Country Music

Country Music Hits

Uncategorized

JANIS JOPLIN PLAYED THE GUITAR PART HERSELF ON THE ONLY NO. 1 SHE WOULD EVER HAVE, AND SHE NEVER LIVED TO HEAR IT ON THE RADIO. She cut “Me and Bobby McGee” during the Pearl sessions in 1970, in the weeks before October 4, when she was found dead in a Hollywood hotel room at 27. Kris Kristofferson, who wrote the song with Fred Foster, was off in Peru working on a film. Bob Neuwirth had taught it to her. Kristofferson didn’t know the recording existed. The day after she died, her producer Paul Rothchild asked him to come to the office and listen. He said he walked all over Los Angeles afterward, in tears. In March 1971 the record reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, one of the first posthumous chart-toppers in the history of that chart, and the song that made his name as a writer. Then came the part nobody prepares for. Every audience wanted to hear it, and he couldn’t get through it. So he sat down with his friend Donnie Fritts and they played Joplin’s version over and over, until he could listen to it without coming apart. He sang it for the rest of his career. He said he thought of her every single time.

No Comments

Janis Joplin, “Me and Bobby McGee,” and the Song She Never Heard on the Radio There are songs that become…

Uncategorized

CHET ATKINS WAS THE GUITARIST NASHVILLE TRIED TO COPY. THEN JERRY REED CAME ALONG, AND EVEN “MR. GUITAR” BEGAN LEARNING FROM HIM. When Jerry Reed arrived at RCA in the mid-1960s, Chet Atkins was already one of the most respected men in country music. He was a legendary guitarist, a successful producer and the man who had helped shape the Nashville Sound. But Chet heard something different in Jerry’s playing. Jerry did not pick the guitar like anyone else. His fingers attacked the strings with unusual rhythms, sudden pauses and complicated patterns that seemed almost impossible to repeat. Instead of asking Jerry to become more conventional, Chet encouraged him to sound like himself. Then something remarkable happened. The established master began incorporating some of Jerry’s musical ideas into his own playing. Chet recorded Jerry’s songs, shared the studio with him and treated the younger guitarist not as a student, but as an equal. In 1971, their album “Me and Jerry” won a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance. Jerry had entered Nashville hoping to earn the respect of one of his heroes. He left behind something even greater. He had given “Mr. Guitar” a few new things to learn.

No Comments

Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed: When the Master Learned Something New By the mid-1960s, Chet Atkins was already a giant…

Uncategorized

WHEN THE STATLER BROTHERS RETIRED, THREE MEN WERE READY TO STOP. JIMMY FORTUNE WAS 47—AND HAD TO LEARN HOW TO BEGIN AGAIN WITHOUT THEM. On October 26, 2002, The Statler Brothers gave their final concert in Virginia. For 21 years, Jimmy had stood beside Don Reid, Harold Reid and Phil Balsley, adding his high tenor to one of country music’s most recognizable harmonies. When the last note ended, the other three stepped away from touring. Jimmy was not ready. But continuing meant starting over. There would be no Statler name above him, no three familiar voices surrounding his own and no guarantee that audiences would follow him. Jimmy considered writing songs and performing wherever he could. Then he chose to keep singing. In 2003, he released his first solo album. Its title said exactly where his life stood: “When One Door Closes”. The Statler Brothers had given Jimmy the greatest opportunity of his career. Their retirement took away the only musical home he had known for two decades. At 47, he did not try to replace it. He simply opened another door.

