secret. A virtual mainstay on any number of shows on The Nashville Network, Clower relates stories dealing with all the issues, but in a G-rated style that's one part Will Rogers, the other part Andy Griffith. Raised in rural Mississippi, Clower originally planned on a career in agriculture and during his youth was actively involved in the 4-H club. After graduating, he joined the Navy, and after that attended Southwest Mississippi Junior College. He received a football scholarship and studied agriculture at Mississippi State University. He then obtained what must be the perfect job for a storyteller: he became a fertilizer salesman. In 1970, following a speaking engagement to a farm group in Lubbock, TX, a local disc jockey encouraged Clower to make a comedy album. The deejay then taped Clower's next talk and sent it to MCA who called back and offered Cline a contract. His record debut was "Jerry Clower from Yazoo City, Mississippi, Talkin." Like the 22 albums to come, this was taped before a live audience because he thinks laugh tracks are dishonest and featured songs and stories based on his past and present experiences with Southern country life. He also has a raft of interesting characters such as the lively, fictional "Ledbetter" family whose members frequently appear in the stories. His debut album was not nationally distributed, yet through word-of-mouth sold 8, 000 copies and eventually spent several weeks on the Billboard charts. Among his best known routines is "Coon Huntin' Story." In 1987, he deviated a bit from his usual schtick to begin his album Top Gum with a rap song. After his 1979 album Greatest Hits went gold in 1992, Clower signed a new contract with MCA the following year. When not performing live and recording, Clower hosted the nationally syndicated radio show Country Crossroads plus a syndicated television show. He has also written three best-sellers: Ain't God Good, Let the Hammer Down and Life Everlaughter. The subject of an award-winning documentary (Ain't God Good), Clower himself has received many honors for his good work: in 1976, he was awarded the national "4-H Alumni" award by the Future Farmers of America; his fans and the major trade magazines named him "Country Comic of the Year" ten years in a row; Yazoo City, Mississippi named a boulevard after him; he also earned the "Christian Service Award" from the Southern Baptist Radio and Television Commission; and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Mississippi College. Sandra Brennan & Larry Lapka -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A SALUTE TO TOMMY COLLINS Born-Leonard Raymond Sipes Born Sep 28, 1930 in Bethany, OK Died Mar 14, 2000 in Ashland City, TN Along with his contemporary Wynn Stewart, Tommy Collins was one of the first country musicians to establish a distinctive Bakersfield, California sound. During the course of the '50s, he released a series of hit singles that lightened up the tone of honky tonk with bouncing back beats, novelty lyrics and electric guitars. Collins explored a more serious side with his ballads, yet they continued to sound slightly different than his peers though they weren't as polished as the countrypolitain coming out of Nashville, they didn't have the grit of honky tonk. Legions of West Coast country performers most notably Buck Owens, who played guitar on several of Tommy's hit singles, and Merle Haggard built on the sound that Collins established in the early '50s. Collins wasn't able to cash-in on the Bakersfield craze of the '60s. By then, he had already quit the music business once, and was mounting a marginally successful comeback. Nevertheless, his influence loomed large, particularly on Haggard, who took Collins' "Carolyn" and "The Roots of My Raising" to the top of the charts in the early '70s. Collins (b. Leonard Raymond Sipes) was born just outside of Oklahoma City, spending his entire childhood in Oklahoma, where his father worked for the county. As a child, he began to sing and write songs, eventually appearing on local radio shows. Following his high-school graduation in 1948, he attended Edmond State Teachers College while he continued to perform music. During this time, he made a handful of singles for the California-based record label, Morgan. In the early '50s, he was in the army for a brief time, before he moved to Bakersfield, California with his friend Wanda Jackson and her family. Shortly afterward, the Jackson family moved back to Oklahoma, leaving Tommy Collins alone in Bakersfield. In a short time, Collins had begun to make friends and contacts within the city, eventually becoming friends with Ferlin Husky and the pair roomed together. After recording a handful of Collins' songs, Husky convinced his record company, Capitol, to offer Tommy a record contract and the fledging singer/songwriter signed to the label in June of 1953; at the time of signing, he adopted his stage-name