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THE talented group Country Legends Spectacular celebrates 40 years in the South African music industry this year and, as part of their celebrations, they hosted a benefit concert for Sally Vaughn on Sunday, July 3, at the Panorama Flea Market.
The group includes Big Daddy (Lance James), Queen of Country (Barbara Ray), Midnight Cowboy (Clive Bruce), Mama Country (Sally Vaughn), Little Jo (Jody Wayne) and The Killer (Tommy Dell), together with the Rodeo Girls. They plan on celebrating this 40-year milestone by hosting various country concerts around South Africa.
In 1983 Sally earned a Sarie Award as Best Female Country Singer for her songs ‘The Teddy Bear Song’ and ‘With You’ on her album ‘Mama Country’, By this time she was already known as ‘Mama Country’, a title bestowed on her by Lance James. James decided to present Sally’s rendition of ‘Glory Glory Hallelujah’ to the American Country Music Association and shortly thereafter, Sally was invited to visit the USA.
The country legend, whose heart is sadly only functioning at 20 per cent, is not allowed to grace the public with her nightingale voice as she has been doing for 55 years. Speaking to the RECORD, Sally thanked Panorama Flea Market and all the people who acknowledged her and decided to host this benefit concert for her.
“It has been wonderful working with Panorama for 25 to 30 years and, right now, I’m just taking it one day at a time. I love the people and the people in the South are my people. Thank you Panorama for thinking about me and I wish you continued success in every new venture. To all the artists, you are like my friends and my other family. We are always there for each other and for that I am grateful,” said Sally.
In June 1984, Sally performed in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Annual Country Awards and received a standing ovation for her songs ‘Glory Glory Hallelujah’ and ‘Somewhere Between’. In 1989, Sally Vaughn, Lance James, Clive Bruce, Billy Forrest and Joanna Field began the group ‘Over the Hillbillies’ and released five albums.
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Sally Vaughn (Mama Country) is known for her great hit “Glory Glory Hallelujah” among others. She received a standing ovation in the USA when she performed this song to 20 000 people.
Lance James (Big Daddy) is a household name. He is a multi award winner, including seven Lifetime Achievement awards for contribution and dedication to the music industry. His ‘Keep It Country’ programme on radio has been running for more than 40 years and is now broadcast on 18 stations countrywide and on internet radio.
Barbara Ray (The Queen of Country) has earned more than 22 Gold records during her career as well as numerous awards.
Clive Bruce (The Midnight Cowboy) is the smooth and versatile entertainer, presented the ‘Sing Country’ TV shows for five years on TV4, and Rewind for three years.
The Rodeo Girls are a line-dancing group who have also danced in the United States, with much success. They have received International Gold Awards for their line dancing techniques, and add much glamour to the show.
Lance James, Barbara Ray, Clive Bruce, Sally Vaughn, Jody Wayne and Tommy Dell, are Gold and Platinum sellers, multi award winners, TV, radio and stage stars, and tour throughout South Africa constantly.
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Dolly Parton, in full Dolly Rebecca Parton, (born January 19, 1946, Locust Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.), American country music singer, guitarist, and actress, best known for pioneering the interface between country and pop music styles.
Parton was born into a poor farming family, the fourth of 12 children. She displayed an aptitude and passion for music at an early age, and as a child she was a featured singer and guitarist on local radio and television shows in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1964, immediately following her high school graduation, she set out for
In Nashville Parton became the protégée of country music singer and Grand Ole Opry star Porter Wagoner. Through repeated appearances on Wagoner’s syndicated television show, Parton gained coast-to-coast recognition. She soon attracted the attention of the music industry moguls at RCA Records and subsequently recorded more than a dozen hit songs—together with Wagoner—on the RCA label. Owing much to her association with Wagoner, Parton rapidly emerged as one of country music’s most popular singers.
In 1974 Parton discontinued her work with Wagoner to launch a solo career, in which she enjoyed immediate success: in both 1975 and ’76 she was chosen female singer of the year by the Country Music Association (CMA) on the strength of such songs as “Jolene” and “Love Is Like a Butterfly” (both 1974). About the same time, Parton began to cross over to the pop music market, and in 1978 she won a Grammy Award for her song “Here You Come Again” and was named entertainer of the year by the CMA. As her career developed, Parton received more Grammys, both for her songs, including “9 to 5” (1980) and “Shine” (2001), and for her albums, including Trio (1987; with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris) and The Grass Is Blue (1999). Parton was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999, and she continued to release hit albums, including Blue Smoke (2014) and Pure & Simple (2016).
