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Country Music

April 3, 2017 by John Lawless Bluegrass Today
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The American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City has announced the opening this week of America’s Super Picker – Roy Clark, their exhibit showcasing the career of the popular multi-instrumentalist and singer from Virginia. Many music fans in the US know Roy primarily from his time as a co-host of Hee Haw on television, but he had a successful performing career both before and after TV. He now lives in Oklahoma not far from the museum.

Consisting of photographs and artifacts from the personal collection of this recent inductee to the American Banjo Museum Hall of Fame, the exhibit will officially open on Thursday, April 6. Starting at 5:00 p.m., Clark will hold a press conference at the museum, after which the ceremonial opening of the exhibit will commence. ABM officers will deliver brief remarks, as will Clark, before hosting a VIP Meet and Greet with members and special guests.

The museum boasts the world’s largest collection of banjos on public display, in over 21,000 square feet of displays, ranging from primitive instruments like the ones made by African slaves, through the Minstrel era banjos, up to the genre-defining banjos from the early 20th century up to the present day.

The Roy Clark exhibit is scheduled to be open through March of 2018. Visitors can tour the American Banjo Museum Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and Sundays from noon to 5:00 p.m. Admission is only $6 for adults, with discounts for seniors, military, and students. Children under 5 may attend at no charge.
 
Chris Stapleton

Here's some tracks from Chris Stapleton's new album
interview (May 11, 2017)

 
By Joseph Hudak May 26, 2016 Rolling Stone
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Billy Ray Cyrus onstage in 1993.

"Where were you 25 years ago?" asks Billy Ray Cyrus, leaning in intently.

The country singer, actor and dad to famous pop stars is seated in a room in the Nashville home and studio of the late Cowboy Jack Clement, but his mind is time traveling back to 1992, when one of the most polarizing songs in country music, "Achy Breaky Heart," was dominating the airwaves.

When he gets his answer – that the writer was speeding away from his senior year of high school in an '84 Chevy Cavalier, with "Achy Breaky Heart" blaring on the local Top 40 station – the Kentucky native howls in delight. It's the memory of the car that gets him. You see, Cyrus – or whatever he's calling himself these days – loves cars. His landmark debut album, Some Gave All, which turns 25 years old this month, was practically birthed in one. Prior to cutting the record that would change his life, debuting at Number One on the country albums chart and spending 17 weeks atop the Billboard 200, Cyrus was living out of his own Chevy, a stuffed-to-the-rear window Beretta.

"I was pretty comfortable in there. But my car had shit all over it. Well, not shit, though there was probably some of that too," he says. "There were cassette tapes, and tapes, and tapes. And guitars, and microphones rolling around the floor. If I needed anything, all my shit was in that car. That was my office."

Those tapes that filled the backseat of his Beretta were his memos. Cyrus loves cassettes and brings them up often in conversation. They're a connection to a time gone by for the 55-year-old singer, an era when future hits could be discovered by simply pressing "play" on some unknown songwriter's hastily recorded demo.

It was on cassette, in fact, that Cyrus first heard songwriter Don Von Tress' "Achy Breaky Heart" – then titled "Don't Tell My Heart."

"I stood up and said, 'That's me! That's what I want to sound like, that's what I do, man!'" Cyrus says, shooting up from his chair and thrusting his hands in the air. "Thinking back on it, it just turned me on because it moved me."

Although Some Gave All was nearly finished, Cyrus returned to the studio to cut this silly new sing-along, a track that its own writer Von Tress says was "a gift from the ether. I saw kids dancing in my mind [when I wrote it] and I remember telling my wife that and she thought I was a little screwy."

Cyrus jettisoned one of his own compositions, "Whiskey, Wine and Beer" – "The best move I ever made in my life!" – and slapped "Achy Breaky Heart" onto his new album for Mercury Records.

The song was a monster, knocking Sawyer Brown's "Some Girls Do" out of the top spot on the Billboard country charts the week of May 30th, 1992, and remaining there for five weeks.
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But to some, "Achy Breaky Heart" was just monstrous. Travis Tritt criticized the song as signifying a wrong direction for country music, leading Cyrus to offer a bizarre rebuttal onstage at the 1993 American Music Awards. "There have been those people perhaps due to paranoia or insecurity or perhaps they consider theirself [sic] a self-proclaimed critic … To those people who don't like 'Achy Breaky Heart,' here's a quarter, call someone who cares," he said, alluding to Tritt's own 1991 hit.

Waylon Jennings also raised an eyebrow at Cyrus' hip-swiveling dance steps that accompanied the song.
"Waylon had said, 'I think the boy's tennis shoes may be a little too tight,'" remembers Cyrus, who went on to became close friends with the outlaw country pioneer.

Still, "Achy Breaky Heart" had its unexpected fans. Von Tress recalls hearing the song's merits as a "true American folk song" debated on NPR, and cites a near mythic Bruce Springsteen cover of his tune. "Springsteen said, 'I don't care what anybody says, this is a damn good song,'" recalls Von Tress. Sure enough, Springsteen did spontaneously run through "Achy Breaky" at a tour rehearsal show in 1993 in New Jersey.
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Despite, or likely because of, its love-it-or-loathe-it nature, "Achy Breaky Heart" keeps on beating. Cyrus just released two new versions and performed the "Muscle Shoals" update on NBC's Today Show. The original, meanwhile, remains a touchstone of Nineties country. It's also that rarest of gifts an artist can receive: a signature song. One that Cyrus still delivers honestly every time he strums those A and E chords.

"Somebody was bitching back when it was released that that is just what country needs, another three-chord song," he says. "I said, ahem, 'It's only two.'"
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by Kristin M. Hall / AP Aug 08, 2017 Time
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(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — Glen Campbell, the grinning, high-pitched entertainer whose dozens of hit singles included "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Wichita Lineman" and whose appeal spanned country, pop, television and movies, died Tuesday, his family said. He was 81.

Campbell's family said the singer died Tuesday morning in Nashville and publicist Sandy Brokaw confirmed the news. No cause was immediately given. Campbell announced in June 2011 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and that it was in its early stages at that time.

"Glen is one of the greatest voices there ever was in the business and he was one of the greatest musicians," said Dolly Parton in a video statement. "He was a wonderful session musician as well. A lot of people don't realize that. But he could play anything and he could play it really well."