No Comments

When The Statler Brothers Retired, Jimmy Fortune Had to Begin Again On October 22, 2002, The Statler Brothers stepped away…

Uncategorized

DOCTORS THOUGHT KRIS KRISTOFFERSON WAS LOSING HIS MEMORY TO ALZHEIMER’S. THEN A LYME DISEASE TEST CAME BACK POSITIVE — AND AT 80, HE RETURNED TO THE ROAD. By his mid-70s, Kris was struggling to remember names, lyrics and what he had been doing only moments earlier. Doctors suspected Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, possibly connected to the blows he had taken while boxing and playing football and rugby. He began taking medication, but his condition kept getting worse. Then, in 2016, a doctor tested him for Lyme disease. The result was positive. Kris stopped medications for illnesses he apparently did not have and completed three weeks of Lyme disease treatment. His wife, Lisa, said many of his symptoms improved, though some short-term memory problems remained. That same year, he toured again, including performances with Willie Nelson and shows in Europe. He also released “The Cedar Creek Sessions”, which earned a Grammy nomination. The family had feared they were watching Kris disappear. Instead, at 80, one of the Highwaymen found his way back to the stage.

No Comments

Doctors Thought Kris Kristofferson Was Losing His Memory. Then a Lyme Disease Test Changed Everything. By the time Kris Kristofferson…

Uncategorized

HE WROTE IT ALONE. NO CO-WRITER. THREE WEEKS AT NO. 1. June 1978. Waylon Jennings put out a song with nobody’s name on it but his own. Ten months earlier, federal agents had walked into a Nashville studio while he was standing at the mic, headphones on, singing harmony for somebody else’s record. August 23, 1977. He was arrested that night. The case never held up. He didn’t dodge it afterward. He opened the song by owning the arrests — the ones that were his doing, and the ones that weren’t. He refused to say he was proud of any of it. But there was one thing he would not let anyone take from him. One sentence he wrote in his own defense, and it’s the reason people still hear that song as an apology instead of a brag. Then the third verse turns. He stops talking about himself and speaks directly to a woman — and it isn’t a love song. It’s a warning. Sixth No. 1 of his career. Thirteen weeks on the chart.

No Comments

Waylon Jennings and the Song That Sounded Like a Confession In June 1978, Waylon Jennings released a song that stood…

Uncategorized

IN 1995, A WRITER WALKED INTO WAYLON JENNINGS’ LIVING ROOM AND FOUND HIS WIFE SINGING SCRIPTURE. Lenny Kaye was there to help Waylon put his autobiography together. Jessi Colter went to the piano with a Bible near her and began setting the Psalms to melodies she was inventing as her hands found the chords. Kaye said he was transfixed. Jessi has said it wasn’t something she normally did. It fit her, though. Her mother was a Pentecostal preacher who performed her wedding to Waylon in Phoenix in October 1969, and Jessi had been the church pianist since she was eleven. She married a man with three marriages behind him, and she stayed through the cocaine years that nearly ended the marriage in the early 1980s, through the heart bypass in 1988, through the diabetes, through the amputation of his foot in December 2001. In her memoir she writes that Waylon came to faith that Thanksgiving. He died in his sleep on February 13, 2002. She and Kaye finally recorded those songs in New York in 2007 and 2008, just her voice and piano and his guitar. They came out in March 2017 as an album called The Psalms, twenty-two years after the first of those melodies was played in a house where Waylon Jennings was still alive.

No Comments

The Day Jessi Colter Turned a Living Room Into Scripture In 1995, Lenny Kaye walked into Waylon Jennings’ living room…

Uncategorized

IN OCTOBER 2016, RANDY TRAVIS ROSE OUT OF HIS WHEELCHAIR AT THE COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME AND SANG — THREE YEARS AFTER DOCTORS TOLD MARY TO LET HIM GO. The room at the Medallion Ceremony went silent because nobody in it expected a sound out of him. He had not sung in public since 2013 and still could not put a full sentence together, so Mary read his acceptance for him. Then she said, “Randy stared death in the face, but death blinked,” and handed him the microphone. Garth Brooks was crying before the first verse ended. She had watched every inch of it. In July 2013 a virus settled in his heart and put him in a Texas hospital with both lungs full of fluid. His heart failed, he went on life support, and a stroke took the voice. One to two percent was the number the doctors gave her. Months later a staph infection and other hospital-borne bacteria piled on, and his team told her he did not have the strength left for any of it. Before she gave them an answer, she went and stood at his bed. He could not speak, could not sit up, could not tell her anything. He squeezed her hand, and a tear ran down his face. She turned around and told the doctors that man wanted to fight, and they were going to fight with him.