In the 1980s Parton appeared in several successful films, most notably Nine to Five (1980; also known as 9 to 5) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), for which she revived one of her most popular songs, “I Will Always Love You” (1974). (Whitney Houston later recorded the song for the film The Bodyguard [1992], and it went on to sell millions of copies.) In 1989 Parton played a principal role in Steel Magnolias. In the 1990s and 2000s she guest-starred in many television series and appeared in several made-for-television movies. In 2009 Parton wrote the music and lyrics for a Broadway musicaladaptation of the film 9 to 5. Three years later she starred in the film Joyful Noise. A TV movie about her early life, Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors (2015), took its name from her 1971 song and was followed the next year by a Christmas-themed sequel, in which Parton appeared.
Aside from her stage and screen activities, Parton was involved in a broad array of other projects. In 1986 she opened Dollywood—a theme park centred on Appalachian traditions—in the Great Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee. Two years later she created the Dollywood Foundation, an organization with the aim of providing inspiration and educational resources to children. In 1994 Parton published her autobiography, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, which was a best seller in the United States.
Parton’s contributions to the arts and culture of the United States earned her numerous awards from organizations beyond the music and film industry. She was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress in 2004 for her enrichment of the American cultural heritage. In 2005 she received the U.S. government’s National Medal of Arts, and in 2006 she was recognized at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., for her lifetime artistic achievement.
Alternative Titles: “Man in Black”, John R. Cash
Johnny Cash, byname of J.R. Cash, (born February 26, 1932, Kingsland, Arkansas, U.S.—died September 12, 2003, Nashville, Tennessee), American singer and songwriter whose work broadened the scope of country and western
music.
Cash was exposed from childhood to the music of the rural South—hymns, folk ballads, and songs of work and lament—but he learned to play guitar and began writing songs during military service in Germany in the early 1950s. After military service he settled in Memphis, Tennessee, to pursue a musical career. Cash began performing with the Tennessee Two (later Tennessee Three), and appearances at county fairs and other local events led to an audition with Sam Phillips of Sun Records, who signed Cash in 1955. Such songs as “Cry, Cry, Cry,” “Hey, Porter,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” and “I Walk the Line” brought him considerable attention, and by 1957 Cash was the top recording artist in the country and western field. His music was noted for its stripped-down sound and focus on the working poor and social and political issues. Cash, who typically wore black clothes and had a rebellious persona, became known as the “Man in Black.”
In the 1960s Cash’s popularity began to wane as he battled drug addiction, which would recur throughout his life. At the urging of June Carter of the Carter Family, with whom he had worked since 1961, he eventually sought treatment; the couple married in 1968. By the late 1960s Cash’s career was back on track, and he was soon discovered by a wider audience. The signal event in Cash’s turnaround was the album Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968), which was recorded live in front of an audience of some 2,000 inmates at California’s Folsom Prison. The performance was regarded as a risky move by record company executives, but it proved to be the perfect opportunity for Cash to reestablish himself as one of country music’s most relevant artists. He used the success of that album and its follow-up, Johnny Cash at San Quentin (1969), to focus attention on the living conditions of inmates in American prisons, and he became a vocal champion for penal reform and social justice. Live appearances in New York and London and his television show,“The Johnny Cash Show” (1969–71), which deviated from the standard variety program by featuring such guests as Ray Charles, Rod McKuen, and Bob Dylan (who had enlisted Cash to appear on his 1969 album, Nashville Skyline), brought to the general public his powerfully simple songs of elemental experiences.
Although Cash had established himself as a legend in the music world, by the late 1980s he faced dwindling record sales and interest. In 1994, however, he experienced an unexpected resurgence after signing with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings, which was best known for its metal and rap acts. Cash’s first release on the label, the acoustic American Recordings, was a critical and popular success, and it won him a new generation of fans. Later records included Unchained (1996), American III: Solitary Man (2000), American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), and the posthumous American V: A Hundred Highways (2006). The recipient of numerous awards, he won 13 Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 1999, and 9 Country Music Association Awards. Cash was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980 and to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. In 1996 he received a Kennedy Center Honor. His autobiographies Man in Black and Cash (cowritten with Patrick Carr) appeared in 1975 and 1997, respectively. Walk the Line, a film based on Cash’s life, was released in 2005.
Willie Nelson, (born April 29, 1933, Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.), American songwriter and guitarist who was one of the most popular country music singers of the late 20th century.
Nelson learned to play guitar from his grandfather and at the age of 10 was performing at local dances. He served in the U.S. Air Force before becoming a disc jockey in Texas, Oregon, and California during the 1950s. He also was performing in public and writing songs then. By 1961 he was based in Nashville, Tennessee, and playing bass in Ray Price’s band. Price was among the first of dozens of country,
rhythm-and-blues, and popular singers to achieve hit records with Nelson’s 1960s tunes, which included the standards “Hello Walls,” “Night Life,” “Funny How Time Slips Away,” and, most famously, “Crazy.” By contrast, Nelson achieved only modest success as a singer in that decade.
