Wayne and Stan – take on Nashville

Chicken One Day, Feathers the Next   Show Business is my life…or when you gonna get a real job?  What every Hillbilly singer hears at some time in their life.   August of ’62, Si Simon signed me to a management contract to handle the transformation of a green kid into a seasoned entertainer/recording artist.  I don’t know how butterflies do their transformation from a grub worm, but man, my transformation was a real challenge.  … CONTINUE READING

City View – The Man Who lived on Tootsie’s Roof Top

In memory, it’s the good things that you remember most…. In Ancient Times, before some of you were born, this is kinda how it was in the 50’s and 60’s, in a Town now being called “Music City, USA”. The Opry was still at the Ryman, Gaylord was not even a figment of Roy Acuff’s imagination, Owen Bradleys Quonset Hut Studio was still making magic records (you remember, don’t you, the big round black things … CONTINUE READING

Random Acts of Kindness from Roy Acuff

The first time I appeared on the Grand Ole Opry, in October of 1961, Roy Acuff gave me some words of wisdom that I’ve never forgotten. That night, on my second appearance of the evening, on Roy’s 10 PM Opry spot, I had chosen a Gospel song for my second time out on that hallowed stage. I sang, Where No One Stands Alone, and at the end of the song the crowd just kept clapping…I … CONTINUE READING

Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys…Jesus Loves Me This I Know…and other songs, I didn’t write!

The following is an excerpt for Stan Hitchcock’s Book Corner of Music Row and Memory Lane.  This was the late 40’s and early 50’s, I was just reaching puberty and radio was king ( I don’t know if there was any connection or not, but those love songs were starting to have new meaning)……particularly local radio which always had great live shows in the early morning, at noon and then in late afternoon.  I was … CONTINUE READING

Drive Ins, Rodeos and Strip clubs

We, who were living the Classic Country dream, in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, learned, early on, to sing our songs, play our music and do our entertaining, under extreme, and often, very unusual circumstances. Shoot, we didn’t care, we just wanted to do our shows, hit the road and go do another one somewhere else. It didn’t seem so strange to be standing on the top of the projection booth, at a drive in … CONTINUE READING

One Old Man And A Fiddle

It would be nice to think that, when WSM Radio went on the air in the Fall of 1925, that the Owners of the Station, National Life And Accident Insurance Co, would be such Fans of American Music that they would use their powerful radio signal to further the advance of our beloved music.   Yessir, that’s the way it worked, right?  Now, come on folks, can you imagine the Nashville Country Club set, the … CONTINUE READING