Tributes poured in on social media. "Thank you Glen Campbell for sharing your talent with us for so many years May you rest in peace my friend You will never be forgotten," wrote Charlie Daniels. One of Campbell's daughters, Ashley, said she was heartbroken. "I owe him everything I am, and everything I ever will be. He will be remembered so well and with so much love," she wrote on Twitter.

In the late 1960s and well into the '70s, the Arkansas native seemed to be everywhere, known by his boyish face, wavy hair and friendly tenor. He won five Grammys, sold more than 45 million records, had 12 gold albums and 75 chart hits, including No. 1 songs with "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Southern Nights."

His performance of the title song from "True Grit," a 1969 release in which he played a Texas Ranger alongside Oscar winner John Wayne, received an Academy Award nomination. He twice won album of the year awards from the Academy of Country Music and was voted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Seven years later, he received a Grammy for lifetime achievement.

His last record was "Adios," which came out in June and features songs that Campbell loved to sing but never recorded, including tunes made famous by Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt and Johnny Cash. Ashley Campbell, also a musician, made a quest appearance and said making the album was "therapeutic."

Campbell was among a wave of country crossover stars that included Johnny Cash, Roy Clark and Kenny Rogers, and like many of his contemporaries, he enjoyed success on television. Campbell had a weekly audience of some 50 million people for the "Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour," on CBS from 1969 to 1972. He gained new fans decades later when the show, featuring his cheerful greeting "Hi I'm Glen Campbell," was rerun on cable channel CMT.

"I did what my Dad told me to do — 'Be nice, son, and don't cuss. And be nice to people.' And that's the way I handled myself, and people were very, very nice to me," Campbell told The Telegraph in 2011.

He released more than 70 of his own albums, and in the 1990s recorded a series of gospel CDs. A 2011 farewell album, "Ghost On the Canvas," included contributions from Jacob Dylan, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins.

The documentary "Glen Campbell ... I'll Be Me" came out in 2014. The film about Campbell's 2011-12 farewell tour offers a poignant look at his decline from Alzheimer's while showcasing his virtuoso guitar chops that somehow continued to shine as his mind unraveled. The song "I'm Not Gonna Miss You" won a Grammy for best country song in 2015 and was nominated for an Oscar for best original song.

Campbell's musical career dated back to the early years of rock 'n roll. He toured with the Champs of "Tequila" fame when the group included two singers who formed the popular '70s duo Seals & Crofts. He was part of the house band for the ABC TV show "Shindig!" and a member of Phil Spector's "Wrecking Crew" studio band that played on hits by the Ronettes, the Righteous Brothers and the Crystals. He played guitar on Frank Sinatra's "Strangers In the Night," the Monkees' "I'm a Believer" and Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas."

"We'd get the rock 'n' roll guys and play all that, then we'd get Sinatra and Dean Martin," Campbell told The Associated Press in 2011. "That was a kick. I really enjoyed that. I didn't want to go nowhere. I was making more money than I ever made just doing studio work."

A sharecropper's son, and one of 12 children, he was born outside of Delight, Arkansas, and grew up revering country music stars such as Hank Williams.

"I'm not a country singer per se," Campbell once said. "I'm a country boy who sings."

He was just 4 when he learned to play guitar. As a teenager, anxious to escape a life of farm work and unpaid bills, he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to join his uncle's band and appear on his uncle's radio show. By his early 20s, he had formed his own group, the Western Wranglers, and moved to Los Angeles. He opened for the Doors and sang and played bass with the Beach Boys as a replacement for Brian Wilson, who in the mid-'60s had retired from touring to concentrate on studio work. In 1966, Campbell played on the Beach Boys' classic "Pet Sounds" album.

"I didn't go to Nashville because Nashville at that time seemed one-dimensional to me," Campbell told the AP. "I'm a jazzer. I just love to get the guitar and play the hell out of it if I can."

By the late '60s, he was a performer on his own, an appearance on Joey Bishop's show leading to his TV breakthrough. Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers saw the program and asked Campbell if he'd like to host a summertime series, "The Summer Brothers Smothers Show." Campbell shied from the Smothers Brothers' political humor, but still accepted the offer. He was out of the country when the first episode aired.

"The whole lid just blew off," Campbell told the AP. "I had never had anything like that happen to me. I got more phone calls. It was awesome. For the first couple of days I was like how do they know me? I didn't realize the power of television."

His guests included country acts, but also the Monkees, Lucille Ball, Cream, Neil Diamond and Ella Fitzgerald.

He was married four times and had eight children. As he would confide in painful detail, Campbell suffered for his fame and made others suffer as well. He drank heavily, used drugs and indulged in a turbulent relationship with country singer Tanya Tucker in the early 1980s.

He is survived by his wife, Kim; their three children, Cal, Shannon and Ashley; and his children from previous marriages, Debby, Kelli, Travis, Kane and Dillon. He had 10 grandchildren.

In late 2003, he was arrested near his home in Phoenix after causing a minor traffic accident. He later pleaded guilty to "extreme" DUI and leaving the scene of an accident and served a 10-day sentence.

Among Campbell's own hits, "Rhinestone Cowboy" stood out and became his personal anthem. Written and recorded by Larry Weiss in 1974, "Rhinestone Cowboy" received little attention until Campbell heard it on the radio and quickly related to the story of a veteran performer who triumphs over despair and hardship. Campbell's version was a chart topper in 1975.

"I thought it was my autobiography set to song," he wrote 20 years later, in his autobiography, titled "Rhinestone Cowboy."
 
By Erin Nyren and Chris Willman November 19, 2017 Variety
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Mel Tillis, country music singer and songwriter, has died, the Country Music Hall of Fame confirmed in a statement. He was 85.

According to the Tennessean, Tillis died early Sunday morning at the Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala, Fla. after almost two years of ill health stemming from a bout of diverticulitis, for which he received surgery. The suspected cause of death is respiratory failure.

Tillis began recording in the late 1950s and continued to perform through 2015, but remained best known for a string of No. 1 country hits in the late ’70s, along with a succession of appearances in Hollywood movies alongside Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood that helped make him a household name even outside the country music sphere.

“Mel Tillis spent a lifetime giving us joy and laughter and music, which is why his death brings such sadness,” said Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Kyle Young. “Had he never stepped on a stage, he would still have been one of the funniest and most genuine people on the planet.”

“But his whimsy and warmth were only a part of his appeal. He wrote some of country music’s most compelling and consequential songs, he fronted a remarkable band, and he sang with power and emotion. He also shone as an inspiration, revealing what others called an impediment as a vehicle for humor and hope.”

