Country Music

HAROLD REID BECAME ONE OF COUNTRY MUSIC’S MOST FAMOUS BASS VOICES. BRENDA KNEW HIM BEFORE THE STATLER BROTHERS EVER HAD A HIT. Brenda met Harold Reid when she was just 14. They married on October 15, 1960 — years before the Statler Brothers began touring with Johnny Cash and before “Flowers on the Wall” made the group famous. Fame never pulled Harold away from Staunton, Virginia. He and Brenda raised five children there, and the Statler Brothers even kept their business operations in their hometown. While Harold spent decades onstage singing bass, writing songs and making audiences laugh, home remained in the same Virginia community where their story had begun. They were married for 59 years. When Harold died on April 24, 2020, Brenda and their children were beside him. Millions knew the voice. Brenda knew the man behind it.

Harold Reid and Brenda: A Love Story Rooted in Staunton Long before the Statler Brothers became a country music institution,…

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HER MOTHER SEWED THAT COAT TWICE. ONCE FROM RAGS, AND ONCE FROM MEMORY. One winter in the Smoky Mountains, someone handed the Parton family a box of rags, and Avie Lee Parton turned them into a coat for her daughter. While she sewed, she told the girl the Bible story of Joseph and his coat of many colors, and by the time it was finished Dolly was convinced she owned something valuable. The children at school looked at the same coat and saw scraps, and they laughed. Dolly has said it was years before she could talk about that day at all. When she finally could, she was 1,500 miles from that schoolyard and out of paper. In 1969, riding Porter Wagoner’s tour bus, she flipped over the dry cleaning receipt for one of his rhinestone stage suits and wrote “Coat of Many Colors” on the back of it. Wagoner later had the receipt framed. The record came out in 1971, reached No. 4 on the country chart, and entered the Library of Congress in 2011. The original coat wore out and was discarded a long time before any of that. By then her daughter’s song had made it famous, so Avie Lee sat down and sewed the whole thing over again from memory, scrap by scrap. That second coat is the one on display at Dollywood today.

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Her Mother Sewed That Coat Twice: Once From Rags, and Once From Memory There are some stories that begin as…

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“SET ’EM UP JOE” WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT VERN GOSDIN. AFTER VERN GOSDIN DIED, IT SOMEHOW BECAME THE PERFECT GOODBYE. When Vern Gosdin recorded “Set ’Em Up Joe,” he was singing for Ernest Tubb and every lonely voice that came before him. It was a song about sitting in a bar, feeding quarters into a jukebox, and trying not to fall apart. But after Vern Gosdin died in 2009, fans heard it differently. Suddenly, the man singing about old country legends had become one himself. “Set ’em up, Joe, and play ‘Walkin’ the Floor.’” The line sounded less like a request and more like Vern Gosdin quietly taking his place beside the artists he had always loved. He spent his whole life singing about heartbreak, memory, and people who never really leave. And somehow, in the end, Vern Gosdin left behind the one song that now feels like country music saying goodbye to him. What most people never knew was that Vern Gosdin did not choose “Set ’Em Up Joe” just because he loved the song — he chose it because of the one country legend he could never stop missing, and the story behind that choice made the ending feel even sadder.

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“Set ’Em Up Joe” Was Never Meant to Be Vern Gosdin’s Goodbye When Vern Gosdin recorded “Set ’Em Up Joe,”…

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CHARLEY PRIDE HAD 29 NO. 1 COUNTRY HITS. BUT ONE SIMPLE 1971 LOVE SONG BECAME THE RECORD PEOPLE NEVER STOPPED ASKING HIM TO SING. Charley Pride didn’t need a dramatic performance to make “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’” work. Written by Ben Peters, the song became one of Pride’s No. 1 country hits and one of the records most closely associated with his remarkable career. Watch Charley sing it years later. The easy smile is still there. So is that warm, unmistakable voice. He doesn’t push the words or try to make the moment bigger than it is. He simply sings about loving the person waiting for you at home — and somehow, coming from Charley Pride, that simple idea feels like enough. Did you ever get to see Charley Pride perform this song?

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Charley Pride and the Song That Never Let Go Charley Pride had a career full of milestones, but some songs…

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GEORGE JONES THOUGHT NOBODY WOULD BUY IT. IN 1980, IT BECAME ONE OF THE DEFINING SONGS OF HIS CAREER. George Jones never needed to act heartbroken when he sang “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” His voice already carried enough history. When producer Billy Sherrill brought him the song, Jones reportedly thought it was too sad to become a hit. But he recorded it anyway. Released in 1980, it reached No. 1 on the country chart and helped revive a career many believed was slipping away. It also earned Jones a Grammy. Years later, watching him sing it was different. He barely moved. He simply stood at the microphone and let every tired crack in that famous voice do the work. It didn’t sound like acting anymore. It sounded remembered. When was the last time you watched George Jones perform?