In the early 1970s Nelson moved back to Texas and, with Waylon Jennings, spearheaded the country music movement known as outlaw music. Beginning with the narrative album Red Headed Stranger (1975), which featured the hit song “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” he became one of the most popular performers in country music as a whole. Nelson’s performances featured a unique sound, of which his relaxed behind-the-beat singing style and gut-string guitar were the most distinctive elements. Unusual for a country album, songs by Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Berlin, and other mainstream popular songwriters made up his Stardust (1978), which eventually sold more than five million copies in the United States. Nelson found further crossover success with the album Always on My Mind (1982) and the single “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” (1984), a duet with Julio Iglesias. After making his filmacting debut in The Electric Horseman (1979), Nelson appeared in such movies as Honeysuckle Rose (1980)—which introduced what would become his signature song, “On the Road Again”—and Red Headed Stranger (1986), a drama based on his album.
In 1990 the Internal Revenue Service, claiming Nelson owed $16.7 million in unpaid taxes, seized his assets. To raise money, he recorded the album The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories (1991), which initially was available only through phone orders but was sold in stores beginning in 1992. Despite that setback, he continued to record at a prolific pace into the 21st century. His subsequent albums included Across the Borderline (1993), the atmospheric Teatro (1998), and the reggae-tinged Countryman (2005).
As Nelson aged into the role of a musical elder statesman, his recordings increasingly focused on traditional songs and covers. Among them were Heroes (2012); Let’s Face the Music and Dance (2013), a collection of standards; To All the Girls… (2013), a series of duets with female singers; and Summertime (2016), a set of George Gershwin songs. In 2014 Nelson issued Band of Brothers, which comprised largely new material, and Willie’s Stash, Vol. 1: December Day, the first in a series of releases from his vast catalogue of recordings. The latter record focused on his collaborations with his sister and pianist, Bobbie. He later released two collections of original meditations on mortality, God’s Problem Child (2017) and Last Man Standing (2018). Throughout his career he recorded with dozens of other singers and released album-length collaborations with such musicians as Jennings, Merle Haggard, and jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. He was the recipient of several Grammy Awards.
In addition to his own performance career, Nelson produced annual Fourth of July country music festivals in Texas and elsewhere, and in 1985 he cofounded Farm Aid, which organized festivals to raise money for farmers. Nelson was a well-known and enthusiastic connoisseur of
marijuana, and, after a few states legalized the drug’s sale and purchase, he launched (2015) a marijuana supply company, Willie’s Reserve. He penned several memoirs (with coauthors), including Willie: An Autobiography (1988), Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road (2012), and It’s a Long Story: My Life (2015).
Nelson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993. He accepted a Kennedy Center Honor in 1998, and in 2015 he received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.
Kris Kristofferson, in full Kristoffer Kristofferson, (born June 22, 1936, Brownsville, Texas, U.S.), American singer, songwriter, and actor known for his gravelly voice and rugged good looks and a string of country music hits, notably “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “For the Good Times,” and “Once More with Feeling.”
Early life
As a teenager, Kristofferson was an accomplished writer and athlete. He attended Pomona College in California, where he played football and became a Golden Gloves boxer, a cadet commander of his ROTC battalion, the sports editor of the school paper, and an honour student in English. He also won awards for his short-story writing in a competition sponsored by the Boston-based journal The Atlantic Monthly. He received a Rhodes scholarship to attend the University of Oxford in England, where he studied the poetry of William Blake and earned a master’s degree.
Kristofferson, a son and grandson of military officers, joined the U.S. Army in 1960, becoming a U.S. Army Ranger and learning to fly helicopters while stationed in what was then West Germany. His studies in literature and poetry prompted an interest in songwriting, and, while he was in the army, he put together a band. When he finished his military tour, he turned down a teaching position at West Point Academy and instead settled in Nashville, where, despite his parents’ objections, he began to pursue a career in music. Kristofferson began selling his songs and working day jobs. He had the good fortune to meet Johnny Cash, who was already a star and took Kristofferson under his wing. Cash introduced Kristofferson at the 1969 Newport Folk Festival, where the struggling singer-songwriter first performed for a big audience and, subsequently, gained some footing in the music industry.
Music career success
Although Kristofferson released an eponymous solo album in 1970 with Monument Records, he continued to be recognized primarily for his songwriting, which was sought after by country and pop singers alike. He also collaborated with poet and cartoonist Shel Silverstein, who cowrote songs such as “Your Time’s Comin’ ” (recorded by Faron Young in 1969) and “Once More with Feeling” (recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis in 1970). “Me and Bobby McGee,” though usually associated with Janis Joplin (who recorded it shortly before her death in 1970), was written by Kristofferson and first recorded by Roger Miller in 1969. It was later recorded by Kenny Rogers (1969) and Gordon Lightfoot (1970) as well as by many other artists of various genres since that time. Kristofferson recorded and released the song on his album Kristofferson in 1970.
