Old time country music legends and stars

V

Victor

Senior Member
Location
midwest USA
I was watching DVDs of old time country music stars reuniting as seniors in their 60s to 80s
like Little Jimmy Dickens, Kitty Wells, Bill Anderson, Roy Clark and others.
and it is a shame that so many have passed away. Dickens last year.
Clark and Anderson are still around. Wells was the first female country star now gone.
And their traditionalist style is history. Radio stations won't play it.
Except it is on YouTube and Amazon. I am so impressed with their meaningful
singing style--and self-deprecating humor. By appearance alone, you would never guess
that they were once recording stars.


Days Gone By...
 

Old country is all I really listen to. My Son took the time to put all my albums on Cd's for me. I loved Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and so many others. The hubby and I went to Nashville in the early 70's, we were able to see a show in the old Rymon Auditorium. Hank Snow was there, Skeeter Davis, Roy Acuff and of course Minnie Pearl.. A couple of years after that we went to Fan Fair in Nashville which was something new they were trying. The stars preformed and after we were able to talk to them. I remember Sony James as being a true southern gentlemen and gave everyone his undivided attention. We never went back after that because it has changed so much and people our age who did go were so disappointed.
 

I too grew up on down home REAL country music. Fiddles, steel guitars, honest lyrics. Where did it go? Don't look at me, look no further than the greed of Nashville producers who weren't satisfied with just us hicks at heart, they wanted more...more money so the killed the music we are talking about. This song by Alan Jackson and George Strait tells us what happened.
 
This was one of my dad's favorites so I heard a lot of their music when I was growing up. I thought it was corny at the time but I am grateful now that I was exposed to it.

 
Many years ago, in Chicago country fest, I heard and met Bob Will's band (what is left of it)
and got autographs--but it was scribbled. They would not do an encore!

I also saw George Jones in cincert. Did not say a word to audience.
I have been to over 16 country star concerts.
 
Back in the late 50's early 60's many of the up and coming stars would play in Paterson New Jersey. My Dad who loved country music would get tickets and we would go. It was only a hour or so from my home. I remember seeing Buck Owens,Merle Haggard and David Houston who seemed asleep on his feet singing and playing.
I think they booked those singers night after night until they were ready to drop. In the 70's I went with my boyfriend to see Hank Williams Jr. sing at a local night spot. That was when he was first starting out and sang his Dad's songs. After the show we went out to the parking lot where he was sitting in the back end of his pick up and sang for us all again. After he became popular and did his own music I didn't care for him at all.
 
Try listening to Country Family Reunion DVDs
or on Heartland TV station (based in Indiana)
to hear these stars in a casual setting sing for their peers
and joke around too.
with Bill Anderson introducing them off the stage.

I' want to see Garth Brooks and Mickey Gilley,
who recently was in a serious auto accident.
 
I have seen all the Country family reunions DVD's and on TV...I'd barely heard of any of those older Country singers up until then, although I always loved country music Waylon, Willie, Dolly etc... but I didn't know the vast majority of those older singers or the younger ones who'd not had hits in the UK like T Graham Brown.. or Gene Watson .

Those shows were fabulous. I loved to listen and watch Jim Ed Brown and his sisters.. and Jean Shepard.. and so many others, whose songs I'd heard vaguely on radio in the past but didn't know the singer, because they were before my time ...

Dear John was the one that got me hooked on watching the Country reunion shows, after I watched the show and listened to ferlin Husky and jean Shepard sing ...

I think Ferlin Died soon after this was shown... and we lost jean just recently



Then of course there was Ferlin's famous Wings of a Dove...





The original



...and later ( spot waylon at the front)

 
I'd known this song all my life, but I always thought it was an Irish folk song because it's always sung at Irish gatherings and pubs... it wasn't till I found CFR shows that I learned about merle Kilgore...and I loved the story about how Wolverton Mountain... came to be..

 
Being a huge fan of Willie nelson...this from The early 60's of Willie singing a medley of songs he wrote and were hits for other people as well as himself...


 
I've been a Patsy Cline fan since I discovered her music as a teen... but by which time she'd been dead over 10 years so there's not a huge amount of old live footage of Patsy, but this is one of the better ones where she's duetting with Bobby Lord...(the latter I'd only got to know through the CFR shows)

 
i love country music---conway twitty and loretta lynn was one of my favorites--i liked all the older music also from the 50s---but now the newer version of country i cant stand it
 
Each to his or her own of course - but TO ME, most 'çountry' music is pretty awful.
So many of the males sound like they're singing through their nose - and most of the lyrics are so 'twangy' and sad and mournful.
Not all, naturally.

That said, I gave Keith Urban one of his first paid jobs - $50 singing off the back of a truck when he was about 16.
He went to the same High School as two of my sons.
 
I wish we could just have the music here instead of the videos. They take a long time to load.

How can you leave out Jim Reeves. "Have I told you lately that I love you"? His voice is smooth not twangy at all.
 
Thanks for the memories, Hollydolly! Wings Of A Dove used to be my lift-me-up song during my teen years. I haven't thought of that song in a very long time.
 
Oh you're welcome Olivia.... :D I might not be old enough to have known most of these singers when they were big stars , but I am a passionate music fan, and my music taste is very eclectic...it's one of my great passions in life...

Camper, we haven't left out Jim Reeves , there's sooo many we haven't even mentioned yet... but JR was my mothers' favourite , and I remember I was about 8 or 9 years old when he died, and it being announced on the radio, and my mother in tears, and me being totally stunned and amazed that she would cry for someone we didn't even know.

So just for you Camper.. here's a few of my mums' old JR favourites..




 

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