In 1976, Tillis won the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award and was inducted in the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. In 2007, Tillis was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, as well as the Country Music Hall of Fame. President Barack Obama bestowed the National Medal of Arts award upon Tillis in 2012.

Tillis, born Lonnie Melvin Tillis, grew up in Florida and developed a stutter that would stay with him throughout his life as a result of an early bout of malaria; the stutter did not affect his singing voice. Not only did Tillis not try to hide the condition, he trumpeted it with good humor and made it enough of a trademark that he eventually titled his memoir “Stutterin’ Boy.”

He joined the U.S. Air Force and was stationed as a baker in Okinawa, where he formed a band called the Westerners. After leaving the Air Force in 1955 and working several odd jobs, Tillis auditioned for Wesley Rose, who encouraged him to pursue songwriting. Tillis eventually moved to Nashville and began writing songs full-time, most notably for Webb Pierce.

Through the late ’50s and ’60s, Tillis balanced his career as a then-minor hitmaker in his own right with bigger songwriting successes for other artists, including Kenny Rogers and the First Edition’s “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” and Bobby Bare’s “Detroit City.” It wasn’t until 1971 that he had his own first No. 1 hit as a recording artist, with “I Ain’t Never,” which he followed later in the decade with the chart-toppers “Good Woman Blues,” “Heart Healer,” “I Believe In You,” and “Coca-Cola Cowboy.”

After his recording career faded in the 1980s, Tillis acquired several radio stations including KIXZ and KYTX in Amarillo, Tex., and WMML in Mobile, Ala., which he eventually sold for a sizable profit. He also found a different kind of fame with a new generation by virtue of being the father of Pam Tillis, who had a run of 13 top 10 hits in the 1990s and often referred to her famous dad.

Tillis was a familiar screen presence in the ’70s and ’80s, with small roles in films including “W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings,” “The Villain,” “Every Which Way But Loose,” “Smokey and the Bandit II,” and both “Cannonball Run” movies. He also briefly co-hosted an ABC prime-time series, “Mel and Susan Together,” with supermodel Susan Anton in 1978. TV guest spots were frequent, including a debut acting appearance on “Love: American Style” in 1973, followed by shows like “The Dukes of Hazard,” “The Tim Conway Show,” and “The Love Boat.”

The most prominent latter-day cover of a Tillis song came when Robert Plant and Alison Krauss recorded “Stick With Me Baby” for their T Bone Burnett-produced “Raising Sand,” which won a 2007 Grammy for Album of the Year.

“Mel Tillis was a guy who had it all: He could write, he could sing and he could entertain an audience,” said Grand Ole Opry announcer and WSM DJ Eddie Stubbs. “There’s a big difference between a concert and a show. Mel Tillis always put on a show….You always felt good about being around him.”
 
October 2, 2018 Nonesuch
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Emmylou Harris, a twelve-time Grammy winner and a Country Music Hall of Fame member, is the subject of a major new exhibition at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, opening this Friday, October 5, 2018. The exhibit, titled Emmylou Harris: Songbird’s Flight, features many unique items including handwritten letters and lyrics, a Gibson J-200N acoustic guitar given to Harris by Gram Parsons, outfits worn by Harris on album covers, military decorations awarded to her Marine fighter pilot father, and more, and will run until August 4, 2019.

Harris will take part in a special public conversation about her life and work in the museum’s CMA Theater on Saturday, November 3, 2018. Tickets are included with museum admission and is free to museum members. The program will be streamed live at countrymusichalloffame.org/streaming.

From her start with Gram Parsons in California during the early 1970s to her acceptance in Nashville and mainstream country music in the 1980s, Harris has brought millions of new listeners to country music. Over forty years into a remarkable career, she has amassed twenty-seven Top Ten hits, including seven that reached #1. She also has placed fourteen albums in the Top Ten of the Billboard country album chart.

"From my first album release in 1975, country music has embraced me with open arms," said Harris. "This exhibit at the Hall of Fame makes me realize once more how grateful and honored I am to be part of such a remarkable musical family."

A champion of songwriters and musicians alike, Harris gave early career boosts to Rodney Crowell, Ricky Skaggs, Sam Bush and Buddy Miller. Countless country singers cite Harris as an influence, including Suzy Bogguss, Mary Chapin Carpenter, the Dixie Chicks, Patty Loveless and Trisha Yearwood. Harris's influence extends beyond country music, too, with acclaimed artists Patty Griffin, Lucinda Williams, and many others citing her as an artistic guidepost. Examining Harris through her music and her collection of personal artifacts will provide new insight into one of country music's most important and visionary artists.
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Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris and Patty Griffin view Emmylou Harris' new exhibit.

"For over 50 years, the museum has shared with its visitors the rich and diverse history of country music, while documenting the music's ongoing evolution," said museum CEO Kyle Young. "Our 2018 exhibits continue that tradition."

One of the most visited museums in the United States, with a collection of more than 2.5 million artifacts, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2017. For more information, visit countrymusichalloffame.org.
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Emmylou Harris strolls through the Country Music Hall of Fame exhibit chronicling her life and career.
 
by Jem Aswad November 15, 2018 Variety
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Roy Clark, the legendary guitarist and singer, Country Music Hall of Fame and Grand Ole Opry member, Grammy, ACM and CMA award winner and co-host of the “Hee Haw” television series, died on Thursday due to complications from pneumonia at home in Tulsa, Okla. He was 85.

His starring stint on the at times deliberately corny “Hee Haw” television show belied his stellar musicianship and deep pedigree as a country-music pioneer, particularly the “Bakersfield” sound of the late 1950s and early 1960s in which he was deeply involved with fellow picker Buck Owens, who also appeared on the show. With the later rise of country stars ranging from Emmylou Harris and Dwight Yoakam to Brad Paisley and Keith Urban, Clark’s vast influence has received its proper due. (The biography that follows is an edited version of one provided by 2911 Media.)

Born Roy Linwood Clark on April 15, 1933 in Meherrin, Virginia, Clark moved to Washington, D.C. when he a young. His father played in a square dance band and took him to free concerts by the National Symphony and by various military bands. “I was subjected to different kinds of music before I ever played. Dad said, ‘Never turn your ear off to music until your heart hears it — because then you might hear something you like.'”

His first guitar, a Sears Silvertone, came as a Christmas present when he was 14. That same year, 1947, he made his first TV appearance. In the fertile, diverse musical soil of cosmopolitan D.C., he began playing bars and dives on Friday and Saturday nights until he was playing every night and skipping school — eventually dropping out at 15. “Music was my salvation, the thing I loved most and did best. Whatever was fun, I’d go do that.”