He continued to produce hits, such as “For the Good Times,” recorded by Ray Price and then named song of the year for 1970 by the Academy of Country Music. That same year Cash’s recording of Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” was named song of the year by the Country Music Association. In 1971 three of the five Grammy Award nominations for best country song were for songs written by Kristofferson, as were two of the five nominations for song of the year. He won his first Grammy for 1971’s best country song: “Help Me Make It Through the Night.” He recorded about a dozen of his own albums during the 1970s, three of which were collaborations with country singer Rita Coolidge, who was his wife from 1973 to 1979. Their first album, Full Moon (1973), went gold (achieved sales of half a million copies).
Film career and Highwaymen
While he continued to write songs, record, and perform, Kristofferson was also gaining a reputation as a movie actor. He landed his first small role as a singer in The Last Movie (1971), directed by Dennis Hopper. His first notable performance was in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), in which he played the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid opposite James Coburn. He played the romantic lead in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), opposite Ellen Burstyn; The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976), opposite Sarah Miles; and A Star Is Born (1976), opposite Barbra Streisand. The latter was a breakthrough film for Kristofferson, earning him a Golden Globe for his performance as an aging alcoholic musician. However, Heaven’s Gate (1980), in which he also starred, was a critical and financial flop, and afterward he shifted his focus to television series and made-for-TV movies for the next several years.
Still moving forward with his music career, Kristofferson during the 1980s started a band with fellow country musicians Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. The band recorded a single and then an album titled Highwayman (1985). Both the single and the album rose to number one on the Billboard country music charts. The group, which became known informally as the Highwaymen, released three albums over the course of a decade, with Highwayman 2 in 1990 and their last one, The Road Goes On Forever, in 1995.
In 1996 Kristofferson was cast as a corrupt sheriff in the John Sayles film Lone Star. His performance was a critical success, revived his acting career, and won him many more roles through the rest of the 1990s, including that of a vampire hunter in Blade (1998) and its two sequels (2002 and 2004) and that of a Paris-based American novelist in James Ivory’s A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries (1998), based on the life of writer James Jones. Kristofferson acted in a steady stream of feature films that included Sayles’s Limbo (1999), Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes (2001), Ethan Hawke’s Chelsea Walls (2001), Ken Kwapis’s He’s Just Not That into You (2009), the family movie Dolphin Tale (2011) and its 2014 sequel, the musical comedy Joyful Noise (2012), and the western Traded (2016).
Later work and awards
In the early 21st century Kristofferson released several albums of original material. This Old Road (2006) was his first collection of new songs in more than 10 years. He followed with Closer to the Bone (2009) and Feeling Mortal (2013). In 2016 he offered a two-disc box set of his best-known songs, The Cedar Creek Sessions, which had been recorded in 2014.
Kristofferson was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004. He won numerous awards, among them the Songwriters Hall of Fame Johnny Mercer Award (2006) and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2014).
Kenny Rogers, in full Kenneth Donald Rogers, (born August 21, 1938, Houston, Texas, U.S.), American country music singer known for his raspy voice and multiple hits such as “Lady,” “The Gambler,” “Lucille,” and “Through the Years.”
Rogers grew up poor in a Houston housing project. In 1956, while in high school, he started his first band, the Scholars. He performed “That Crazy Feeling,” his first solo single (1957), on the hugely popular music television show American Bandstand. His talent was recognized immediately, and he was signed to a small local label, Carlton Records, in 1958. In 1966 he joined the New Christy Minstrels, a folk group started by Randy Sparks in 1961. After a year Rogers and a few other Minstrels left to form their own ensemble, the First Edition. Rogers found his way into the spotlight, and the band was soon referred to as Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. The band—which played a mix of country, pop, and psychedelic music—had a few hits, including “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In),” “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” (written by Mel Tillis), “Reuben James,” and “Something’s Burning.” The band also hosted Rollin’ on the River (1971–73), a variety show that took place on a Mississippi riverboat set and featured guests such as musicians Kris Kristofferson, B.B. King, and Al Green; actor Jason Robards; and comedians Cheech and Chong.
In the late 1970s Rogers hit his stride. Going solo again, he had his first major hit with the ballad “Lucille,” which won him a Grammy Award for best male country vocal performance (1977). “Lucille” was named song of the year and single of the year by the Academy of Country Music and single of the year by the Country Music Association and also made its way up the pop music charts, proving that Rogers had enormous crossover appeal. In 1978 he released his album The Gambler, the title song of which won him another Grammy for best male country vocal performance. As many of his number-one hits did in the 1970s, “The Gambler” appeared on the pop music charts as well as on the country music charts. “The Gambler” told such a vivid story that it was turned into a made-for-television movie (1980) starring Rogers, who played an expert gambler teaching a young protégé the tricks of the trade. The movie led to four sequels, all of which featured Rogers.