of Tommy Collins, since it sounded more commercial than Leonard Sipes. Capitol and Tommy immediately assembled a backing band, which featured a then-unknown Buck Owens on lead guitar. Following one unsuccessful single, Collins' released the jaunty "You Better Not Do That," which became a huge hit in early 1954, spendind seven weeks at number two on the country charts. Since the song was a success, Collins continued to pursue a light-hearted, near-novelty direction with his subsequent hits and the formu, , l, a initially worked. Between the fall of 1954 and the spring of 1955, he had three Top 10 hits "Whatcha Gonna Do Now," "Untied," "It Tickles" and in the fall of 1955, the double A-sided single "I Guess I'm Crazy" and "You Oughta See Pickles Now," which both reached the Top 15. In addition to these hit singles, Faron Young had a huge hit with Tommy's "If You Ain't Lovin'," which was one of many songs that Collins wrote but didn't record that became hits. Collins was on the fast road to major success, but it stopped just as soon as it began. Tommy had a religious conversion in early 1956, and much of the material he recorded that year was sacred music; occasionally, he recorded duets with his wife Wanda Lucille Shahan as well. In 1957, Collins enrolled in the Golden Gate Baptist Seminary with the intention of becoming a minister. Two years later, he became a pastor. During all of his religious teachings, Collins continued to record for Capitol, but neither himself or the label were much interested in promoting his records, and he had no hits. When his contract w, ith the label expired in 1960, he stopped recording and enrolled as a student at Sacramento State College. For the next two years, he studied at the university. In early 1963, Collins decided he was unfulfilled by the ministry, so he left the church and headed back to Bakersfield with the intention of re-entering the music business. Capitol agreed to re-sign him and in 1964, he returned to the lower reaches of the charts with "I Can Do That," a duet with his wife Wanda. With the help of Johnny Cash, Collins switched labels and signed with Columbia in 1965; the following year, he had a Top 10 hit with "I Can't Bite, Don't Growl." For the next few years, he had a string of minor hit singles, none of which cracked the country Top 40. During this time, he also toured with his protegees, Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, acting as their opening act. By the early '70s, both Collins' professional and personal lives were on the verge of collapse, due to his increasing dependency on drugs and alcohol. In 1971, Wanda filed for a divorce, sending Tommy into a deep depression. Collins began to recover by continuing to write songs, many of which were recorded by Merle Haggard, including the 1972 number one hit single "Carolyn." In 1976, Tommy moved to Nashville, where he was able to secure a contract with Starday Records. Later that year, he released Tommy Collins Callin', a collection of his own versions of songs he had provided for other artists. Following the album's reelase, Tommy turned almost entirely to professional songwriting. In 1981, Merle Haggard had a hit single with "Leonard," his tribute to Collins. After the release of "Leonard," the spotlight again turned to Collins, who was now sober. Tommy signed a songwriting contract with Sawgrass Music, where his most notable success was Mel Tillis' Top 10 1984 hit, "New Patches." Throughout the '80s, Collins kept a low profile, though his songs continued to be recorded. George Strait recorded no less than two of Tommy's compositions during the decade, taking his new version of "If You Ain't Lovin'" to number one on the country charts. European record companies like Bear Family began reissuing his recordings, which led to an appearance at the 1988 Wembley Country Music Festival in England. In 1993, Collins signed a new publishing contract with Ricky Skaggs Music and continued to write songs professionally throughout the mid-'90s, dying at his home in Ashland City, TN on March 14, 2000. Stephen Thomas Erlewine -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRIBUTE TO ALL THE SONS OF THE PIONEERS Formed 1934 Years Active Group Members Roy Rogers Ken Curtis Hugh & Karl Farr Billy Armstrong Billy Liebert Pat Brady Ken Carson Tommy Doss Shug Fisher Rome Johnson Roy Lanham Luther Nallie Bob Nolan Doye O'Dell Lloyd Perryman Rusty Richards Tim Spencer Deuce Spriggins Dale Henry Warren Sunny Spencer Gary LeMaster John Nallie Ken Lattimore The Sons of the Pioneers were the foremost vocal and instrumental group in western music, and the definitive group specializing in cowboy songs, setting the standard for every group that has come since. They were also one of the longest surviving country music vocal groups in existence, going into their seventh decade. More important than their longevity, however, the greatest achievement of the