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George Jones Thought Nobody Would Buy It. In 1980, It Became One of the Defining Songs of His Career. George…

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LORETTA LYNN SURVIVED A STROKE AT 85 — THEN RELEASED HER 50TH ALBUM AND CALLED IT “STILL WOMAN ENOUGH.” In 2017, a stroke took her off the road. A broken hip followed a year later. Nashville quietly assumed the Coal Miner’s Daughter was done. She wasn’t. In March 2021, at 88, Loretta Lynn released her 50th studio album — sixty-one years after her first single. She titled it “Still Woman Enough.” She was still writing. Still recording. Still proving everyone wrong. Then, on October 4, 2022, Loretta Lynn died in her sleep at her ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. She was 90. The title of that last album suddenly meant something else entirely. How did it feel the day you heard she was gone?

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Loretta Lynn, Still Woman Enough When people talk about Loretta Lynn, they often talk about survival first. She survived poverty,…

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PATSY CLINE RECORDED 4 SONGS IN FEBRUARY 1963 — SHE HAD 29 DAYS LEFT. In early 1963, Patsy Cline was the biggest woman in country music. That February, she walked into a Nashville studio and cut four more songs. One of them was “Faded Love.” On the final line, her voice broke — and Owen Bradley kept it in. At 30, she was still recording. Still touring. Still making plans. Then, on March 5, 1963, her plane went down in the Tennessee woods on the way home from a benefit show. Dottie West had begged her to ride back by car. Patsy told her, “Don’t worry about me, Hoss.” What did you feel the first time you heard how that recording ends?

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Patsy Cline, February 1963, and the Last Song That Stayed Open at the End In early 1963, Patsy Cline was…

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BILLY JOE SHAVER SHOT A MAN OUTSIDE A TEXAS BAR. THREE YEARS LATER, A JURY CLEARED HIM — AND HE TURNED THE WHOLE THING INTO A COUNTRY SONG. On March 31, 2007, Billy Joe Shaver got into a confrontation with Billy Coker at Papa Joe’s Texas Saloon in Lorena, Texas. The argument moved outside. Shaver pulled a handgun and shot Coker. Shaver later said he believed Coker was threatening him and that he fired in self-defense. The case followed him for three years. In April 2010, a Texas jury heard the evidence and found Shaver not guilty of aggravated assault. Willie Nelson and actor Robert Duvall were among the friends who came to support him during the trial. Most singers would have wanted the story forgotten. Billy Joe Shaver did the opposite. He took one of the most dangerous nights of his life and turned it into a song — even recording it with his old friend Willie Nelson. For Shaver, being called an outlaw was never just a stage image.

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Billy Joe Shaver, the Texas Outlaw Who Turned a Shooting Into a Song On a spring night in Texas, Billy…

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CHARLEY PRIDE FIRST WALKED ONTO THE OPRY STAGE IN 1967. FIFTY-NINE YEARS LATER, THEY’RE BUILDING A NIGHT AROUND HIS SONGS. Charley Pride grew up in Sledge, Mississippi, listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio long before Nashville knew his name. By 1967, he had made it onto the stage he once heard from miles away. He became an Opry member in 1993 and spent the rest of his life as one of country music’s most important voices. Charley died in 2020 at 86, but this September, the Opry is bringing his music back to center stage. Darius Rucker, Pam Tillis, Neal McCoy, The War and Treaty, and Charley’s son Dion Pride are scheduled to honor him during Opry 100 Honors: Charley Pride. Fifty-nine years after that first Opry appearance, the songs are still there — and so is the legacy he left behind. Do you remember the first time you heard Charley Pride — and what it felt like?

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Charley Pride’s Songs Are Returning to the Opry Stage Charley Pride grew up in Sledge, Mississippi, listening to the Grand…

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CHARLEY PRIDE NEVER HAD TO FORCE A SONG TO SOUND TRUE. SOMETIMES ALL HE DID WAS SMILE — AND LET THE WORDS DO THE REST. Watch him sing “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’” and you can see why people stayed with him for so many years. His voice was warm and steady. No reaching for a dramatic moment. No trying to prove how much the song meant. Even on November 11, 2020, when an 86-year-old Pride sang it with Jimmie Allen at the CMA Awards after receiving the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award, that familiar ease was still there. It would become his final public performance. There was something about the way Pride delivered a love song that made a huge room feel smaller — almost as if he were singing to one person instead of thousands. Maybe that was his gift. He never made the emotion bigger than the song needed. And perhaps that is why those performances still feel so personal today. Not because Charley Pride tried to make them unforgettable. Because he never seemed to be trying at all.

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Charley Pride’s Quiet Magic Still Stays in the Room CHARLEY PRIDE never had to force a song to sound true.…

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