No Comments

When Randy Travis Stood Up and Sang at the Country Music Hall of Fame In October 2016, the Country Music…

Uncategorized

HE BURIED HIS WIFE AND MOTHER WITHIN WEEKS OF EACH OTHER. A YEAR LATER, HIS ONLY SON DIED. THEN BILLY JOE SHAVER’S HEART GAVE OUT ONSTAGE — AND HE KEPT SINGING. In 1999, Shaver lost his mother and his wife, Brenda, to cancer within a month of each other. Then, on New Year’s Eve 2000, his 38-year-old son Eddy died from an accidental heroin overdose. Eddy was not only his son. He was the guitarist who had stood beside him onstage and helped write “Live Forever.” Billy Joe later admitted that after those losses, part of him wanted to die. On August 25, 2001, while performing at Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas, he suffered a massive heart attack. But he continued the show long enough that much of the audience never realized what was happening. He thought Gruene Hall might be a fitting place for an old outlaw to die. “It didn’t work out,” he later joked. Doctors performed a quadruple bypass. Billy Joe survived, returned to the studio, released another album in 2002 and kept performing for nearly two more decades. He had already buried the three people closest to him. But when his own heart tried to stop, Billy Joe Shaver kept singing.

No Comments

When Billy Joe Shaver Kept Singing By the time Billy Joe Shaver reached the stage at Gruene Hall, he had…

Uncategorized

WAYLON JENNINGS DIDN’T LEAVE RCA TO BECOME AN OUTLAW. HE STAYED — AND FORCED ONE OF NASHVILLE’S BIGGEST LABELS TO LET HIM CHOOSE HIS OWN SONGS, USE HIS OWN BAND, AND CONTROL HIS OWN RECORDS. By 1972, Waylon was exhausted and frustrated. He had spent years inside Nashville’s system, where producers chose studio musicians and artists had limited control over how their records sounded. While recovering from hepatitis, he even considered walking away from music. Instead, Waylon hired manager Neil Reshen and renegotiated his RCA contract. The new agreement gave him something almost unheard of for a Nashville artist at the time: creative control. He began producing his own records, recording with the musicians who played beside him on the road, and choosing songs the old system might have rejected. One result was “Honky Tonk Heroes”, built largely around the writing of the then little-known Billy Joe Shaver. The records sold. The movement grew. By 1976, “Wanted! The Outlaws” became country music’s first platinum album. Waylon’s beard and black hat made him look like an outlaw. But the real rebellion was written into his contract.

No Comments

Waylon Jennings and the Real Rebellion Behind the Outlaw Sound By 1972, Waylon Jennings was worn down by the machinery…

Uncategorized

HE DIDN’T WRITE “HURT.” BUT AT 70, JOHNNY CASH SANG IT SO CLOSE TO THE END THAT IT BECAME HIS OWN FINAL CONFESSION. In 2002, Johnny Cash recorded Trent Reznor’s song for “American IV: The Man Comes Around”. His voice was old and unsteady. That was exactly what made it powerful. The music video placed Cash among trophies, old photographs and images of the strong young man he had once been. But the most painful moment came when June Carter Cash appeared behind him, silently watching her husband sing. “Everyone I know goes away in the end.” At the time, it was only a line from someone else’s song. Within months, it became their story. June died on May 15, 2003. Johnny followed on September 12, less than four months later. The following year, “Hurt” won the Grammy for Best Music Video. Neither of them was alive to see it. Johnny Cash borrowed the song. But his weakened voice, June’s final look and everything that happened afterward gave it an ending no songwriter could have planned.

