Eddie Rabbitt (1941 - 1998)

Eddie Rabbitt When Rabbitt arrived in Nashville during the late 1960s, a friend gave him a pet chicken. Rabbitt noted that he had “an affinity for animals” and kept the bird for a while before ultimately giving it to a farmer. During his Nashville days in the early 1970s, Rabbitt owned a pet monkey named […]

Otis Blackwell (1931 - 2002)

Otis Blackwell Songwriter. He is best known for writing such classics Rock and Roll songs as “Return To Sender”, “All Shook Up”, and “Great Balls of Fire”. He is credited with writing songs that have sold over 185 million copies. Tracks for Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis were most popular, but he also wrote for […]

Goldie Hill (1933 - 2005)

Goldie Hill Hill was soon performing on Louisiana Hayride as part of her brother Tommy’s band. On the show, she was dubbed The Golden Hillbilly, and the name stuck with her for the rest of her career. Louisiana Hayride opened even more doors for Hill, and she soon had a contract with Decca Records. Her […]

Mel Street (1933 - 1978)

Mel Street Street was born in Rowe, Virginia to a coal mining family. Publications cite his year of birth as 1933, although his family maintains that he was born in 1935. He began performing on western Virginia and West Virginia radio shows at the age of sixteen. Street subsequently worked as a radio tower electrician […]

Grant Turner (1912 - 1991)

Grant Turner Grant Turner, a Grand Ole Opry announcer for a half-century, died Saturday of a heart aneurysm. He was 79. As he had for 47 years, Mr. Turner worked the Friday night Opry show. He died six hours later at Saint Thomas Hospital. “He worked every Friday and Saturday night, every weekend, doing what […]

Anita Carter (1933 - 1999)

Anita Carter Born in Maces Spring, Virginia, she scored two Top Ten hits in 1951 with “Down The Trail of Achin’ Hearts” with Hank Snow at No. 2 and “Blue Bird Island” at No. 4. She reached the Top Ten again in 1968 with “I Got You” with Waylon Jennings at No. 4. Other solo […]

Rick Nelson (1940 - 1985)

Rick Nelson Nelson dreaded flying but refused to travel by bus. In May 1985, he decided he needed a private plane and leased a luxurious, fourteen-seat, 1944 Douglas DC-3 that had once belonged to the DuPont family and later to Jerry Lee Lewis. The plane had been plagued by a history of mechanical problems. In […]

Jim Eanes (1923 - 1995)

Jim Eanes Homer Robert Eanes Jnr., 6 December 1923, Mountain Valley, Henry County, Virginia, USA, d. 21 November 1995, Martinsville, Virginia, USA. His early musical interest came from his father, a talented banjo player, who ran a local band. When only six months old, he suffered severe burns to his left hand that left the […]

Floyd Cramer (1933 - 1997)

Floyd Cramer Musician. Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, he was a self-taught pianist renowned as one of the one of the architects of the “Nashville Sound”. In 1955, he moved to Nashville and became one of the most sought after session musicians in town. He played on sessions to include Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, Patsy […]

Gus Hardin (1970 - 1996)

Gus Hardin One of the more interesting singers of the 1980s was a female singer who went by the name Gus Hardin. While never a big star, she had one of the more distinctive female voices and enjoyed at least a modicum of recording success. Her voice was hard to describe, although some listeners said […]

Jimmy Wakely (1914 - 1982)

Jimmy Wakely Singer. Born James Clarence Wakely in Mineola, Arkansas, he was a country music entertainer and one of the last vocalists to make it in movies as a singing cowboy. In 1937, he formed The Bell Boys, a country Western singing group which toured and evolved into the Jimmy Wakely Trio and was featured […]

Jimmy Martin (1927 - 2005)

Jimmy Martin Beginning in 1949 Martin was lead vocalist for Bill Monroe‘s “Bluegrass Boys,”. Martin’s high voice mixed with Monroe’s tenor came to be known as the “high lonesome” sound. His influence radically changed Monroe’s music from the fast-paced but smooth style of the “original” 1945 band with Flatt and Scruggs. Martin challenged Monroe to […]

Teddy Wilburn (1931 - 2003)

Teddy Wilburn Country Musiician. With brother Doyle, he made up one of the most succesful brother duos in country music history. They began their careers as children, along with older brothers Lester and Leslie and sister Geraldine, singing on street corners. The Wilburn Family was discovered in 1940 by Roy Acuff who brought them to […]

Doyle Wilburn (1930 - 1982)

Doyle Wilburn Along with brother Teddy, the Wilburn Brothers were one of the most popular country music duos of all time. Beginning their careers as children, along with two older brothers, Leslie and Lester and sister, Geraldine, singing on street corners for tips, the Wilburn Family was discovered by Roy Acuff who brought them to […]

Randolph Scott (1898 - 1987)

Randolph Scott Actor. His film career spanned from 1928 until 1962 and was a leading man for all but his first three years. He is remembered for his roles as a Western hero, as out of his more than 100 film appearances, over 60 were of the Western film genre. Born George Randolph Scott, the […]

