The 9513 - Country Music Blog

One of the more interesting singers of the 1980s was a female singer who went by the name Gus Hardin. While never a big star, she had one of the more distinctive female voices and enjoyed at least a modicum of recording success. Her voice was hard to describe, although some listeners said it reminded [...]

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Edward Thomas (Eddie) Rabbitt had a seventeen year run as a recording artist on the Billboard country charts with some success on the pop charts. He also enjoyed success as a songwriter, writing many of his own hits and supplying songs to other artists. Ultimately, 20 of his recordings reached #1 on either Billboard or [...]

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Earl Thomas Conley was the oldest and most successful of the triumvirate of somewhat similarly named country artist of the 1980s. Born on October 17, 1941, in Portsmouth, Ohio, ETC (as he was often called) had an extended run of success, both as a recording artist and as a songwriter. Between 1980 and 2003, [...]

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During the 1980s there was considerable confusion among casual listeners due to the presence of three male singers with somewhat similar names: Earl Thomas Conley, Con Hunley and John Conlee. All three had distinctive voices, all three emerged during the late 1970s, and all three had chart runs that basically died out by the end [...]

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With one of the more recognizable voices in the genre, Lacy J. Dalton blazed across the skies of country music during the 1980s, producing a number of memorable songs along the way. While not an overwhelming commercial success (only nine of her songs made the Billboard country Top 10) as an artist she impressed with [...]

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Thus far, the thrust of the Forgotten Artists series has been artists whose salad days occurred before 1980. While Brady tells me that many of the articles have received a lot of hits, relatively few comments have been left. I suspect that this is because few of the readers actually recall the artists of whom [...]

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Disclaimer: Expect no objectivity at all from me with this article. Along with Webb Pierce and Merle Haggard, Ernest Tubb is one of my all-time favorite country artists. Yes, I know he started out most songs a quarter tone flat and worked his way flatter from there, and yes, I know that 80% of The [...]

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I Hear Little Rock Calling, Homesick Tears Are Falling
I’ve Been Away From Little Rock Way Too Long
Gonna Have A Troubled Mind, Til I Reach That Arkansas Line
I Hear Little Rock Calling Me Back Home
From “I Hear Little Rock Calling” — music and [...]

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If anyone in Country Music can truly be said to be a “renaissance man” that person would be Billy Edd Wheeler. Poet, playwright, author, songwriter, singer, artist, lecturer and ecologist would be but a few of the hats that accurately (and comfortably) fit onto his head.
Billy Edd Wheeler fits into the realm between folk music, [...]

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During the early 1970s the airwaves of country radio electrified listeners with the sound of “Gwen (Congratulations)” and “I Don’t Know You Anymore,” records that did not sound like anything else playing on radio at the time.
Tommy Overstreet was born September 10, 1937, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, but raised in Houston and Abilene, Texas. While [...]

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