Waylon Jennings (vocals, guitar, 1937–2002) was a teenage disc jockey in Lubbock, Texas, when he first met the hometown hero Buddy Holly (1936–59). Holly produced Jennings’ first single, ‘Jole Blon’, in September 1958, and hired Jennings as his bassist the following January. On 3 February 1959, Jennings was all set to take a charter ...
Almost no Texan musicians have ever herded cattle, but most like to think of themselves as cowboys nonetheless. They imagine themselves pulling out an acoustic guitar after dinner and singing a song about the adventures and frustrations they have known. And not just any old song – it has to be one they wrote and it has to be more ...
When Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family became country music’s first superstars in 1927, their audience was the farmers, miners, wives and other blue-collar workers of the rural South. It was an audience that left school early for a life of hard work in isolated communities. When those men and women gathered at a tavern or schoolroom on ...
Major changes occurred in country music during the 1970s and 1980s, and country icons came and went as the music escaped from the stereotypical image of the 1960s, when it had been gingham dresses for the ladies and rhinestone suits for the men. Now country music had a new face: Dolly Parton’s extravagant dress sense and the shaggy-haired Outlaw ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1939) Shaver arrived in Nashville in 1968, sold songs to Kris Kristofferson and Tom T. Hall, and wrote all but one song on Waylon Jennings’ 1973 album Honky Tonk Heroes. That led to Shaver’s own debut later the same year with Old Five And Dimers Like Me. Shaver had his songs recorded by Elvis ...
Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas, on 7 September 1936. Buddy got a guitar in his mid-teens and started practising with friend, Bob Montgomery. They liked country and western but also had predilection for the blues. An Elvis gig in Lubbock in early 1955 alerted them to new possibilities. Buddy and Bob, as ...
(Guitar, producer, 1924–2001) Tennessee-born Chester Burton Atkins, whose father was a music teacher, was one of the most influential twentieth-century guitarists, and was initially influenced by the finger- and thumb-picking country-style playing of Merle Travis. Signed to RCA from 1947, he made scores of mainly instrumental albums, and in 1955 became the head of ...
As the first superstar instrumentalist to emerge from the modern Nashville recording scene, Chet Atkins (1924–2001) was a living legend for most of his life, but the Nashville-based guitarist was also a producer, engineer, label executive and A&R man without peer. Chester Burton ‘Chet’ Atkins was born on in June 1924 in Luttrell, Tennessee. He started ...
One of modern country music’s most remarkable figures, Chester Burton Atkins born in Luttrell, Tennessee, rose from rural obscurity to become one of the world’s most celebrated guitarists and one of Nashville’s most influential record producers. Atkins’ musical vision did much to shape country music during the 1950s and 1960s. Early Years Atkins was born on 20 June ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1939) Coe broke through first as a songwriter, penning tunes for Tanya Tucker (1973’s No. 1 ‘Would You Lay Me Down (In A Field Of Stone)’, Willie Nelson and George Jones. Coe scored his own hit with 1975’s ‘You Never Even Called Me By My Name’, followed by five more Top 25 hits, including ...
(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1941) The archetypal Texas troubadour, Clark cannot be called prolific, having released about 10 original albums since his 1975 debut, Old No. 1. Born in Monahans, West Texas, Clark worked in television, as a photographer and building boats and guitars. Influenced by bluesman Mance Lipscomb, he worked the Texas ...
(Vocals, b. 1943) Colter became associated with the Outlaw movement even though her big, pure pop-country voice gave her more in common with Glen Campbell than with her husband Waylon Jennings. She was born Mirriam Johnson in Phoenix, Arizona, where she married rockabilly guitarist Duane Eddy in 1962. After a 1968 divorce, she adopted her new ...
Joe Bonamassa, born in 1977, began playing guitar at the age of four on a small instrument given to him by his father. By the age of seven, he was playing Stevie Ray Vaughan songs on a full-size guitar. Bonamassa began performing in upstate New York at the age of 10 and was discovered by the blues great ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1936) Kristofferson grew up on country music in Texas, but college in California, a Rhodes scholarship to England and service as an army helicopter pilot convinced him that the times demanded a new kind of country lyric – one that owed as much to Bob Dylan as to Hank Williams. Kristofferson moved to Nashville ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1942) Clayton, a former fighter pilot from Tennessee, was one of the most original songwriters in the Outlaws movement, penning ‘Ladies Love Outlaws’ for Waylon Jennings, ‘If You Could Touch Her At All’ for Willie Nelson and ‘Lone Wolf’ for Jerry Jeff Walker. Clayton’s own albums, marked by vivid if unconventional ...
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