Audie Murphy (1924 - 1971)

Audie Murphy On 28 May 1971, Murphy was killed when the private plane in which he was a passenger crashed into Brush Mountain, near Catawba, Virginia, 20 miles (32 km) west of Roanoke in conditions of rain, clouds, fog and zero visibility. The pilot and four other passengers were also killed.[180] The aircraft was a twin-engine […]

Martha Carson (1921 - 2004)

Martha Carson Things began to change after Carson met Fred Rose in Nashville. He helped convince Capitol to let her record alone, and in 1951 she made her solo-single debut with “Satisfied”, a gospel song she had written in response to audience disapproval over her divorce. The combination of Carson’s powerful alto voice and the […]

John Hartman (1937 - 2001)

John Hartman John Hartford won Grammy awards in three different decades, recorded a catalog of more than 30 albums, and wrote one of the most popular songs of all time, Gentle On My Mind.  He was a regular guest and contributor on the Glen Campbell Good Time Hour and the Smothers Brothers Show.  He added […]

Roy Orbison (1936 - 1988)

Roy Orbison American singer-songwriter, best known for his trademark sunglasses, distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country and western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis. His greatest success came with Monument Records between 1960 and […]

Pete Drake (1932 - 1988)

Pete Drake Roddis Franklin “Pete” Drake was a record producer, record company founder, Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors,” Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay,” and Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man.” Drake played on thirty-eight of forty-eight BMI (Broadcast Music, Incorporated) award-winning recordings in 1966 alone. He also played his steel guitar on five of Elvis […]

Jack Anglin (1916 - 1963)

Jack Anglin The youngest of 10 children, Anglin learned to play guitar as a child and at an early age was singing in a trio with his brothers, Jim and Van (aka Red). Jack wrote songs, and the three began to appear at local venues and radio as the Anglin Brothers. He relocated to Nashville […]

Vestal Goodman (1929 - 2003)

Vestal Goodman Born Vestal Freeman, she grew up in Alabama, dreaming of a career as an opera singer. All that changed when she met Howard “Happy” Goodman at a revival in Albertville, Ala. The two were married Nov. 7, 1949 and were nearly inseparable until his death in November 2002 at 81. During the 50s, […]

Ernest Stoneman (1893 - 1968)

Ernest Stoneman Ernest “Pop” Stoneman was one of the first, and most popular, early country artists. He was born in Carroll Country, Virginia and raised by his father and three cousins, who taught him traditional Blue Ridge Mountain songs. He married as a young man and, when not working various odd jobs, played music for […]

Stoney Cooper (1918 - 1977)

Stoney Cooper Dale Troy “Stoney” Cooper and his wife Wilma Lee were one of the premier husband-and-wife duos in country music. Staples of the Grand Ole Opry for 20 years, they performed together for close to four decades, and helped old-time music evolve into modern country music. They were born four years apart on opposite […]

Clyde Moody (1915 - 1989)

Clyde Moody CLYDE LEONARD MOODY, known widely in the bluegrass music world as the “Hillbilly Waltz King”, was born 19 Sep 1915 in Haywood County, NC, and died 07 Apr 1989 in Ashland, Cheatham, TN. His musical career began in the 1930’s and spanned over 50 years. He wrote music and lyrics and performed with […]

Webb Pierce (1921 - 1991)

Webb Pierce Webb Pierce was one of the most popular honky tonk vocalists of the ’50s, racking up more number one hits than similar artists like Hank Williams, Eddy Arnold, Lefty Frizzell, and Ernest Tubb. For most of the general public, Pierce — with his lavish, flamboyant Nudie suits — became the most recognizable face […]

Tom Mix (1880 - 1940)

Tom Mix On October 12,1940, cowboy-movie star Tom Mix is killed when he loses control of his speeding Cord Phaeton convertible and rolls into a dry wash (now called the Tom Mix Wash) near Florence, Arizona. He was 60 years old. Today, visitors to the site of the accident can see a 2-foot–tall iron statue […]

Archie Moore (1916 - 1998)

Archie Moore He turned professional in 1938 and boxed all but one of his 12 bouts that year in San Diego. Moore had eight bouts in 1939, going 5–2 during that span, with one “no contest.” He lost to former Middleweight Champion and future Hall of Famer Teddy Yarosz during that time, and his no-contest […]

King George VI (1895 - 1952)

George VI was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria. His father was Prince George, Duke of York (later King George V), the second and eldest-surviving son of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra). His mother was […]

Red Foley (1910 - 1968)

Red Foley Red Foley was one of the biggest stars in country during the post-war era, a silky-voiced singer who sold some 25 million records between 1944 and 1965 and whose popularity went far in making country music a viable mainstream commodity. Born Clyde Julian Foley on June 17, 1910, in Blue Lick, KY, he […]

Speck Rhodes (1915 - 2000)

Speck Rhodes was a country music comedian and entertainer. Rhodes was best known for his appearances on the Porter Wagoner television show. He came from a musical family and with his two brothers and sister, were known as Speck, Slim, Bea, and Dusty. 1934 they were touring the RKO vaudeville circuit as the Log Cabin […]