He soon went on tour with country legends such as Hank Williams and Grandpa Jones. After winning a national banjo competition in 1950, he was invited to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, which led to shows with Red Foley and Ernest Tubb. Yet he’d always return to D.C. to play not only country but jazz, pop, and early rock’n’roll. In 1954, he joined Jimmy Dean and the Texas Wildcats, appearing in clubs and on radio and TV, and even backing up Elvis Presley.

But in 1960, he was 27 and still scrambling. An invitation to open for Wanda Jackson at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas proved to be his big break. It led to his own tour, on the road for 345 straight nights at one stretch, and when he returned to Vegas in 1962, he came back as a headliner and recording star, with his debut album, “The Lightning Fingers of Roy Clark.” The next year, he had his first hit, “The Tips of My Fingers,” a country song that featured an orchestra and string section. “We didn’t call it crossover then but I guess that’s what it was,” he said. “We didn’t aim for that, because if you aim for both sides you miss them both. But we just wanted to be believable.”

He first television appearances in 1963 on “The Tonight Show” and “American Bandstand” showcased his easygoing attitude and rural sense of humor. “Humor is a blessing to me. My earliest recollections are of looking at something and seeing the lighter side,” he said. “But it’s always spontaneous. I couldn’t write a comedy skit for someone else.”

Throughout the ’60s, Clark recorded several albums, toured constantly, and appeared on many TV variety shows. “I was the token bumpkin. It became, ‘Let’s get that Clark guy. He’s easy to get along with,'” he recalled.

Then came “Hee Haw.” A countrified comedy show with music, shot in Nashville, “Hee Haw” premiered in 1969. Co-starring Clark and Buck Owens, it was an immediate hit. Though CBS canceled the show after two-and-a-half years, despite ranking in the Top 20, the series segued into syndication, where it remained until 1992. “I long ago realized it was not a figure of speech when people come up to me and say they grew up watching me since they were ‘that big’.”

The show launched him into stardom, and over the years he had 23 Top 40 country hits, including “The Tips Of My Fingers,” “I Never Picked Cotton,” “Thank God And Greyhound You’re Gone,” “Somewhere Between Love And Tomorrow” and “If I Had It To Do All Over Again.”

From his home in Tulsa, where he moved in 1974 with Barbara, his wife of 61 years, Clark continued to tour extensively. “Soon as you hit the edge of the stage and see people smiling and know they’re there to hear you, it’s time to have fun,” he said. :I keep a band of great young people around me, and we’re not musically restrained. It’s not about ‘let’s do it correct’ but ‘let’s do it right.’”

He was the rare entertainer with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame, who performed at the Grand Ole Opry and Carnegie Hall.

“Roy Clark made best use of his incredible talent. He was both a showman and a virtuoso, with a love of music that beamed across air waves and into millions of living rooms, where families gathered to watch and listen,” Country Music Hall of Fame CEO Kyle Young said.

Clark is survived by Barbara, his wife of 61 years, his sons Roy Clark II and wife Karen, Dr. Michael Meyer and wife Robin, Terry Lee Meyer, Susan Mosier and Diane Stewart, and his grandchildren: Scott Fearington, Brittany Meyer, Michael Meyer, Caleb Clark, Josiah Clark and his sister, Susan Coryell.

A memorial celebration will be held in the coming days in Tulsa, Okla., details forthcoming.
 
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American Masters – Charley Pride: I’m Just Me traces the improbable journey of Charley Pride, from his humble beginnings as a sharecropper’s son on a cotton farm in segregated Sledge, Mississippi to his career as a Negro American League baseball player and his meteoric rise as a trailblazing country music superstar. The new documentary reveals how Pride’s love for music led him from the Delta to a larger, grander world. In the 1940s, radio transcended racial barriers, making it possible for Pride to grow up listening to and imitating Grand Ole Opry stars like Ernest Tubb and Roy Acuff. The singer arrived in Nashville in 1963 while the city roiled with sit-ins and racial violence. But with boldness, perseverance and undeniable musical talent, he managed to parlay a series of fortuitous encounters with music industry insiders into a legacy of hit singles, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a place in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Narrated by Grammy-nominated country singer Tanya Tucker, the film features original interviews with country music royalty, including Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker and Marty Stuart, as well as on-camera conversations between Pride and special guests, including Rozene Pride (his wife of 61 years), Willie Nelson and fellow musicians.
 
by Chris Morris | March 20, 2020 | Variety
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Vocalist Kenny Rogers, who dominated the pop and country charts in the 1970s and 1980s with a string of sleekly tailored hits and won three Grammys, has died. He was 81. Rogers “passed away peacefully at home from natural causes under the care of hospice and surrounded by his family,” a representative for the singer said in a statement. Due to the national COVID-19 emergency, the family is planning a small private service at this time with a public memorial planned for a later date.

Rogers had announced a farewell tour in 2015 and was able to keep it going through December 2017. In April 2018, shortly before he was to spend a few months finishing out the tour after a break, he announced that he was having to call off the remaining dates (including a planned appearance at the Stagecoach Festival in California), due to unspecified “health challenges.” “I didn’t want to take forever to retire,” Rogers said his April 2018 statement. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity to say farewell to the fans over the course of the past two years on ‘The Gambler’s Last Deal’ tour. I could never properly thank them for the encouragement and support they’ve given me throughout my career and the happiness I’ve experienced as a result of that.”

A special, “Biography: Kenny Rogers,” had been announced by A&E earlier this month, set to air April 13. The special is said to be largely built around footage from the all-star salute Rogers received in Nashville on Oct. 25, 2017, just a couple of months before his final concert appearances. Among the guests who joined him for that sentimental sendoff at the Bridgestone Arena were Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie, Don Henley, Kris Kristofferson, Alison Krauss, Chris Stapleton, Little Big Town, Reba McEntire, the Flaming Lips and the Judds.

Rogers’ signature song “The Gambler” was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2018. It was the most recent of a lifetime of honors bestowed on the singer, which included induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, three Grammys and six CMA Awards.

Rogers was one of the progenitors of country-pop crossover at the superstar level. “I came into country music not trying to change country music but trying to survive,” he said in a 2016 interview with CMT.com. “And so I did songs that were not country but were more pop. Nowadays they’re not doing country songs at all. What they’re doing is creating their own genre of country music. But I told somebody the other day, country music is what country people will buy. If the country audience doesn’t buy it, they’ll kick it out. And if they do, then it becomes country music. It’s just era of country music we’re in.”

