Hank Williams
Hiram “Hank” King Williams (September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953)
Category Archives: In memoriam
James Brown – Godfather of Soul – 1933-2006
Johnny Cash – “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”
Iggy Pop, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Chris Martin, Kanye West, Flea, Johnny Depp, Brian Wilson,Dennis Hopper, Keith Richards– pay tribute to Cash in the new video for the Man’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”, from his 2006 posthumous release “American V: A Hundred Highways.”
Freddy Fender (June 4, 1937 – October 14, 2006)
I remember as a kid in Texas in the 70’s you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing “Wasted days and wasteed nights” and “Before the Next Teardrop Falls.” Both made it to #1 on both the pop and country charts.
Fender recently won a Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album in 2002 for “La Musica de Baldemar Huerta.” He also shared in two
Grammys: with the Texas Tornados, which won in 1990 for best Mexican-American performance for “Soy de San Luis,” and with Los Super Seven in the same category in 1998 for “Los Super Seven.”
He said in a 2004 interview with The Associated Press that one thing would make his musical career complete — induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.
“Hopefully I’ll be the first Mexican-American going into Hillbilly Heaven,” he said.
RIP Freddy. I hope you got there. You certainly earned it.
Musician Burkett Howard “Uncle Josh” Graves, master of Dobro, dies
From the Tennessean – Burkett Howard “Uncle Josh” Graves, whose bluesy Dobro innovations helped keep that curious and difficult instrument alive in country and bluegrass music, died Saturday in Nashville after a lengthy illness.
According to his family, Mr. Graves was 79 years old, though differing dates of birth are listed in various publications.
If Mr. Graves’ age was in question, the timelessness and agelessness of his playing are not.
Three fingers on Mr. Graves’ right hand struck his Dobro strings in a rolling manner that allowed him great speed, and the silver bar that he held in his left hand produced remarkable resonance and tuneful melodies. One of only a few professional Dobro players in the 1950s when he joined Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Boys, he exhibited dynamic musicianship and stage presence that reached audiences who watched Flatt and Scruggs’ TV show and came to concerts.
“Playing straight hillbilly music, which we now call bluegrass, on the Dobro back then was unheard of,” Scruggs said on Sunday. “That instrument was almost out of the picture. Brother Oswald was playing Dobro for Roy Acuff, and he was a great, great player, but Josh could also do that up-tempo stuff. Josh really had it all as a musician.”
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