Henry Haynes (1920 - 1971)

Henry Haynes Haynes was born near Knoxville, Tennessee on July 29, 1920. He met Kenneth Burns during a WNOX-AM audition in 1936 when they were both 16 years old. Haynes strummed the guitar and Burns played the mandolin. Known as Junior and Dude (pronounced “dood’-ee”), the duo was rechristened Homer and Jethro when WNOX Program […]

Bill Carlisle (1908 - 2003)

Bill Carlisle Yodeling singer/songwriter/guitarist Bill Carlisle was the younger brother of popular 1930s country singer Cliff Carlisle. During the ’30s, Bill established himself as an expert purveyor of racy, blues-tinged country songs, but during the ’50s and ’60s, he was best-known for his novelty songs as he and his family band, the Carlisles, became regulars […]

Smiley Burnette (1911 - 1967)

Smiley Burnette Lester A. Burnett (he added the final “e” later in life) was born in Summum, Illinois, on March 18, 1911, and grew up in Ravenwood, Missouri. He began singing as a child and learned to play a wide variety of instruments by ear, yet never learned to read or write music. In his […]

Red Sovine (1918 - 1980)

Red Sovine In 1965 Sovine found his niche when he recorded “Giddyup Go“, which, like most of his other trucker hits, he co-wrote with Tommy Hill. It is spoken, rather than sung, as the words of an older long-distance truck driver who rediscovers his long-lost son driving another truck on the same highway. Minnie Pearl […]

Thomas Horn (1860 - 1903)

Known as “Tom,” he was born in 1860 to Thomas S. Horn, Sr. and Mary Ann Maricha (née Miller) on their family farm in rural northeastern Scotland County, Missouri. They had 600 acres (bisected by the South Wyaconda River), located between the towns of Granger and Etna. Tom was the fifth of twelve children. During […]

Charlie Rich (1932 - 1995)

Charlie Rich Musician Charlie Rich had several No. 1 country songs in the 1970s, including “Behind Closed Doors” and “The Most Beautiful Girl.” Commercial success came at a considerable personal price for Charlie Rich. His drinking and resulting bad behavior had spiraled out of control. His behavior came to a head in a shocking on-stage […]

Jack Weil (1901 - 2008)

Jack Arnold Weil (March 28, 1901 – August 13, 2008) was the founder and CEO of the Denver-based Western clothing manufacturer Rockmount Ranch Wear and was believed to be the oldest working CEO in the United States. Weil was born in Evansville, Indiana in 1901. In 1926, Weil (also known as Papa or “Papa Jack”) […]

Estée Lauder (1908 - 2004)

Lauder was born Josephine Esther Mentzer in Corona, Queens in 1906, the second child born to Rose Schotz Rosenthal and Max Mentzer. Her mother was French Catholic on her maternal side and Hungarian Jewish on her father’s side. Rose emigrated from Hungary to the United States in 1898 with her five children to join her […]

Charlie Poole (1892 - 1931)

Charlie Poole Charlie Poole & the North Carolina Ramblers were one of the most popular string bands of the 1920s. If they didn’t have the foot-stomping exuberance of their chief competitors, Georgia’s Skillet Lickers, they offered a debonair precision that was equally infectious. Infused with ragtime and pop, their music almost seemed to swing at […]

Ramsey Hughes (1928 - 1928)

Ramsey Hughes Patsy Cline had participated in a benefit concert in Kansas City for the family of a disc jockey (“Cactus” Jack Call) who had died in a car accident. Ramsey (Randy) Hughes, Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and Cowboy Copas, were all in Hughes Piper Comanche, when it crashed just west of Camden, Tennessee in […]

Richard Blackwell (1922 - 2008)

Blackwell was born Richard Sylvan Selzer in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn to Henry Selzer, a working-class printer, and Eva Selzer, were the American-born children of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. He had one older brother. He claimed he was severely beaten by a stepfather, often sleeping in the alley beneath a fire escape […]

Bettie Page (1923 - 2008)

Bettie Page Page was born in Nashville, Tennessee, the second of six children to Walter Roy Page and Edna Mae Pirtle. At a young age, Page had to face the responsibilities of caring for her younger siblings. Her parents divorced when she was 10 years old. (In the 1930 Census, a few weeks before Bettie’s […]

Johnny Paycheck (1938 - 2003)

Johnny Paycheck Johnny PayCheck, the hard-living Nashville guitar slinger who urged the working class to “Take This Job and Shove It,” has died. Although he had been sober for years, decades of boozing and drugging had taken its toll on the honky-tonker. He had been in declining health for the past several years, spending recent […]

Mae Axton (1914 - 1997)

Mae Axton She was born Mae Boren in 1914 in Bardwell, Texas, but was raised in Oklahoma. There were many politicians within her family – her brother, David, became a state senator. She obtained a degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma and then worked for Life magazine as a reporter. In the mid-Thirties, […]