Sons of the Pioneers la, y with the sheer quality of their work. Their superb harmonies and brilliant arrangements delighted three generations of listeners, and inspired numerous performers. The group's roots lay in the depths of the Great Depression, a time when the American spirit, and the spirits of millions of Americans, had nearly been broken by physical, economic, and emotional privation. Cincinnati-born Leonard Franklin Slye (b. Nov. 5, 1911see separate entry under Roy Rogers) had headed out to California in the spring of 1931 from his native Ohio, working jobs ranging from driving a gravel truck to picking fruit for the DelMonte company in California's Central Valley. By sheer chance, he entered an amateur singing contest on a Los Angeles radio show called Midnight Frolics, and a few days later got an invitation to join a group called the Rocky Mountaineers. Frye played guitar, sang and yodeled with the group, and before long they wanted an additional singer so they could extend their range. The man who answered the ad was Bob Nolan (born Robert Clarence Nobles, Apr. 1, 1908, New Brunswick, Canada), from Tucson, Arizona. Nolan had lived the life of an itinerant singer for a few years before settling down in Los Angeles, where he'd worked as a lifeguard as well as trying to make a living singing. Nolan joined the Rocky Mountaineers, and he and Slye developed a harmonious relationship that worked for several months, until he exited in frustration over the group's lack of success. Nolan was, in turn, replaced by Tim Spencer (born Vernon Spencer, July 13, 1908, Webb City, Missouri), who'd been earning his keep working in a Safeway Stores warehouse. Slye, Spencer, and another singer named Slumber Nichols quit the Rocky Mountaineers in the spring of 1932 to form a trio of their own, which never quite came off. Instead, Slye and Spencer spent a year moving in and out of the line-ups of short-lived groups like the International Cowboys and the O-Bar-O Cowboys. The latter group broke up following a disastrous tour, and Spencer left music for a time. Slye decided to push on with an attempt at a career, joining yet another group, Jack LeFevre and His Texas Outlaws, who were fixtures on a local Los Angeles radio station. In early 1933, things began looking up. He convinced Spencer to give up the , security of a steady job once more, and also recruited Bob Nolan, who was working as a caddy at a golf course in Bel Air. Weeks of rehearsals followed as they honed their singing hour after hour, while Slye continued to work with his radio singing group and Spencer and Nolan wrote songs. The group was called the Pioneer Trio, and made its debut on KFWB radio, following an audition that included the Nolan song "Way Out There." Their mix of singing and yodeling, coupled with their good spirits, won them a job. Within a few weeks, they were developing a large following of their own on Lefevre's show, with their harmony singing eliciting lots of mail, and soon they were featured on the station's morning and evening line-ups. The group in its earliest form consisted of Slye, Nolan, and Spencer on vocals, with Nolan playing string bass and Slye on rhythm guitar. A fourth member was needed to firm up their sound, and he arrived in the form of fiddle-player Hugh Farr (b. Plano, Texas, Dec. 6, 1906), early in 1934, who also added a bass voice to the group, and occasionally served as lead singer. The group's name was altered by accident on the eve of their going national. On one broadcast the station's announcer introduced them as "The Sons of the Pioneers." Asked why he'd done this, the announcer gave the excuse that they were too young to have been pioneers, but that they could be sons of pioneers. The name seemed to stick, it fit well, and,as they were no longer a trio, it made sense. The Sons of the Pioneers' fame quickly spread well beyond the confines of Los Angeles, as a result of an informal syndication project undertaken by their station, which recorded the group in 15- and 30-minute segments for rebroadcast all over the country. It wasn't long before a recording contract with the newly founded Decca label (now part of MCA) was signed, and on August 8, 1934 (the same day that Bing Crosby made his debut for the label), the Sons of the Pioneers made their first commercial recording. The group would cut 32 songs with Decca over the next two years. One of the songs cut at the first session was a Bob Nolan original called "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," which he'd originally written on a rainy day in 1932 as "Tumbling Leaves." The group had introduced it on the radio as "Tumbling Leaves," but later changed it to "tumbleweeds" as more in keeping with their western image. It became their theme song, and was quickly picked up by singers and bands all over the country. In 1935, the song was also licensed for use as the title of a Gene Autry