He collaborated with a number of other country singers, notably Dottie West on “Every Time Two Fools Collide” (1978), “All I Ever Need Is You” (1979), and “What Are We Doin’ in Love” (1981) and Dolly Parton on the number-one crossover hit “Islands in the Stream” (1983). He teamed up with Parton again for a duet of the title song on his 2013 album You Can’t Make Old Friends. He also recorded songs with pop musicians Kim Carnes (“Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer” [1980]) and Sheena Easton (“We’ve Got Tonight” [1983]). His collaboration with Ronnie Milsap on “Make No Mistake, She’s Mine” (1987) topped the country music charts.
Rogers’s string of hits tapered off in the 1990s, though he continued to record and release albums regularly, almost yearly. In 1998 he started his own record label, Dreamcatcher Entertainment, which released his albums of the next decade. In 2011 Rogers branched out and recorded a gospel album, The Love of God (rereleased in 2012 as Amazing Grace).
In addition to writing and performing a vast collection of music over several decades, in 1978 Rogers coauthored a self-help book, Making It with Music: Kenny Rogers’ Guide to the Music Business, with Len Epand. He also published an autobiography, Luck or Something Like It—A Memoir (2012). Among his numerous awards, Rogers received the 2013 Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Country Music Association, and he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame the same year. Rogers embarked on a farewell world tour in 2016 that he intended to conclude with a final concert in August 2018, but poor health forced him to cut the tour short in April of that year.
Patsy Cline, original name Virginia Patterson Hensley, (born September 8, 1932, Winchester, Virginia, U.S.—died March 5, 1963, near Camden, Tennessee), American country music singer whose talent and wide-ranging appeal made her one of the classic performers of the genre, bridging the gap between country music and more mainstream audiences.
Known in her youth as “Ginny,” she began to sing with local country bands while a teenager, sometimes accompanying herself on guitar. By the time she had reached her early 20s, Cline was promoting herself as “Patsy” and was on her way toward country music stardom. She first recorded on the Four Star label in 1955, but it was with the advent of television culture in the late 1950s that she gained a wider audience. Cline began appearing on the radio and on Town and Country Jamboree, a local television variety show that was broadcast every Saturday night from Capitol Arena in Washington, D.C.
Singing “Walkin’ After Midnight” as a contestant on the CBS television show Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, Cline took first prize—the opportunity to appear on Godfrey’s morning show for two weeks. She thereby gained national exposure both for herself and for her song. Three years later she became a regular performer on the Grand Ole Opry radio broadcasts from Nashville, Tennessee, which largely defined the country music genre. Although Cline preferred traditional country music, which typically included vocalizations such as yodeling, the country music industry—coming into increasing competition with rock and roll—was trying to increase its appeal to a more mainstream audience. After her recording of “I Fall to Pieces” remained a popular seller for 39 consecutive weeks, she was marketed as a pop singer and was backed by strings and vocals. Cline never fully donned the pop music mantle, however: she did not eliminate yodeling from her repertoire; she dressed in distinctly western-style clothing; and she favoured country songs—especially heart-wrenching ballads of lost or waning love—over her three popular songs “Walkin’ After Midnight,” “I Fall to Pieces,” and “Crazy” (written by a young Willie Nelson).
Cline’s life was cut short in March 1963 by an airplane crash that also killed fellow entertainers Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins. In her short career, however, she helped usher in the modern era for American country singers; she figures prominently, for instance, as singer Loretta Lynn’s mentor in Lynn’s autobiography, Coal Miner’s Daughter (1976). Cline was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1973.
Roy Acuff, in full Roy Claxton Acuff, (born September 15, 1903, Maynardsville, Tennessee, U.S.—died November 23, 1992, Nashville, Tennessee), American vocalist, songwriter, and fiddle player, called the “King of Country Music,” who in the mid-1930s reasserted the mournful musical traditions of Southeastern rural whites and became a national radio star on the “Grand Ole Opry” broadcasts.
Turning his attention to music after an aborted baseball career, Acuff gained immediate popularity with his recordings of “The Great Speckled Bird” and “The Wabash Cannonball.” The latter piece became his theme song. By the early 1940s his sincere singing style, backed by the traditional sound of the Smoky Mountain Boys, was earning him $200,000 per year.