No Comments

Johnny Cash Did Not Write “Hurt” — But His Version Sounded Like a Farewell In 2002, Johnny Cash recorded “Hurt”…

You Missed

Uncategorized

HE WAS TOO SICK TO STAND. THEN JESSI COLTER WALKED OUT — AND WAYLON SANG HIS LAST FULL CONCERT FROM A CHAIR. January 6, 2000. The Ryman Auditorium. Waylon Jennings was 62, and his health was already failing badly enough that he could no longer stand through a full show. He sat on a chair and addressed it before anyone else could. “I guess y’all noticed I’m sittin’ on this chair, and that ain’t all old age,” he told the crowd. His back and legs were hurting. Then came the old Waylon defiance: “Y’all don’t worry about me. I can still kick ass.” And he did. John Anderson, Montgomery Gentry and Travis Tritt joined him that night. But the most personal stretch came when his wife, Jessi Colter, walked out. They shared four songs — “Love’s the Only Chain,” “I’m Not Lisa,” “Storms Never Last,” and “Suspicious Minds.” “Storms Never Last” carried a different weight now. Jessi had written it years earlier, and the two had sung it together long before Waylon’s body began failing him. That night, they sang it together again. Waylon never performed another full concert. Two years later, he was gone.

Uncategorized

JOHNNY CASH SANG ABOUT “SEPTEMBER” WITH HIS DAUGHTER. 171 DAYS AFTER THE SONG WAS RELEASED, SEPTEMBER CAME — AND HE WAS GONE. Rosanne Cash had written “September When It Comes” years earlier, a song about growing older, letting go and finally finding rest. When she recorded it for her 2003 album Rules of Travel, her father joined her. Johnny Cash was already frail. In his verse, he sang about a man who could no longer move mountains or run the way he once had. Then came the image of being carried to a place where he could rest. The song was released on March 25, 2003. Less than two months later, Johnny lost his wife of 35 years, June Carter Cash. He kept going for a little while longer. Then, on September 12, Johnny Cash died at 71. The song had been out for 171 days. Rosanne had called it “September When It Comes.” For her father, September really did come.

Uncategorized

JOE BONSALL RECORDED A SONG ABOUT HIS OWN DEATH. THREE YEARS LATER, THE OAK RIDGE BOYS USED HIS VOICE TO SAY GOODBYE TO HIM. In 2021, The Oak Ridge Boys recorded “Promised Land” for their album Front Porch Singin’. Joe Bonsall sang the lead. The song was about a man facing death without fear — asking the people he loved not to weep, because he believed he was simply going home. At the time, it was just another powerful gospel performance from the man who had spent nearly 50 years singing with the Oaks. Then Joe died on July 9, 2024, at 76. Two weeks later, The Oak Ridge Boys released a memorial video for “Promised Land.” They didn’t need another singer. Joe’s voice was already there. The man they were mourning was singing his own farewell — telling his friends and fans not to worry, because one day they would meet again. This time, the song meant something entirely different.

Uncategorized

2,500 SOLDIERS AND ONE COUNTRY SINGER RAN 100 YARDS TO A CONCRETE BUNKER. AN HOUR LATER, HE WALKED BACK ON STAGE. April 24, 2008. Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. Toby Keith was 46, halfway through “Weed With Willie,” standing in front of about 2,500 American troops. Then the sound came in. Nobody in that crowd mistook it for anything else. He ran. About a hundred yards, alongside the soldiers he’d flown all that way to sing for. They crammed into a concrete bunker and waited. An hour. That’s how long they sat in there. He didn’t ask for a separate ride out. He didn’t ask to be pulled from the base. He signed autographs. He posed for photos. He passed the time with kids half his age while rounds came down outside. Then the all-clear came — and that’s when he did the one thing military personnel had advised him not to do. He walked back out to the stage. His agent, Curt Motley, described it plainly afterward: Toby went right to the verse he was in, and finished the show. It was his sixth USO tour of the Gulf. He’d already been under mortar fire the year before. Nobody recorded that hour in the bunker. Only the people inside it know what was said.