Uncategorized

BEFORE AMERICAN IDOL, HER MOTHER DROVE HER TO TALENT SHOWS AND MADE HER STAGE CLOTHES. YEARS LATER, CARRIE UNDERWOOD PUT HER MAMA INSIDE A SONG. Carrie Underwood grew up in Checotah, Oklahoma, where her mother, Carole, recognized her voice before the rest of the world did. When Carrie entered local talent shows, Carole took her there and even made her costumes. Carrie once remembered a pair of one-dollar boots that her mother turned into stage shoes with sparkles and sequins. Then came the decision that changed everything. Carrie was talking herself out of auditioning for American Idol. Carole simply told her, “If you wanna go, I’ll take you.” Carrie went. In 2005, she won the show. Five years later, Carrie released “Mama’s Song,” which she co-wrote. Carole appeared in the music video alongside Carrie and her husband, Mike Fisher. The world remembers the night Carrie Underwood became an American Idol. But that road began earlier — with a mother willing to drive her daughter there.

Before American Idol, Carrie Underwood’s Biggest Support Came from Home Long before Carrie Underwood became a household name, she was…

Uncategorized

IN 1994, CLINT BLACK, TANYA TUCKER, TRAVIS TRITT AND THE JUDDS OWNED THE SUPER BOWL HALFTIME STAGE. COUNTRY MUSIC HAS NEVER HAD IT TO ITSELF AGAIN. ERIC CHURCH WANTS 2030 TO CHANGE THAT. The last Super Bowl halftime show built entirely around country music happened in 1994. Since then, country has never had the stage to itself again. Shania Twain appeared in 2003, but shared the show with No Doubt and Sting. Eric Church wants Nashville to change that. He was part of the group that helped bring the 2030 Super Bowl to Nashville, where the game will be played at the new Nissan Stadium. And when asked about halftime, Church made one thing clear: he is not campaigning for himself. He is campaigning for country music. Church said he will do everything he can to make sure the genre has a place in that halftime show. Thirty-six years after country last owned the stage, Nashville may finally get the chance to bring it home.

No Comments

Eric Church’s Quiet Campaign Could Give Country Music the Super Bowl Stage Again in 2030 In 1994, country music had…

Uncategorized

HE WROTE THE WHOLE SONG HIMSELF — THEN GAVE AWAY HALF OF IT. IT SPENT 9 WEEKS AT NO. 2 IN 1959. Mel Tillis was a young songwriter with a stutter, carrying his songs from door to door. He had written “I Ain’t Never” by himself. Every word of it. He played it for Webb Pierce — one of the biggest stars in country music at the time. Pierce liked it. But the whole time Mel was singing, he kept looking down at the boots on Pierce’s feet. So Mel made him an offer. Pierce could put his own name on the song as co-writer — half of it — in exchange for one thing. Not money. The boots. Pierce took the deal. His record came out in 1959 and sat at No. 2 on the country chart for nine straight weeks, and crossed over to No. 24 on the pop chart. Thirteen years later, Mel finally cut it himself, and it became the first No. 1 record of his own career. Long after, somebody asked him about that trade. He said, “Them old boots cost me over eight hundred thousand dollars.”

No Comments

Mel Tillis, Webb Pierce, and the Song That Changed Hands for a Pair of Boots Mel Tillis was still building…

Uncategorized

In 1957, Mel Tillis sat in his living room in Florida, listening to Eddie Hill on WSM, and heard his own song come out of the radio in another man’s voice. He’d written it out in the field. He was nobody then — a strawberry picker, a milkman, a railroad fireman. The line just came to him. Oh Lord, I’m tired. Ray Price heard it down in Tampa and carried it up to Nashville. Webb Pierce asked if he could have it. Ray said no. He was cutting it himself. So Pierce did something else. He remembered the first verse, walked into Cedarwood — the publishing company he co-owned — and had a staff writer make up two new verses. Then he recorded it. It went to No. 3. Mel didn’t make a scene. He took the writing job Pierce offered him at Cedarwood and kept working. “I Ain’t Never.” “Tupelo County Jail.” “Honky Tonk Song.” Every one of them went to Pierce. Then in 1983, Mel Tillis bought Cedarwood. Not a share of it. The whole company.

No Comments

The Song That Came Back in Another Voice In the late 1950s, Mel Tillis was still building a life from…

Uncategorized

THEY CALLED HIM “THE VOICE.” AT 74, AFTER TWO STROKES AND A BYPASS, HE WAS STILL IN HIS DRIVEWAY FIXING THE TOUR BUS. THREE WEEKS LATER, THE BUS HADN’T MOVED — BUT VERN GOSDIN HAD. In the 1970s, Vern Gosdin quit music. Moved to Georgia. Sold glass for a living. Everyone assumed the story was over. But he kept a guitar in his truck — and a man who keeps a guitar in his truck hasn’t quit anything. He came back. 19 top-10 hits. Three number ones. CMA Song of the Year. Tammy Wynette called him “the only singer who can hold a candle to George Jones.” Nashville didn’t call him talented. They called him “The Voice” — because they ran out of smaller words. Then the ’90s changed the sound. Nashville moved on. A stroke in ’98 took his strength. He kept writing. Kept recording. At 73, he released a 101-song box set — then started rebuilding his tour bus for one more summer. Three weeks before the comeback, the final stroke came. April 28, 2009. The bus never left the driveway. People measure legends by their final bow. But Gosdin’s greatness wasn’t in the exit — it was in the fact that at 74, after everything Nashville took from him, he was still packing for the road. He never made it into the Hall of Fame. But “The Voice” never needed a building to echo in. It just needed one more song. And Vern Gosdin always believed there was one more.