In 1942 he organized Acuff-Rose Publishing Company, the first publishing house exclusively for country music, with songwriter Fred Rose. Following an unsuccessful bid for the Tennessee governorship in 1948, Acuff continued to record extensively from the 1950s on, lending authenticity to the new boom in country music with such albums as Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1972), performed with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. In 1962 Acuff was elected the first living member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Glen Campbell, in full Glen Travis Campbell, (born April 22, 1936, Billstown, Arkansas, U.S.—died August 8, 2017, Nashville, Tennessee), American country-pop musican who rose to stardom in the late 1960s and ’70s and became a household name for his hit song “Rhinestone Cowboy,” which topped both the pop and country charts in 1975.
By the time Campbell was age 14, he had become a good guitarist and was already a performing musician. His talent with the guitar allowed him to make a living as a session musician in Los Angeles when he moved there in 1960. He released his own album in 1962 (Big Blugrass Special) and two more in 1963 (Swingin’ 12 String Guitar and Too Late to Worry, Too Blue to Cry), but in the meantime he was in high demand to play in studio recordings with musicians such as Elvis Presley (Viva Las Vegas, 1964), the Everly Brothers (Beat & Soul, 1965), Merle Haggard (Swinging Doors and the Bottle Let Me Down, 1966), and the Monkees (The Monkees, 1966). In 1964–65 Campbell joined the Beach Boys to fill in for Brian Wilson, who had taken leave after a mental breakdown. Campbell toured with the band for several months and contributed to the recording of the breakthrough album Pet Sounds (1966).
Campbell’s solo career began to take off with the hit song “Gentle on My Mind” (1967), which earned him two Grammy Awards that year. He followed up with the popular By the Time I Get to Phoenix (1967). The title track of that album became one of his best-known songs and earned Campbell another two Grammy Awards (1967), and that album won the Grammy for album of the year (1968). Two other major hits from that time are “Wichita Lineman” and “Galveston.” From 1969 to 1972 Campbell hosted a Sunday-evening variety show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, on CBS. He welcomed to his stage famous personalities such as Ray Charles, Cher, Neil Diamond, Lily Tomlin, Three Dog Night, and Rick Nelson. Campbell made his film-acting debut in 1967 in The Cool Ones and then had a more-prominent role in 1969 in the John Wayne hit western True Grit. The following year he starred in the film Norwood opposite Kim Darby (who had also appeared in True Grit).
During the 1970s—though he had some successful singles, such as “Rhinestone Cowboy,” “Country Boy (You Got Your Feet in L.A.),” “Don’t Pull Your Love/Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye,” and “Southern Nights”—Campbell entered a period of heavy drug and alcohol use. He got sober in the mid-1980s and became a born-again Christian, though he continued to struggle with drinking problems throughout the next two decades. He published his autobiography, Rhinestone Cowboy, in 1994, and he recorded new material into the 2000s, releasing Meet Glen Campbell (2008), Ghost on the Canvas (2011), and, his final album, See You There (2013). He was diagnosed with Alzheimer disease in 2011 and subsequently went on a farewell tour, which was documented in the film Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me (2014). The last song he recorded, “I’m Not Gonna Miss You,” won the Grammy Award for best country song and was nominated for an Academy Award as the theme song to the aforementioned documentary.
Charlie Louvin, (Charlie Elzer Loudermilk), American country singer (born July 7, 1927, Henagar, Ala.—died Jan. 26, 2011, Wartrace, Tenn.), together with his older brother, Ira, made up the Louvin Brothers, which was often called the greatest duet act in country music. They performed in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s and were remembered for their simple but pure gospel-tinged style and distinctive harmonies. Growing up in rural northeastern Alabama, the Loudermilk brothers were exposed to a variety of early country music influences, including the Carter Family, Charlie and Bill Monroe, and the Blue Sky Boys, as well as to shape-note hymnal singing. From the early 1940s they sang devoutly Christian songs in an artless, heartfelt manner, their high-pitched harmonies accompanied only by Charlie’s guitar and Ira’s mandolin. During one of their regular stints as live performers on radio stations in the Southeast, where they were billed as the “Radio Twins,” they changed their name to the Louvin Brothers. Commercial success came when they adopted secular themes; among their hits were “When I Stop Dreaming,” released in 1955—the year they joined Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry—and “I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby” (1956). On later recordings their record companies imposed lush, elaborate accompaniments far removed from their original style. Each brother pursued a solo career after the partnership broke up in 1963, and Ira was killed in a 1965 car crash. The Louvin Brothers, who influenced such artists as the Everly Brothers, Gram Parsons, and Emmylou Harris, were also much-revered songwriters, and their compositions were covered by many performers. In 2001 the Louvin Brothers were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The tribute album Livin’, Lovin’, Losin’: Songs of the Louvin Brothers won a Grammy Award for best country album in 2003.
George Strait, in full George Harvey Strait, (born May 18, 1952, Poteet, Texas, U.S.), American country music singer, guitarist, and “new traditionalist,” known for reviving interest in the western swing and honky-tonk music of the 1930s and ’40s through his straightforward musical style and his unassuming right-off-the-ranch stage persona. He was among the most popular concert and recording artists in the 1980s and ’90s, and his shows continued to pack stadiums to their capacity well into the 21st century.