After establishing himself commercially via rock- and pop-oriented singles with his group the First Edition, the bearded, prematurely gray Rogers was launched into the top rank of crossover country artists with a string of singles for United Artists Records.

His appealing, sometimes gritty voice propelled 20 solo 45s to No. 1 on the country charts from 1977-87. Two of them, his 1980 reading of Lionel Richie’s “Lady” and his 1983 collaboration with Dolly Parton “Islands in the Stream” (penned by the Bee Gees), also topped the pop lists. He worked profitably with a number of other female vocalists, including Dottie West, Sheena Easton, Kim Carnes and Anne Murray.

Country historian Bill C. Malone noted that Rogers’ ingratiating style “has been the chief source of his immense success. Rogers is a consummate storyteller, with an intimate and compelling style that almost demands the listener’s concentration. When his husky tenor voice slips down into a raspy, gravelly register, as it sometimes does, Rogers pulls the listener even further into his confidence.”

Rogers parlayed his music success into a successful side career as an actor. His 1978 country chart-topper “The Gambler” spawned five popular TV movies, while some of his other hits also inspired small-screen features.

Rogers was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Country Music Association the same year.

Born and raised in Houston, he was the fourth of eight children in a poor family. He took to the guitar as an adolescent, and would sometimes perform with another aspiring local musician and future star, Mickey Gilley.

His early professional career was stylistically eclectic. While in high school, he formed a vocal group, the Scholars, which recorded for Carlton Records, a local label. After a brief stint at the University of Houston, he played bass with the jazz groups of Bobby Doyle and Kirby Stone.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1966, he joined the folk-pop unit the New Christy Minstrels, a group that also numbered such performers as Carnes, the Byrds’ Gene Clark, “Eve of Destruction” vocalist Barry McGuire and the Lovin’ Spoonful’s Jerry Yester among its members at one time or another.

With fellow Minstrels Mike Settle, Terry Williams and Thelma Camacho, Rogers founded the rock-leaning group the First Edition in 1967. Fronted by Rogers (whose name would be appended to the act’s moniker in 1969), the group notched two top 10 pop hits: “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” (No. 5, 1968), a version of Mickey Newbury’s slice of pop psychedelia, and “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” (No. 6, 1969), Mel Tillis’ downbeat song about the faithless wife of a handicapped Vietnam vet.

The First Edition’s fortunes began to wane in the early ’70s, and Rogers signed a solo deal with UA in 1976. He struck almost immediate pay dirt with “Lucille,” an absorbing vignette about a barroom encounter with a disillusioned woman and her estranged husband. The number became Rogers’ first No. 1 country hit and reached No. 5 on the national pop chart. It also scored Rogers his first Grammy, for best male country vocal performance.

Rogers also partnered with longtime female star West, and the duo racked up three No. 1 country singles for UA and then Liberty in 1978-81: “Every Time Two Fools Collide,” “All I Ever Need Is You” and “What Are We Doin’ in Love.”

He notched five more No. 1 solo country singles by the end of the decade. The biggest of these were the Grammy-winning “The Gambler” (also No. 16 pop in 1978) and the backwoods narrative “Coward of the County” (also No. 3 pop in 1979). They pushed the albums “The Gambler” and “Kenny” to No. 12 and No. 5, respectively, on the pop album charts. Each inspired a popular TV movie; Rogers would portray Brady Hawkes, protagonist of “The Gambler,” in a series of telepics that ran through 1994.

On the heels of a No. 1 greatest hits set in 1980, Rogers’ hits of the decade for Liberty and RCA found him moving increasingly into pop terrain and focusing on romantic balladry. “Lady” and “Islands in the Stream” (the latter one of many duets with frequent partner Parton) solidified his standing as country’s biggest crossover attraction; his rendering of Bob Seger’s “We’ve Got Tonight” with Sheena Easton ruled the country chart and rose to No. 6 on the pop chart. In all, he recorded 23 top 10 country hits during the decade, five of which crossed to the pop side.

Though it failed to even dent the pop charts, “Make No Mistake, She’s Mine,” Rogers’ duet with singer-pianist Ronnie Milsap (and a remake of a duet by former bandmate Kim Carnes and Barbra Streisand) became Rogers’ next-to-last No. 1 country single in 1987. It also reaped a Grammy for best country vocal duet performance.

Like many another star of his era, Rogers began to fall out of fashion in the ’90s, as a younger generation of country musicians flexing a less countrypolitan style supplanted him. He made his last toplining appearance in a pair of telepics as reformed gambler Jack MacShayne in 1994. In 1999, he notched a final No. 1 country hit, “Buy Me a Rose,” with Billy Dean and Alison Krauss.

In the new millennium, sporadic releases on a number of independent labels and majors Capitol Nashville and Warner Bros. Nashville performed respectably on the country album charts but produced no major hits.

From the ’90s forward, as he maintained a busy touring schedule, Rogers increasingly turned his attention to various entrepreneurial enterprises, opening a chain of fast-food chicken outlets, Kenny Rogers Roasters, and a Sprint car manufacturing firm, Gamblers Chassis.

He issued a memoir, “Luck or Something Like It,” in 2012, and a novel, “What Are the Chances,” in 2013. That same year, he was the recipient of the CMA Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award. He received a similar honor from CMT with its Artist of a Lifetime Award in 2015.

Always active on the road, Rogers announced his retirement in September 2015, not long after a widely aired commercial for Geico insurance saw him reprising “The Gambler” for comedic effect.

At the Oct. 25, 2017 tribute concert in Nashville, Rogers joined in jocular exchanges with some of the homage-payers, notably Parton, who quipped, “I want to see what condition your condition’s really in.” They reprised their recorded duets of “You Can’t Make Old Friends” and “Islands In the Stream,” and Parton additionally sang him her own signature song, “I Will Always Love You.”

Footage of the 2017 concert was filmed by Blackbird Productions but went unseen until it was set for inclusion in the A&E “Biography” special airing in April.

“I hope my fans understand that I’m a father first and a singer second,” Rogers said about his planned retirement from touring, in a 2016 interview with CMT.com, mentioning at that time that he had 11-year-old twin boys with his wife, Wanda Miller.. “As it turns out, I’m missing some very great parts of my boys’ lives. I know as well as anybody else how that time gets away from you. And I don’t want to miss it. I just worry about how much longer I’m going to be here, and I want to have time to spend with them. It’s pretty simple.”

