This Day in Country Music

[Spiritinthesky]

8th Oct 1882, Born on this day in Knoxville, Tennessee, was Haywire Mac, (Harry McClintock), an American singer and poet, best known for his song "Big Rock Candy Mountain", which was featured in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? The song reached #1 on Billboard's "Hillbilly Hits" chart in 1939. Having worked as a cowboy himself, McClintock was one of the few "country" singers who had an authentic background from which to draw. McClintock died on April 24, 1957.

[Spiritinthesky]

9th Oct 1982, Willie Nelson was at #1 on the country album chart with Always on My Mind, which became the Billboard #1 country album of the year. The album spent 22 weeks at the top of the charts and stayed for a total of 253 weeks on the Billboard Top Country Albums charts. The title track was originally recorded by Brenda Lee in 1972 and has since been recorded by dozens of performers including Elvis Presley in 1972 and John Wesley Ryles in 1979. More on Willie: http://www.thisdayincountrymusic.com/pa ... lie_nelson

[Spiritinthesky]

10th Oct 1958, Born on this day in Seminole, Texas, was Tanya Tucker, female country music artist who had her first hit, "Delta Dawn", in 1972 at the age of 13 and hit songs such as 1973's "What's Your Mama's Name?", "Blood Red and Goin' Down," 1975's "Lizzie and the Rainman," and 1988's "Strong Enough to Bend". Tucker starred in her own reality show, Tuckerville, on The Learning Channel in 2005. It ran for two seasons for a total of 18 episodes.

[Spiritinthesky]

11th Oct 1932, Born on this day near McMinnville, Tennessee, was Dottie West, country music singer and songwriter. Along with Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, West is considered one of the genre's most influential and groundbreaking female artists. Her career started in the early 1960s, with her Top 10 hit, "Here Comes My Baby Back Again," which won her a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 1965. She died in hospital on September 4, 1991 after being involved in a car crash a few days earlier when she was on her way to perform at the Grand Ole Opry.

[Spiritinthesky]

12th Oct 1997, John Denver was killed at the age of 53 when his experimental Rutan Long-EZ plane, crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Pacific Grove, California. The crash badly disfigured Denver's head and body, making identification by dental records impossible, records of his fingerprints were used to confirm that the pilot was indeed the singer. He was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the 1970s earning twelve gold and four platinum albums with his signature songs "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "Annie's Song", "Rocky Mountain High", and "Sunshine on My Shoulders".

[Spiritinthesky]

13th Oct 1978, Dolly Parton was at #1 on the US country music album chart with Heartbreaker, her 20th solo studio album. The title song, a ballad written by Carole Bayer Sager, topped the US country charts, and became Parton's third top-forty pop hit. More on Dolly: http://www.thisdayincountrymusic.com/pages/dolly_parton

[Spiritinthesky]

14th Oct 1938, Born on this day in Iron City, Tennessee, was Melba Montgomery, country music singer best known for duet hit recordings in the 1960s with country music singer George Jones and her 1974 US #1 hit "No Charge." Melba has written songs for such artists as George Strait, Reba McEntire, Randy Travis, George Jones, Patty Loveless, Travis Tritt, Tracy Byrd, and Terri Clark.

[Spiritinthesky]

15th Oct 1943, Born on this day, was American drummer and session musician Larrie Londin. He played on more hit records during his career than any other drummer, with the possible exception of the legendary session drummer Hal Blaine. Londin moved to Nashville in 1969, and grew to be regarded as Nashville's top session drummer and played with a wide range of artists, including Emmylou Harris, Charley Pride, Randy Travis, Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton, Albert Lee, Larry Carlton, Merle Haggard, Hank Snow, Jerry Reed, Rosanne Cash, Reba McEntire, KT Oslin, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Hank Williams, Jr., Chet Atkins, Ronnie Milsap, and many others. He died on August 24, 1992.

[Spiritinthesky]

16th Oct 1961, Decca records released "Crazy" by Patsy Cline. The ballad, composed by Willie Nelson gave Cline a #2 country hit in 1962. Nelson originally wrote the song for country singer Billy Walker, but Walker turned it down. The song's eventual success helped launch Nelson as a performer as well as a songwriter. It spent 21 weeks on the chart for Cline, and eventually became one of her signature tunes. More on Patsy here: http://www.thisdayincountrymusic.com/pages/patsy_cline

[Spiritinthesky]

17th Oct 1941, Born on this day in Portsmouth, Ohio, was Earl Thomas Conley, country music singer-songwriter. In the 1980s and into the 1990s, Conley charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, of which eighteen reached#1. Conley's eighteen #1 country singles during the 1980s marked the most #1 hits by any artist in any genre during that decade. Conley's music has been referred to as "thinking man's country" because the narrator looks into the heart and soul of his characters in each song.