Strait was raised in the small town of Pearsall in southern Texas, where his father worked as a junior-high-school math teacher while also operating a ranch, about 40 miles (64 km) to the southwest, that had been in the Strait family for almost a century. During his youth Strait spent many weekends with his brother riding horses, roping cattle, and otherwise absorbing the lifestyle and values of the rural West. Country music, however, was not an element of the culture that he readily embraced. He was more interested in hammering out the latest rock tunes, with guitar skills that he knew were limited, with his high-school garage band.
After attending Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University–San Marcos) for a year, Strait married his high-school sweetheart and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1971. While stationed in Hawaii, he refined his guitar and vocal technique and developed an affinity for the country music of Hank Williams, George Jones, Merle Haggard, and, especially, Bob Wills, the champion of western swing. In 1973, while still in the military, he joined his first country music band, at his army post.
Strait left the army in 1975, resumed his studies at Southwest Texas State University, and graduated with a degree in agriculture in 1979. While at the university he joined the country band Stoney Ridge (later renamed Ace in the Hole), which played regularly in the clubs near campus. Strait tried repeatedly to promote his music in Nashville, but the industry executives balked, doubting the appeal of his traditional style in a market then dominated by a slicker image and a pop-country sound. In 1981, however, MCA Records relented and signed him to a one-song contract; if the song proved a success, the company would offer a longer-term agreement. Strait’s response, “Unwound” (1981), reached number six on Billboard magazine’s Hot Country Songs chart, landed him an extended contract with MCA, and ultimately launched his career as a professional musician.
During the next decade Strait released more than a dozen albums, each of which sold more than a million copies. Close on the heels of his honky-tonk debut album, Strait Country (1981), he issued Strait from the Heart (1982), which contained his first number one country music hit, “Fool Hearted Memory.” In 1992 Strait played the role of a country music superstar in the film Pure Country, which further fueled his popularity. He remained phenomenally productive and in 2006 was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. His 2008 release, Troubadour, won a Grammy Award for best country album. In 2009 he made a foray into songwriting, writing three of the tracks on Twang with his son, George (“Bubba”) Strait, Jr. By 2010 the senior Strait had recorded nearly 50 songs that reached the top spot on Billboard’s Country Songs chart.
Throughout his career Strait rarely swerved from his old-style sound and his rancher’s image, sartorially marked by a western button-down shirt, blue jeans, and a cowboy hat and boots. Moreover, as the ongoing host of the George Strait Team Roping Classic—an annual event that he, his father, and his brother had established in the early 1980s—he never abandoned his passion for the saddle. Although he remained a strong performer, Strait announced in September 2012 that his 2013–14 Cowboy Rides Away tour—the start of which coincided roughly with the May 2013 release of his album Love Is Everything—would be his last. In late 2013, between legs of the tour, Strait earned the Country Music Association’s award for entertainer of the year for the third time in his career (following wins in 1989–90). Strait issued his 29th studio album, Cold Beer Conversation, in 2015, and he began a residency in Las Vegas the following year.
Merle Haggard, in full Merle Ronald Haggard, (born April 6, 1937, Oildale, California, U.S.—died April 6, 2016, near Redding, California), American singer, guitarist, and songwriter, one of the most popular country music performers of the late 20th century, with nearly 40 number one country hits between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s.
Haggard’s parents moved from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to the Bakersfield area of California, and he grew up in a converted boxcar. His father died when he was 9 years old, and, by the time he was 14, he was engaged in a life of petty crime and truancy, with frequent stays in juvenile facilities. His escapades eventually led to incarceration (1957–60) in the California State Prison at San Quentin. (Singles that reflect that experience include “Branded Man” [1967] and “Sing Me Back Home” [1968].)
Haggard was already performing music when he went to prison, and he resumed working in bars and clubs after his release. He began playing with Wynn Stewart and Buck Owens, practitioners of the stripped-down hard-driving “Bakersfield sound” in country music, and his first recording was Stewart’s “Sing a Sad Song” (1964). Haggard had his first chart topper three years later with “The Fugitive” (1967; later called “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive”). There is a sombre cast to many of the songs he wrote—including “The Bottle Let Me Down” (1966), “Mama Tried” (1968), “Hungry Eyes” (1969), and “If We Make It Through December” (1973)—that in part reflects his difficult youth. He also wrote “Okie From Muskogee” (1969), his best-known recording, a novelty song that became controversial for its apparent attack on hippies. Also popular was the patriotic anthem “The Fightin’ Side of Me” (1970), though his music was rarely political and more frequently and empathetically drew on the lives of the working class and the poor and downtrodden.
