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 [...]

Continue reading "Forgotten Artists: Gus Hardin (1945-1996)"

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 [...]

Continue reading "Forgotten Artists: Eddie Rabbitt (1941-1998)"

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 [...]

Continue reading "Forgotten Artists: John Conlee"

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 [...]

Continue reading "Forgotten Artists – The 1980s"

Johnny Richard Duncan was born in Dublin, TX to a very musical family. His mom played rhythm guitar in his uncle’s country band and many of his cousins went on to have fine careers in the music industry, including noted songwriter Troy Seals (”Rattle the Windows,” “Don’t Take It Away,” “Two Old Cats Like Us” [...]

Continue reading "Forgotten Artists: Johnny Duncan (1938-2006)"

You gaze at that guitar on your knee
In a way that you never look at me
This love affair of yours has gone too far
And I’m tired of playing second fiddle to an old guitar
From “Second Fiddle (To an Old Guitar),” Capitol Records, 1964

Kitty Wells may have been the reigning Queen of Country Music during the [...]

Continue reading "Forgotten Artists: Jean Shepard"

Give Me The Beat Boys and Free My Soul
I Want To Get Lost In Your Country Song
And Drift Away
Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios in Memphis had quite a coterie of performers during the mid 1950s: Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Harold Lloyd Jenkins (aka Conway Twitty), Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich, Carl Mann, Warren Smith, [...]

Continue reading "Forgotten Artists: Narvel Felts"

Born with the last name Buckingham, Seattle native Bonnie “Guitar” was a true renaissance woman who moved from role to role during the course of her long career. You name it, this 85 year old has done it: singer, songwriter, session musician, producer, executive and record label owner.
Bonnie Guitar learned several musical instruments during her [...]

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I’ve been travelin’ down the highways with my guitar for so long
Shakin’ hands and meetin’ lots of folks
Living my life my way with a handshake and a song
Caring little if I was rich or broke
Cause there’s country music in my soul
People music for the young and the old
I’ll keep on singing my song keep on [...]

Continue reading "Forgotten Artists: George Hamilton IV"

“Because you see, we live what we sing. Or, put another way, we sing what we live In telling things as they are, in being what we are, we are true to our ‘raising’ – to the small town and rural American values we take for granted . These values are heavily religious, but they [...]

Continue reading "Forgotten Artists: Bobby Lord (1934-2008)"