western, the first but not the last time that the paths of Autry and the Pioneers would cross. In 1935, a fifth member, Hugh Farr's brother Karl (b. Rochelle, Texas, Apr. 25, 1909), who had played with Hugh on the radio during the 1930's, was added to the group on lead guitar, bringing the Pioneers' instrumental capabilities up to a par with their singing. Early that same year, they began appearing in movies for the first time, initially in short films and also providing the music for an Oswald The Rabbit cartoon, before making their first appearance in a full-length movie, The Old Homestead. Later that same year, they appeared in The Gallant Defender. They followed this with Song of the Saddle (1936), starring singer-turned-cowboy star Dick Foran, then with The Mysterious Avenger (1936), and in the Bing Crosby vehicle Rhythm of the Range. That same year, they appeared in a Gene Autry movie, The Big Show. Tim Spencer left the group in September of 1936 and was replaced by Lloyd Perryman (b. Ruth, Arkansas, Jan. 29, 1917), who was a fan of the Pioneers as well as a veteran of several singing groups, and who had already served as a "fill-in" Pioneer on occasion. Perryman was later to become a key member of the group, doing most of their vocal arrangements, serving as their on stage spokesman, and handling the group's business affairs as well, and would remain with them longer than anyone, 41 years. Their broadcasts, concerts, and film appearances continued, with work in the Foran-starring California Mail at Warner Bros., and in Autry's The Old Corral at Republic. Finally, in late 1937, the group was signed by Columbia to work in Charles Starrett's western films on a steady basis, beginning with The Old Wyoming Trail. It was the movies that led to the next major change in the Pioneers' line-up. Leonard Slye had previously played bit acting parts in a handful of B-westerns, including an appearance in a small role in a Gene Autry film, under the name Dick Weston. But in 1938, Autry and the studio found themselves in a contractual dispute that they were unable to resolve, and the cowboy star failed to report for his next movie. Autry was placed on suspension while the studio began looking for a replacement that they could put into the picture. Slye auditioned and won the part, and in the process was given a new name for his first starring film: Roy Rogers. Under Western Stars, as the film was eventually titled, was a hit, and Leonard Slye/Roy Rogers had a whole new career. In order to do the movie, however, he was forced to leave the Sons of the Pioneers, who were under exclusive contract with Columbia Pictures. To replace Slye, the group chose a friend of his, a singer and comic named Pat Brady, who played bass and handled much of the comedy within the group, although vocally he was weaker than the others, which forced the Pioneers to expand their line-up once more in 1938, with Tim Spencer returning to fill out the harmony parts. The group continued to make movies with Charles Starrett, appearing in 28 movies with him between 1937 and 1941. The Sons of the Pioneers' recording career kept pace with their movie and radio work. They left Decca Records in 1936 to sign with the American Record Company (later part of Columbia Records), and appeared on that label's Okeh and Vocalion imprints on 32 songs in two sessions in late 1937. Although he'd officially left the group to pursue his film career, Roy Rogers returned to sing with the Sons of the Pioneers on those sessions. The 1938-1942 version of the group, consisting of Nolan, Spencer, Perryman, the Farrs and Brady, became the "classic" Pioneers line-up, the version of the group most familiar to audiences, largely because of their screen appearances. In 1941, the group's contract with Columbia was up and, after years of Rogers' entreaties, Republic Pictures signed the Pioneers to appear in his movies, beginning with Red River Valley (1941), in which they were billed as "Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers." The same year that they signed their contract with Republic, the group also signed with Decca Records. The American entry into World War II brough about the next change in their line-up. Perryman and Brady were both called up for the draft. Perryman was replaced by Ken Carson while he was fighting with the American forces in Burma, while Brady became a soldier in Patton's Third Army, and was replaced by musician and comic (George) Shug Fisher. In 1944, the Sons of the Pioneers moved to RCA-Victor, signed up by the head of company's country music division, Steve Sholes (who was also later responsible for bringing Elvis Presley to the label). They would be associated with RCA longer than to any other label, 24 years broken by a brief one-year stint elsewhere. The change in labels resulted in the first major alteration in the Pioneers' sound since their founding. Previously, they'd been a