No Comments

Vern Gosdin: The Voice That Kept Packing for One More Song They called Vern Gosdin “The Voice,” and once you…

Uncategorized

CHARLEY PRIDE SANG ON NATIONAL TV AT 86 — IT WAS HIS LAST PERFORMANCE EVER. On November 11, 2020, Charley Pride stood on the CMA stage in Nashville and accepted the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award. Then he sang “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'” one more time. The man with 29 No. 1 hits. The first Black member of the Grand Ole Opry. Still steady. Still smiling. Still that voice. One month later, on December 12, 2020, Charley Pride died at 86 from complications of COVID-19. That night in November was the last time anyone saw him sing. “Kiss an angel good mornin’.” A goodbye nobody knew they were hearing. Did you watch him perform that night? What did you feel?

No Comments

Charley Pride’s Final Song: A Last Goodbye on National Television On November 11, 2020, Charley Pride walked onto the CMA…

Uncategorized

IN 1961, JIMMY DEAN ENDED “BIG BAD JOHN” WITH A LINE ABOUT ONE HELL OF A MAN. NEARLY FIFTY YEARS LATER, THOSE WORDS FOLLOWED HIM TO HIS OWN GRAVE. “Big Bad John” made Jimmy Dean a star. The song told the story of a giant miner who saved twenty men after a mine collapse, then disappeared beneath the rubble. At the end came the line people never forgot: “At the bottom of this mine lies one hell of a man.” Jimmy lived almost five more decades after that record. He became a television host, businessman, and one of the most recognizable names in country entertainment. When he died on June 13, 2010, at 81, he was buried on his property in Virginia overlooking the James River. His resting place was built in the shape of a piano. And on it were words drawn from the song that had changed his life: “Here Lies One Hell of a Man.” A line Jimmy Dean once wrote for Big John had become the final description of Jimmy Dean himself.

No Comments

How Jimmy Dean’s Biggest Song Became His Final Epitaph In 1961, Jimmy Dean released a song that seemed larger than…

Uncategorized

FORGET THE GRAMMY. FORGET THE HALL OF FAME. GEORGE JONES SAID NOBODY WOULD BUY THE GREATEST COUNTRY SONG EVER RECORDED. In 1980 he was 49, broke, and known around Nashville as No Show Jones. Billy Sherrill handed him a ballad about a man who loved a woman until the day he died. Jones called it too morbid to sell and walked out of the studio. It became his first No. 1 in six years. It won the Grammy. It took CMA Song of the Year twice — 1980 and 1981. Alan Jackson sang it at his funeral. Garth Brooks sang it at the Opry’s 100th and called it the greatest country song ever written. George Jones was wrong about one song in his life. It was the only one that mattered. Play it today. You already know which line breaks you — go find out if it still does.

No Comments

George Jones and the Song He Thought Nobody Would Buy Before George Jones became a legend, he was a man…

Uncategorized

WILLIE NELSON’S VERSION DIED AT #62. GEORGE JONES AND MERLE HAGGARD TOOK THE SAME SONG TO #1. Two men, two guitars, and no reason to hurry. “The Way I Am.” “Yesterday’s Wine.” “I Must Have Done Something Bad.” Merle Haggard and George Jones singing them live, trading lines like they’d done it a thousand times around somebody’s kitchen table. Merle always said George was the finest singer he’d ever heard. But the way he described that voice wasn’t what you’d expect. They met in 1961, at the Blackboard Café in Bakersfield. Merle was onstage. George walked in drunk, kicked the office doors open, and asked who that was singing. Twenty-one years went by before the two of them finally made a record together. “Yesterday’s Wine” wasn’t even theirs. Willie Nelson wrote it in 1971 and the single died at #62. Nobody paid attention. Then George and Merle cut it in 1982, and on October 9 it went to #1 — a song about two old friends running into each other in a bar, sung by two old friends. “The Way I Am” had been Merle’s, #2 back in 1980. “I Must Have Done Something Bad” was Merle’s too, and George liked it enough to record his own version years later. And that description? Merle said George’s voice was like a Stradivarius violin. One of the greatest instruments ever made. Their first duet album came out in 1982. The next one took 24 years.

No Comments

Two Old Friends, One Song, and No Reason to Hurry There are songs that arrive quietly and disappear before anyone…

Uncategorized

THEY PAID HIM $10 TO SING THE ANTHEM — THE SAME AMOUNT THEY PAID HIM TO PITCH. Charley Pride was the fourth of eleven children born to sharecroppers near Sledge, Mississippi. He picked cotton beside his parents and ordered a $10 Silvertone guitar from the Sears catalog at fourteen. Baseball took him north. By 1960 he was loading coal into a smelter furnace in East Helena, Montana, for a hundred dollars a week and pitching for the company team. When the manager heard him sing, he added ten dollars a game for fifteen minutes before first pitch. Attendance went up. Twenty-nine No. 1 hits. Fifty-two Top 10s. Country Music Hall of Fame, 2000. He batted .444 that first Montana summer. Baseball was what he came for. The ten dollars was what stayed.

No Comments

They Paid Charley Pride $10 to Sing the Anthem — The Same Amount They Paid Him to Pitch Charley Pride…

Uncategorized

You Missed

George Jones Walked Off a Knoxville Stage in April 2013 and Told His Wife He Had Just Played His Last Show

In 1994, 100,000 People Crowded Into a Virginia Town of 25,000 Because the Statler Brothers Never Left It

Johnny Cash Was 61 and Playing to Dinner Crowds When a 29-Year-Old Hip-Hop Producer Sat Down Across From Him

The Statler Brothers Ended 38 Years on the Road With the First Song They Ever Sang Together