Married five times, Rogers is survived by his last wife Wanda and five children.
 
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<samp class="EmbedCode-container"></samp><samp class="EmbedCode-container"><code class="EmbedCode-code"><samp class="EmbedCode-container"><code class="EmbedCode-code"><samp class="EmbedCode-container"><code class="EmbedCode-code"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">You never know how much you love somebody until they’re gone. I’ve had so many wonderful years and wonderful times with my friend Kenny, but above all the music and the success I loved him as a wonderful man and a true friend. <a href="https://t.co/hIQLIvt8pr">pic.twitter.com/hIQLIvt8pr</a></p>&mdash; Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) <a href="https://twitter.com/DollyParton/status/1241370371628183552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</code></samp> </code></samp></code></samp><iframe scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/widget_iframe.d0f13be8321eb432fba28cfc1c3351b1.html?origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mjjcommunity.com" title="Twitter settings iframe" style="display: none;" frameborder="0"></iframe><iframe id="rufous-sandbox" scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="true" style="position: absolute; visibility: hidden; display: none; width: 0px; height: 0px; padding: 0px; border: medium none;" title="Twitter analytics iframe" frameborder="0"></iframe><iframe scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/widget_iframe.d0f13be8321eb432fba28cfc1c3351b1.html?origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mjjcommunity.com" title="Twitter settings iframe" style="display: none;" frameborder="0"></iframe><iframe scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/widget_iframe.d0f13be8321eb432fba28cfc1c3351b1.html?origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mjjcommunity.com" title="Twitter settings iframe" style="display: none;" frameborder="0"></iframe><iframe scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/widget_iframe.d0f13be8321eb432fba28cfc1c3351b1.html?origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mjjcommunity.com" title="Twitter settings iframe" style="display: none;" frameborder="0"></iframe><samp class="EmbedCode-container"><code class="EmbedCode-code"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I’m really sad to hear about Kenny Rogers passing. Kenny had a wonderful voice and so many great songs. He will be missed, but we’ll always have his music. Love &amp; Mercy to Kenny’s family. - Brian</p>&mdash; Brian Wilson (@BrianWilsonLive) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrianWilsonLive/status/1241409094029901826?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</code></samp><samp class="EmbedCode-container"><code class="EmbedCode-code"><samp class="EmbedCode-container"><code class="EmbedCode-code"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Just my small way of remembering <a href="https://twitter.com/_KennyRogers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@_KennyRogers</a>. This is a song that Kenny wrote with Waylon Jennings (another musical hero) in mind. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RIPKennyRogers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RIPKennyRogers</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RIPLegend?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RIPLegend</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RIPLegend?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RIPLegend</a> <a href="https://t.co/zEjHHLiWKA">pic.twitter.com/zEjHHLiWKA</a></p>&mdash; Travis Tritt (@Travistritt) <a href="https://twitter.com/Travistritt/status/1241425576516374528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </code></samp></code></samp>
 
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Lionel Richie wrote Kenny Rogers' 1980 hit single "Lady"

Lionel Richie shared a heartbreaking message following the news of Kenny Rogers’ death at 81.

“Today I lost one of my closest friends So much laughter so many adventures to remember, my heart is broken. My prayers go out to Kenny’s Family,” Richie, 70, wrote on Instagram and Twitter Saturday.

Also in the tribute, the American Idol judge posted some of his favorite throwback photos of the pair, including the times they shared the stage together.

Famously, Richie wrote Rogers’ 1980 hit single “Lady.”

On Saturday, Rogers’ family confirmed the country icon’s death on social media.

“The Rogers family is sad to announce that Kenny Rogers passed away last night at 10:25 p.m. at the age of 81. Rogers passed away peacefully at home from natural causes under the care of hospice and surrounded by his family,” the family said in a statement.

“The family is planning a small private service at this time out of concern for the national COVID-19 emergency. They look forward to celebrating Kenny’s life publicly with his friends and fans at a later date,” the statement concluded.

Rogers previously spoke fondly of Richie and their friendship at the Lionel Richie and Friends in Concert in Las Vegas in 2012. “He’s not just a friend of mine, but the song he wrote was truly a changing point in my career,” he said of the song “Lady,” adding, “It’s one of the most identifiable songs I’ve ever done.”'

In October 2017, Richie performed at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena to honor Rogers’ life and music legacy, along with Little Big Town, the Judds and Dolly Parton.

In addition to his solo music, Rogers amassed a large following well beyond the country-music world thanks to collaborations with artists such as Richie, Lynda Carter and Barry Gibb, as well as 1985’s charity song “We Are the World” with 45 other musicians.

Among Rogers’ 39 studio albums, some well-known ones include The Gambler, Kenny, Eyes That See in the Dark, She Rides Wild Horses and Share Your Love.

https://people.com/music/lionel-rich...osest-friends/
 
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by Chris Morris | July 6, 2020 | Variety
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Singer, songwriter and instrumentalist Charlie Daniels, whose fusion of traditional country and Southern rock made him a popular cross-genre artist during the ‘70s and ‘80s, died Monday of a hemorrhagic stroke in Hermitage, Tenn. He was 83.

After establishing himself on the Nashville studio scene with session and touring work behind such performers as Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, Daniels attracted attention as a singer and bandleader in his own right with several singles for Epic Records – “Uneasy Rider,” “The South’s Gonna Do It Again,” “Long Haired Country Boy” – that expressed kinship with the redneck rockers in the country audience.

Country historian Bill C. Malone identified his appeal in his book “Country U.S.A.”: “This big, gruff, tobacco-chewing, outspoken musician embodied Southern good-old-boy traits almost to the point of caricature. He was nationalistic, hedonistic, macho…and lovable. He also made compelling music.”

Even before he scored a major national hit, Daniels was something of an icon among country rockers, mainly thanks to his headlining appearances at the annual, star-studded Volunteer Jam concerts, launched in Nashville in 1974; the event ran through 1996 and was officially revived in 2015.

He is best remembered for “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” his folk tale, set in a talking blues style, about a fiddling contest with Old Nick. The single climbed to No. 1 on the country chart and crossed over to No. 3 on the pop side in 1979, shifting 1 million copies.

The song, which received wide exposure on the multi-platinum soundtrack of the 1980 feature “Urban Cowboy,” captured a Grammy Award for best country vocal performance. It thrust Daniels’ album “Million Mile Reflections” to No. 5 on the pop album chart.