self-contained outfit, providing virtually all of the sounds, vocal and instrumental, needed on their records. RCA, however, saw fit to provide the group's music with additional back-up in the form of fuller instrumentation, including small-scale orchestration. At first, it worked reasonably well, as the Pioneers re-recorded several of their standards (including "Cool Water" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds") with new arrangements that proved popular, and many fans regard their mid-1940's versions of their classic songs as the best of the many renditions that they recorded. They also recorded more gospel material, as well as many pop-oriented and novelty songs. The Pioneers also provided back up for other performers throughout their time at RCA, including Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and Vaughn Monroe. Amid all of this varied activity, which yielded hundreds of songs, they recorded a number of new western classics during their stay on the label, most notably Stan Jones's "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky" in 1949. Originally, Bob Nolan had passed on doing the song, but after it became a hit for Vaughn Monroe, the Pioneers covered it themselves. The group had ceased appearing on screen in movies with the end of Rogers' B-westerns at Republic in 1948, but two years later a new career opened up for them in movies courtesy of John Ford, who used their singing in three of his most acclaimed westerns, Wagon Master (1950)in which they had four songs, including "Wagons West"Rio Grande (1950), and The Searchers (1956). Perryman was back in the line-up in 1946, although his interim replacement, Ken Carson (who later became a well known singer in his own right on The Garry Moore Show), continued to record with the group for another year. During this era, the group made some magnificent recordings; Spencer contributed more than his share of important songs, Fisher contributed as a songwriter, and Perryman took the lead vocals on some numbers. Pat Brady also returned to the line-up later in 1946, and the group continued working in Roy Rogers' western movies through 1948. These were golden years for the Sons of the Pioneers. Their hits on the Country singles chart included "Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima" (1945), "No One to Cry To" (1946), "Baby Doll," "Cool Water," and "Tear Drops In My Heart" (all top five in 1947), "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and "Cool Water" (both 1948), "My Best To You" and "Room Full Of Roses" (both 1949). It wasn't to last, however, as time and changing public tastes were to take their toll on the group. Spencer, who had written many of the group's more important originals, finally left the group in 1949, after several years of worsening problems with his voice. He was replaced by Ken Curtis (b. Lamar, Colorado, July 2, 1916), a former singer with Tommy Dorsey and sometime actor, who later became immortalized on television as Festus, Marshal Matt Dillon's grizzled backwoods deputy, on Gunsmoke. As a parting gesture, Spencer gave the group one of his best songs, "Room Full of Roses," which became Curtis's first lead vocal with the group. Soon after, Roy Rogers began shooting his television series and recruited Brady as his comic relief sidekick. He was replaced by his wartime fill-in, Fisher. But it was the retirement of Bob Nolan in 1949 that caused the biggest change in the group's line-up. Essentially, his exit came about purely for personal reasons. He was a very private individual to begin with, an, d 16 years with the Pioneers, although rewarding musically and financially, had begun to wear on him. He wanted more time to himself, and more time to write songs. But the gap he left was hugeapart from having written many of the Pioneers' best known songs, Nolan had been the lead singer on many of their hits. He did continue to provide them with songs after his retirement, and even rejoined them in the studio. Lloyd Perryman stepped into the breech opened by Nolan's exit. He had been taking a leadership role in the group over the previous few years and now took over leadership, recruiting a new sixth member, Tommy Doss (b. Weiser, Idaho, Sept. 26, 1920). Doss was an excellent singer, and his voice meshed beautifully with Perryman and Curtis, but within a year of his joiningthrough no fault of histhe group, 's record sales began to decline. There was an overall drop of interest in cowboy songs and western music, which resulted in RCA's attempts to push the Pioneers into the pop vocal market. These efforts failed, and simultaneously lost them part of their country audience. Ironically, in 1952, the same year that the Pioneers got their first LP releases, the 10-inch discs Cowboy Hymns and Spirituals (made up of recordings from 1947), and Cowboy Classics (made up of material from 1945 and 1946), the group also left RCA, in the