Carl Perkins (1932 - 1998)

Carl Perkins Musician. Born Carl Lee Perkins in Tiptonville, Tennessee, he was a rockabilly guitarist, singer, songwriter and a rock music pioneer. He began playing guitar at age 7 and at age 13, he won at a talent show with a song he had written titled “Movie Magg”. In the early 1950s, he formed a […]

Hawkshaw Hawkins (1921 - 1963)

Hawkshaw Hawkins On March 3, 1963, Hawkins, Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas performed at a benefit concert at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas for the family of disc jockey “Cactus” Jack Call, who had died in January after an automobile accident. Among the performers was Billy Walker, who received an […]

Carl Butler (1927 - 1992)

Carl Butler Carl Robert Butler was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 2, 1927. He grew up influenced by Roy Acuff and the old time music around his home. He began singing at local dances at the age of 12 and, after service in World War II, sang with several bluegrass bands and then as […]

DeFord Bailey (1899 - 1982)

DeFord Bailey Musician and Country Music Hall of Fame Member. A grandson of slaves, he was not just the first African American to appear on the Grand Ole Opry, he was the first star to appear. The show was originally named the WSM Barn Dance, but when it became a part of the NBC network […]

Philip Markoff (1986 - 2010)

Markoff was the son of Susan (née Haynes) and Richard Markoff, a dentist in Syracuse, New York. He had an older brother, Jon Markoff. He graduated in 2004 from Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School, where he was a member of the National Honor Society, the History Club, and the Youth Court, and the school bowling and golf […]

Jimmy Hoffa (1913 - 1982)

Hoffa was born in Brazil, Indiana, to Indiana natives John and Viola (née Riddle) Hoffa. His ancestors were Pennsylvania Dutch. His father died in 1920 when Hoffa was seven years old, and the family moved to Detroit in 1924, where Hoffa was raised and lived the rest of his life. Hoffa left school at age […]

Albert Fish (1870 - 1936)

Fish was born in Washington, D.C., on May 19, 1870, to Randall (1795 – October 16, 1875) and Ellen (née Howell; 1838–c. 1903) Fish. His father was American, of English ancestry, and his mother was Scots-Irish American. Fish said that he was named after statesman and politician Hamilton Fish, a distant relative. His father was […]

Susan Atkins (1948 - 2009)

Born in San Gabriel, California, the second of three children, Susan Atkins grew up in northern California. According to her, both her parents, Edward John and Jeanette, were alcoholics. Her mother died of cancer in 1963. Over the next three years, Susan’s life was disrupted by the gradual breakup of her family, frequent relocations, and […]

Bruce Reynolds (1931 - 2013)

Bruce Richard Reynolds was born at Charing Cross Hospital, Strand, London, the only child of Thomas Richard and Dorothy Margaret (née Keen). He was initially brought up in Putney, and his mother, a nurse, died in 1935 when he was aged four. His father, a trade-union activist at the Ford Dagenham assembly plant, remarried and […]

Grandpa Jones (1913 - 1998)

Grandpa Jones He is best remembered as an old time country and gospel music singer banjo player who always wore his pants tucked inside his boots, whose animated performances were often characterized by his leg kicks and foot stomping, and as a charter cast member of the CBS television show “Hee Haw” that aired from […]

Faron Young (1932 - 1996)

Faron Young Faron Young, a honky-tonk singer who became a pillar of Nashville country music, died yesterday at Columbia Summit Medical Center in Nashville, said Melanie Lamb, a hospital spokeswoman. He was 64. He died of a gunshot wound that apparently was self-inflicted, the police said; he was found wounded on Monday at his Nashville […]

Cowboy Copas (1913 - 1963)

Cowboy Copas On March 3, 1963, Copas, Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins and others performed at a benefit concert at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas for the family of disc jockey Cactus Jack Call, who had died the previous December in an automobile accident. On March 5, they left for Nashville […]

Al Downing (1940 - 2005)

Al Downing was an entertainer, singer, songwriter, and pianist. He received the Billboard’s New Artist of the Year and the Single of the Year Award in 1979. He was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and was a frequent performer at the Grand Ole Opry. Downing was nominated as Best New Artist by the […]

Gary Stewart (1945 - 2003)

Gary Stewart Though his late 1970s albums were well received by critics and his core audience, Stewart never established a large audience. He was often labeled as “too country” for rock listeners and “too rock” for country fans. In 1980, he released the Chips Moman-produced Cactus and a Rose which featured Southern rockers Gregg Allman, […]

Brother Oswald (1911 - 2002)

Brother Oswald Musician. Born Beecher Ray Kirby, he was a Dobro guitar and banjo player best known as Bashful Brother Beecher. In 1934, taking the stage name Pete Kirby, he joined Roy Acuff’s Crazy Tennesseans in 1934, which became the Smoky Mountain Boys. In 1939, the Smoky Mountain Boys joined the cast of the Grand […]