Haggard possessed a supple baritone voice, and his repertoire ranged from early jazz and country songs to contemporary tunes. He often recorded the songs of other writers, including western swing bandleader Bob Wills, one of his formative inspirations, whom he honoured with the album A Tribute to the Best Damned Fiddle Player in the World (1970). A multi-instrumentalist himself, Haggard was known for the high quality and versatility of his accompanying bands, which by the 1970s included some of Wills’s former sidemen.
Haggard won numerous awards from the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, and in 1984 he captured a Grammy Award for best country vocal performance for “That’s the Way Love Goes.” He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (1994) and the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2007). In 2010 Haggard was named a Kennedy Center honoree.
Emmylou Harris, (born April 2, 1947, Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.), American singer and songwriter who ranged effortlessly among folk, pop, rock, and country-and-western styles, added old-time sensibilities to popular music and sophistication to country music, and established herself as “the queen of country rock.”
After being discovered while singing folk songs in a club, Harris added her satin-smooth country-inflected soprano to former Flying Burrito Brother Gram Parsons’s two solo albums (1973–74), landmarks in country rock. After Parsons’s death, Harris carried his vision forward, first in Pieces of the Sky (1975), which included her tribute to Parsons (“From Boulder to Birmingham”). Following this major-label debut album, she issued a remarkable string of critically acclaimed and commercially successful recordings produced by her husband, Brian Ahern, which included Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town (1978), Roses in the Snow (1980), Cimarron (1981), Last Date (1982), and The Ballad of Sally Rose (1985).
Harris’s collaborations with other prominent artists or covers of their songs were legion and included Simon and Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt, Hank Williams, the Band, Jule Styne, and Bruce Springsteen. Her 1995 release, Wrecking Ball, on which she performed songs written by Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Jimi Hendrix, among others, was especially notable and earned the Grammy Award for best contemporary folk album. Red Dirt Girl (2000), on which she was accompanied by such singers as Kate McGarrigle and Dave Matthews, won the same award. Harris joined a host of folk and country artists on the Grammy Award-winning soundtrack for the Coen brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), and she later released the solo efforts Stumble into Grace (2003), All I Intended to Be (2008), and Hard Bargain (2011). She and Rodney Crowell recorded a pair of duet albums: Old Yellow Moon (2013), which took the Grammy for best Americana album, and The Traveling Kind (2015).
In 2008 the Country Music Association inducted Harris into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and in 2018 she received a Grammy lifetime achievement award.
Carter Family, singing group that was a leading force in the spread and popularization of the songs of the Appalachian Mountain region of the eastern United States. The group consisted of Alvin Pleasant Carter, known as A.P. Carter (b. April 15, 1891, Maces Spring, Virginia, U.S.—d. November 7, 1960, Kentucky), his wife, Sara, née Sara Dougherty (b. July 21, 1898, Flatwoods, Virginia—d. January 8, 1979, Lodi, California), and his sister-in-law Maybelle Carter, née Maybelle Addington (b. May 10, 1909, Nickelsville, Virginia—d. October 23, 1978, Nashville, Tennessee).
The family’s recording career began in 1927 in response to an advertisement placed in a local newspaper by a talent scout for Victor records. Over the next 16 years, with two of Sara’s children and three of Maybelle’s (Helen, June, and Anita) also appearing, they recorded more than 300 songs for various labels, covering a significant cross section of the mountain music repertory, including old ballads and humorous songs, sentimental pieces from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and many religious pieces. They later performed extensively on radio and popularized many songs that became standards of folk and country music; some of these were “Jimmy Brown, the Newsboy,” “Wabash Cannonball,” “It Takes a Worried Man to Sing a Worried Song,” and “Wildwood Flower.”
The Carter Family was remarkable not only for its prolific recording but also for the musical accomplishment—and balance—of its members. A.P. was the group’s songsmith. He was an avid collector of oral tradition, as well as an adept arranger of rural regional repertoire for consumption by a broader audience. A.P. also composed many new songs for the group, replicating the style of the traditional material. Sara, with her strong soprano voice, was typically the lead singer, supported by Maybelle’s alto harmonies and A.P.’s bass and baritone interjections. The instrumental anchor of the Carter Family was Maybelle, who was a skilled performer on guitar, banjo, and autoharp. She also developed a unique finger-picking technique on guitar that continues to be emulated by many guitarists today.
In 1943 the Carter Family disbanded, and its members subsequently formed various other groups. Maybelle (“Mother”) Carter performed with her daughters, as a soloist, and later with her son-in-law Johnny Cash, whose gritty songs of social commentary had already propelled him to the top of the country-and-western music industry. In the 1950s the Carter Family re-formed and appeared intermittently, with a changing lineup. The original Carter Family was the first group admitted to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
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