wake of their declining sales figures. They didn't record at all in 1953, but at the end of the year the group signed once again to Coral Records. Simultaneously with the move, Curtis and Fisher both exited the line-up, to go into television and film work. They co-starred on one television series, and Curtis would later serve as co-producer on a pair of low-budget horror films at the end of the 1950's, one of which, The Giant Gila Monster (1958), would feature Fisher. They were replaced by Dale Warren (b. Summerville, Kentucky, June 1, 1925), a veteran of Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage, and Deuce Spriggens (born George R. Braunsdorf), a former member of Spade Cooley's band. The group's one-year stay at Coral proved no more successful than the last few years at RCA, however. By 1955 they were back with RCA, where they stayed for another 14 years. In a major change of strategy, RCA now wanted the old Bob Nolan/Tim Spencer sound. Nolan agreed to return to record with the group in the studio, but Spencer was no longer in good enough health or voice to be part of the group, and so Ken Curtis was also asked to return as part of the studio version of the Pioneers. Pat Brady also came back as bassist in the studio. The Sons of the Pioneers, in effect, became two groupsNolan, Perryman, and Curtis were the studio vocal trio, backed by Brady and Hugh and Karl Farr, recreating the group's classic sound on record, while Perryman, Doss, Warren, the Farrs, and Spriggens (who left soon after this arrangement began) played the concerts. It wasn't until 1958 that the touring version of the Pioneers began making their records as well. By that time, more changes had overtaken the line-up. Nolan retired as a singer once and for all, and Hugh Farr, who felt that his fiddle playing wasn't appreciated by the other members, quit as well in 1958. Karl Farr continued as a member, but on September 20, 1961, in the middle of a concert performance, he became agitated over a guitar string that had broken, and suddenly collapsed and died of heart failure. The same month, Roy Lanham (b. Corbin, Kentucky, Jan. 16, 1923), one of the busiest session,guitarists on the West Coast, joined the group as Karl Farr's successor. Pat Brady was also back in the line-up by then, having rejoined to replace Shug Fisher, who retired in 1959. Brady remained with the group until 1967. The next major change in the line-up came in 1963, when Tommy Doss retired from touring with the group, although he recorded with them until 1967. In 1968, Luther Nallie joined the group as lead singer, and remained with the Pioneers until 1974. They were still very much a going concern, not only on the concert stage but in the recording studioover a 12 ye, ar period from 1957 until 1969, RCA released 21 albums by the group. Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer were both elected the Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame in 1971. A 1972 gathering at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles brought together most of the surviving members of the Sons of the Pioneers except for Ken Curtis, including a reunion of the original Pioneer Trio of Roy Rogers, Bob Nolan, and Tim Spencer. And in 1976, the Sons of the Pioneers were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. This was a last hurrah for the original and early group members. Tim Spencer died on April 26, 1976, and Lloyd Perryman, who had been with the group since 1936, died on May 31, 1977. Hugh Farr, who had retired from the group in 1958, passed away on April 17, 1980, and Bob Nolan died almost exactly two months later, on June 16, 1980. After Perryman passed away, the leadership of the Sons of the Pioneers was taken over by Dale Warren, who had joined in 1952. He carried the group into the 1990's. They continued to perform in concert, and recorded as well, with a line-up that featured Rusty Richards (vocals), Doye O'Dell (guitar, vocals), Billy Armstrong (fiddle), Billy Liebert (accordion), and Rome Johnson (vocals). These Pioneers, along with younger country music groups such as the Riders in the Sky, were a constant reminder of the legacy of this much-loved western group. Bruce Eder -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- COUNTRY MUSIC COWBOY-MARTY ROBBINS Born Martin David Robbinson Born Sep 26, 1925 in Glendale, AZ Died Dec 8, 1982 in Nashville, TN No artist in the history of country music has had a more stylistically diverse career than Marty Robbins. Never content to remain just a country singer, Robbins performed successfully in a dazzling array of styles during more than thirty years in the business. To his credit, Robbins rarely followed trends, but often took off in directions that stunned both his peers and fans. Plainly Robbins was not h, emmed , in by anyone's definition of country music. Although his earliest recordings were unremarkable weepers, by the