In the aftermath of “Devil,” Daniels scored further pop hits with the patriotic “In America” (No. 11, 1980) and a musing look back at the Vietnam War, “Still in Saigon” (No. 22, 1982). Those singles lofted his albums “Full Moon’ (1980) and “Windows” (1982) to No. 5 and No. 7 on the country albums charts, with the former collection reaching No. 11 on the pop side. His last top-20 country single, “Simple Man,” peaked at No. 12 in 1989.

In later years, Daniels continued to play for the faithful, but often was a lightning rod for controversy as he became an unabashed mouthpiece for right-wing political views. His later singles – “America I Believe in You,” “This Ain’t No Rag, It’s a Flag,” “My Beautiful America,” “The Pledge of Allegiance” – reflected an increasing tendency to wave the flag.

The musician was an especially devoted activist on behalf of America’s military, founding the veterans’ assistance non-profit the Journey Home Project with his manager David Corlew (and contributing $300,000 for the charity from the 2015 Volunteer Jam) and making regular appearances before U.S. troops — sometimes in combat zones like Iraq.

“I’ve played for them in bases in this country, overseas, on ships at sea, in Greenland, and Cuba, all over the place,” he told Forbes magazine in 2019. “And the main reason is to let them know somebody cares.”

Daniels, who joined the Grand Ole Opry in 2008, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.

He was born Oct. 28, 1936, in Wilmington, N.C. Adept on fiddle, guitar, banjo, and mandolin, he broke in playing bluegrass music with an act called the Misty Mountain Boys, and later branched into playing rock ‘n’ roll.

A major professional break came in 1964, when “It Hurts Me,” a song he co-authored with his friend Bob Johnston, was recorded by Elvis Presley for the flip side to his No. 12 single “Kissin’ Cousins,” the title song for his then-current movie.

Daniels remained close to Johnston, who became a staff producer for Columbia Records in Nashville. After the musician moved to Music City in 1967, Johnston employed him as a session player on three Bob Dylan albums, the singer-songwriter’s 1969 country debut “Nashville Skyline” and the 1970 releases “Self Portrait” and “New Morning.”

Daniels also played fiddle behind Leonard Cohen, another of Johnston’s production charges, at the Canadian singer-songwriter’s chaotic 1970 appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival. He branched into production in 1969 with work on the Youngbloods’ “Elephant Mountain.”

He began his solo career on Capitol Records in 1971, but his releases there and on Kama Sutra Records between 1972-74 failed to click in a major way. In ’74 he began a long-term association with Epic Records, and the label successfully marketed him to Southern rock fans, who knew Daniels for his side work with the Marshall Tucker Band. The institution of Volunteer Jam helped make the Charlie Daniels Band one of country’s top touring attractions of the ‘70s.

Daniels scored less regularly on the country and pop singles charts following his peak years of 1979-82, but “Simple Man” hit a final peak of No. 2 on the country albums list in 1989.

He branched into the gospel market with “The Door” on Sparrow Records in 1994, and established his own imprint, Blue Hat Records, in 1997. In the new millennium he worked for such indie labels as Audium, Koch and Megaforce.

In keeping with the tenor of his latter-day political and patriotic pronouncements — which he aired on Twitter and in the “Soap Box” section of his official web site — Daniels published his self-explanatory “Ain’t No Rag: Freedom, Family, and the Flag” in 2003.

His memoir “Never Look at the Empty Seats” appeared in 2017; “Let’s All Make the Day Count:The Everyday Wisdom of Charlie Daniels” was published in 2018.

He is survived by his wife Hazel and son Charlie Jr.
 
by Joseph Hudak | December 12, 2020 | Rolling Stone
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Charley Pride, the pioneering black country singer known for such hits as “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'” and “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone,” has died in Dallas, Texas, from complications related to Covid-19, according to his publicist. He was 86.

Born in Sledge, Mississippi, in 1934, Pride picked cotton, played baseball in the Negro leagues, served in the U.S. Army, and worked in a smelting plant in Montana before moving to Nashville and becoming country music’s first black superstar. He scored 52 Top 10 country hits, including 29 Number Ones, and was the first African-American performer to appear on the Grand Ole Opry stage since Deford Bailey made his debut in the 1920s. Pride became an Opry member in 1993. In 2000, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

After leaving the Army, Pride landed in Helena, Montana, where he continued to play baseball (Jackie Robinson was an early hero) and took a job in a smelting plant. He also began singing in public, where he caught the ear of a local DJ who arranged for Pride to sing for country stars Red Sovine and Red Foley. The pair convinced him to move to Nashville and, in 1964, he signed a management deal with longtime manager Jack D. Johnson. The following year, he had his first Nashville recording session and, a month later, signed with the label RCA.

Pride’s debut single, “The Snakes Crawl at Night,” failed to chart, but his debut album, Country, reached the Top 20. His 1967 album The Pride of Country Music went on to hit Number One and, that same year, he became the first African-American solo singer to appear on the Opry. On April 29th, he made his national TV debut, appearing on Lawrence Welk’s Saturday-night ABC music series.

A lifelong disciple of Hank Williams, Pride’s debut on The Lawrence Welk Show presented his vibrant take on Williams’ 1949 hit “Lovesick Blues.” During a later appearance, Pride sang Lead Belly’s oft-covered folk tune “Cotton Fields,” a song that reminded him of his hard upbringing as a sharecropper’s son. “[It] reminds me of what I don’t ever go back to doing because it hurt my fingers and my back and my knees,” Pride said.

Pride’s appearance on a variety show popular with a white audience was no small achievement, especially given RCA’s early penchant for obscuring Pride’s race. When Pride’s singles were sent to DJs and press, they arrived without the usual artist publicity photo.

By 1969, Pride was on a hot streak, propelled by his Top Three cover of Hank Williams’ “Kaw-Liga.” He notched his first Number One single with “All I Have to Offer You (Is Me),” following by another chart-topper, “(I’m So) Afraid of Losing You Again.” The following year Pride released one of his signatures songs, “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone.” It too hit Number One. His other signature, “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’,” arrived in 1971 and gave him a bona fide crossover smash, reaching Number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The hits continued well into the early Eighties, with singles like 1974’s “Then Who Am I,” 1977’s “More to Me,” 1980’s “Honky Tonk Blues” and “You Win Again” (two more Hank Williams covers), and 1983’s sultry “Night Games,” which would be his last Number One.