mid-'50s Robbins was making forays into rock music, adding fiddles to the works of Chuck Berry and Little Richard. By the late '50s, Robbins had pop hits of his own with teen fare like "A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)." Almost simultaneously, he completed work on his Hawaiian Songs of the Islands album. In 1959, Robbins stretched even further with the hit single "El Paso," thus heralding a pattern of "gunfighter ballads" that lasted the balance of his career. Robbins also enjoyed bluesy hits like "Don't Worry," which introduced a pop audience to fuzztone guitar in 1961. Barely a year later, Robbins scored a calypso hit with "Devil Woman." Marty Robbins also left a legacy of gospel music and a string of sentimental , ballads, showing that he would croon with nary a touch of hillbilly twang. Born a, nd raised in Glendale, Arizona, Marty Robbins (b. Martin David Robertson, September 26, 1925; d. December 8, 1982) was exposed to music at an early age. His mother's father was "Texas" Bob Heckle, a former medicine show man who told his grandson cowboy stories and tales of the travelling show. Marty became enraptured by the cowboy tales and once he became a teenager, Robbins worked on his older brother's ranch outside of Phoenix, concentrating more on his cowboy duties than his studies. Indeed, he never graduated from high school and by his late teens, he started turning petty crimes while living as a hobo. In 1943, he joined the US Navy to fight in World War II and while he was in the service, he learned how to play guitar and developed a taste for Hawaiian music. Robbins left the Navy in 1947, returning to Glendale, where he began to sing in local clubs and radio stations. Often, he performed under the name "Jack Robinson" in an attempt to disguis, e his endeavors from his disapproving mother. Within three years, he had developed a strong reputation throughout Arizona and was appearing regularly on a Mesa radio station and had his own television show, Western Caravan, in Phoenix. By that time, he had settled on the stage name of Marty Robbins. Robbins landed a recording contract with Columbia in 1951 with the assistence of Little Jimmy Dickens, who had been a fan ever since appearing on Western Caravan. Early in 1952, Marty released his first single, "Love Me or Leave Me Alone," appeared. It wasn't a success and neither was its follow-up, "Crying 'Cause I Love You," but "I'll Go on Alone" soared to number one in January of 1953. Following its blockbuster success, Robbins signed a publishing deal with Acuff-Rose and he joined the Grand Ole Opry. "I Couldn't Keep from Crying" kept him in the Top Ten in the spring of 1953, but his two 1954 singles "Pretty Words" and "Call Me Up (And I'll Come Calling on You) stalled on the charts. A couple of rock & roll covers, "That's All Right" and "Maybellene," returned him to the country Top Ten in 1955, , but it wasn't until "Singing the Blues" shot to number one in the fall of 1956 that Marty's career was truly launched. Staying at number one for a remarkable 13 weeks, "Singing the Blues" established Robbins as a star, but its progress on the pop charts was impeded by Guy Mitchell's cover, which released shortly after Robbins' original and quickly leapfrogged to number one. The process repeated itself on "Knee Deep in the Blues," which went to number three on the country charts but didn't even appear on the pop charts due to Mitchell's hastily released cover. To head off such competition, Marty decided to record with easy-listening conductor Ray Conniff for his next singles. It was a crafty move and one that kept him commercially viable during the peak of rock & roll. The first of these collaborations, "A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)," became a huge hit, spending five weeks at the top of the country charts in the spring of 1957 and peaking at number two on the pop charts, giving him his long-awaited breakthrough record. After "A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)," Marty Robbins was a regular fixation on both the pop and country charts until the mid-'60s.The Burt Bacharach and Hal David composition "The Story of My Life" returned Robbins to the number one country slot in early 1957 (number 15 pop), while "Just Married," "Stairway of Love" and "She Was Only Seventeen (He Was One Year More)" kept him in teen-pop territory, as well as the upper reaches of the charts, throughout 1958. In addition to his pop records, Robbins recorded rockabilly singles and Hawaiian albums that earned their own audience. During that time, he began a couple of business ventures of his own, including a booking agency and a record label called Robbins. He also ventured into movies, appearing in the Westerns Raiders of Old California (1957) and Badge of Marshal Brennan (1958), where he played a Mexican named Felipe. The films not only demonstrated Marty's love for Western myths