Despite being such an important black figure in country music, Pride never felt defined by his race, even when peppered with questions about it by the press. “I never see anything but the staunch American Charley Pride,” he told NPR in a 2017 interview. “They says, ‘Charley, how did it feel to be the Jackie Robinson of country music? How did it feel to be the first colored country singer? How did it feel to be the first Negro country singer? How did it feel to be the first black country singer?’ It don’t bother me, other than I have to explain it to you how I maneuvered around all these obstacles to get to where I am today…. I’ve got a great-grandson and [grand] daughter and they gonna be asking them that too if we don’t get out of this crutch we’ve been in all these years… this ‘them’ and ‘us.'”

In a 2019 documentary about his life and career, Pride did recall one particularly tense concert, however. It was in Big Springs, Texas, on April 4, 1968 — the date of Martin Luther King’s assassination. “I got onstage, nobody said nothin’,” Pride said. “They applauded, I got a standing ovation. I didn’t say nothin’ about nothin’ pertaining to what had happened. But it was hanging there, what had happened and me the only one there with these pigmentations. You don’t forget nothin’ like that.”

Dolly Parton, who sang with Pride on the duet “God’s Coloring Book,” remembered the country star in a tweet on Saturday. “I’m so heartbroken that one of my dearest and oldest friends, Charley Pride, has passed away,” she wrote. “It’s even worse to know that he passed away from COVID-19. What a horrible, horrible virus. Charley, we will always love you.”

Just last month, Pride, a three-time Grammy winner, was honored by the Country Music Association with the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award. He performed on the telecast with country singer Jimmie Allen, recreating “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’.” It would be Pride’s final performance.
 
Naomi Judd (January 11, 1946 - April 30, 2022)
by Chris Willman | April 30, 2022 | Variety
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Singer and television star Naomi Judd, famous for nearly four decades as the matriarch of the country music duo the Judds, died Saturday at 76. No cause of death was immediately given, although in a statement daughters Wynonna Judd and Ashley Judd attributed their mother’s death to “the disease of mental illness.”“Today we sisters experienced a tragedy,” the statement said, according to the Associated Press. “We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness. We are shattered. We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory.”

A statement from Naomi Judd’s publicist said that her husband of 32 years, Larry Strickland, “will not be making any further statements. Naomi Judd’s family request privacy during this heartbreaking time. No additional information will be released at this time.”

The announcement came the day before the Judds were set to be formally inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame at a medallion ceremony in Nashville. Representatives of the Hall of Fame could not immediately be reached for comment on whether the ceremony will be canceled or go on in some form.

The Judds had also recently announced a farewell tour, the first by Naomi and Wynonna in more than a decade. The short, 10-date tour, which was being produced by Sandbox Live and Live Nation, was to commence Sept. 30 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and wrap up Oct. 28 at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. “What I’m looking forward to most is celebrating Judd music with the fans,” said Wynonna in a statement when the tour was announced. “Mom and I have had quite the journey over the last 38 years, and the fans have been with us through it all. This tour is a celebration for them.” Three of the arena shows, including the Nashville finale, had sold out, according to the Judds’ social media.

The Judds sang on the CMT Music Awards telecast and walked the red carpet just this month. The show aired live on CBS April 11, the same day the duo announced the reunion/goodbye tour.

As a duo, the Judds had remained mostly dormant in recent decades, with periodic reunions. They parted for the first time after doing what was billed as a final show in 1991, at a time when Naomi Judd had been diagnosed with Hepatitis C. Following that, Wynonna embarked on a successful career as a solo artist while her mother raised awareness about the disease. They reunited for the Power to Change Tour at the turn of the millennium.

Naomi Judd published nine books, the most recent of which was the memoir “River of Time: My Descent Into Depression and How I Emerged With Hope,” released in 2016. Other titles included “Naomi’s Guide to Aging Gratefully: Being Your Best for the Rest of Your Life” (2007), “Naomi’s Breakthrough Guide: 20 Choices to Transform Your Life” (2004) and several children’s books.

In the 1980s, the Judds had an unbroken string of eight straight No. 1 country singles, including “Why Not Me” and “Mama He’s Crazy” as their breakout smashes in 1983, followed by such hits as “Girls’ Night Out,” “Grandpa (Tell Me ‘Bout the Good Old Days)” and “Rockin’ With the Rhythm of the Rain.” Their last charting single was “Stuck in Love” in 2000. They had not released an album of original material as a duo since “Love Can Build a Bridge” in 1990, but their streak of ’80s singles continued to be popular recurrents on country radio to the present day.

The duo won the CMA Awards’ best duo/group category from 1985-91, winning nine CMAs altogether. Their eight Academy of Country Music Awards included being named top vocal duo from 1984 through 1990. They won five Grammys during that period as well, including best country song for “Love Can Build a Bridge.”

Judd became a popular television personality outside of the singing limelight, as a 2003-2004 stint as a judge on “Star Search” led to her own talk show, “Naomi’s New Morning,” which lasted for two seasons on the Hallmark Channel. Other series appearances included “Can You Duet?” on CMT and “My Cooking Rules” on Fox, and acting gigs in the TV movies “The Killing Game” and “A Holiday Romance” and the theatrical feature “More American Graffiti.”

Diana Ellen Judd was born January 11, 1946 in Ashland, Kentucky. She often spoke of raising Wynonna and Ashley as a single parent following her divorce from their father, Michael Ciminella. She attended nursing school at the College of Marin, in California, with the intention of eventually becoming an MD. “I was going to use my RN degree to support myself and put myself through med school,” she said in a 1995 interview. “I had this romantic notion of working with people in Appalachia, my people.” But then “when Wynonna and I started singing together — she so desperately need to have a new direction in life — it quickly became obvious that that was what we were meant to do.”

In a 2016 interview with Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America” to promote her memoir, she said that childhood sexual abuse had factored into depression she characterized as “extreme” and “so deep and so completely debilitating and life-threatening.” Judd told Roberts, “I had to realize that, in a way, I had to parent myself. We all have this inner child, and I needed, for the first time in my life, to realize that I got a raw deal, OK, now I’m a big girl. Put on your big girl pants and deal with it.”

She spoke about being “a little estranged” at that time from Wynonna, whom she said “bore the brunt of all of the mistakes I made … We’ve been through a lot of therapy together… From the day I knew she existed, it was the two of us against the world and then through the decades we kind of grew up together, ’cause it was really just the two of us. And I’m always tellin’ her, ‘If I’d known better, I would have done better.’”
 
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