and legends, but,they signalled the shift in musical direction he was about to take. Over the course of 1958 and 1959, he recorded a number of cowboy and western songs, and the first of these "The Hanging Tree," the theme to the Gary Cooper film of the same name became a hit in the spring of 1959. However, the song just set the stage for Robbins' signature song and biggest Western hit, "El Paso." Released in the summer, the single spent six months on the country charts, including seven weeks at number one, while hitting the top of the pop charts. A full album of Western songs, Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, became equally successful, reaching number six on the pop charts and, by the mid-'60s, it had gone platinum. "El Paso" began a very successful decade for Marty Robbins. "Big Iron," another Western song, followed its predecessor to the Top Ten of the country charts in 1960, but it wasn't until 1961 that he had another huge hit in the form of "Don't Worry." Fueled by a fuzz-toned guitar (the first country record to feature such an effect), "Don't Worry" spent ten weeks at number one and crossed over to number three on the pop charts. The following year, "Devil Woman" became nearly as successful, spending eight weeks at number one; it was followed by another number one, "Ruby Ann." Between "Don't Worry" and "Devil Woman," he had a number of smaller hits, most notably the Top Ten "It's Your World," and for the rest of the decade, his biggest hits alternated with more moderate successes. With his career sailing along, Robbins began exploring race-car driving in 1962, initially driving in dirt-track racing competitions before competing in the famous NASCAR race. However, car racing was just a hobby, and he continued to have hits in 1963, including the number one "Begging to You." The following year, he starred in the film Ballad of a Gunfighter, which was based on songs from his classic album. Marty's chart success continued throughout 1964, before suddenly dipping after he took Gordon Lightfoot's "Ribbon of Darkness" to number one in the spring of 1965. For the remainder of the year and much of the next, his singles failed to crack the Top Ten and he concentrated on filming a television series called The Drifter, which was based on a character he had created. He also acted frequently, including the Nashville exploitation films Country Music Caravan, The Nashville Story, and Tennessee Jamboree, and the stock-car drama Hell on Wheels. Though "The Shoe Goes on the Other Foot Tonight" reached number three in 1966, it wasn't until "Tonight Carmen" reached number one on the country charts in 1967 that his career picked up considerably. During the next two years, he regularly hit the Top Ten with country-pop songs like "I Walk Alone" and "It's a Sin." Robbins suffered from a heart attack while oon tour in August 1969, which lead to a bypass operation in 1970.,Despite his brush with death, he continued to record, tour and act. Early in 1970, "My Woman My Woman, My Wife" became his last major crossover hit, reaching number one on the country charts and 42 on the pop charts, and eventually earning a Grammy award. Robbins left Columbia Records in 1972, spending the next three years at Decca/MCA. Though "Walking Piece of Heaven," "Love Me" and "Twentieth Century Drifter" all reached the Top Ten, most of his singles were unenthusiastically received. Nevertheless, he sustained his popularity through concer, ts and film appearances, including the Lee Marvin movie A Man and a Train and Guns of a Stranger. In March of 1974, Marty became the last performer to play at the Ryman Auditorium, the original location of the Grand Ole Opry; a week later, he was the first to play at the new Grand Ole Opry House. The honors and tributes to Robbins continued to roll out during the mid-'70s, as he was inducted into Nashville Songwriters International Hall of Fame in 1975. That same year, he returned to Columbia Records, and over 1976 and 1977 he had his last sustained string of Top Ten hits, with "El Paso City" and "Among My Souvenirs" reaching number one. Following this two-year burst of success, Robbins settled into a series of minor hits for the next four years. In October of 1982, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Two months later, he suffered his third major heart attack (his second arrived in early 1981) and although he had surgery, he died on December 8. In the wake of his de, ath, his theme song to Clint Eastwood's movie Honky Tonk Man was released and climbed to number ten. Robbins left behind an immense legacy, including no less than 94 charting country hits and a body of recorded work that proved how eclectic country music could be. Hank Davis -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4200 North Old Lawrence Road Wichita, KS 67219 Phone: 316-838-9141 Fax: 316-838-3607 Lobby Hours: M-F 8:00 - 5:30 Studio Line - 436-1070