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Gary Stewart: 1945 to 2003

Thirty years ago, Gary Stewart's crazed intensity sparked and glowed like a neon bar sign across a Nashville struggling to cope with Outlaws, long-haired men, loud guitars and blue jeans. His voice was a serrated nerve ending; his leonine mane and lithe presence stood out in a time

Finding Hank on the Lost Highway

Fifty-one years after his death, at the age of 29, my wife and I decided to spend New Year's doing a self-made tourist jaunt across Hank Williams' Alabama. I know, the idea of "Hank Williams Heritage Tourism" smacks of inauthentic commercialism. But we were undeterred.

Grey DeLisle - A remembrance of things past

Grey DeLisle has a dream: She is performing with Loretta Lynn when Wanda Jackson comes onto the stage. Somehow a plastic "Roy Rogers type guitar from the '50s" materializes in DeLisle's hands and her first thought is to find a marker so Jackson can autograph

Riley Baugus - Down from Cold Mountain

"As an old-time musician, I hope to take old-time music to a much broader audience," Riley Baugus says. "If you notice, everyone who ever hears a banjo or fiddle stops and listens, usually tapping their foot and smiling. Most people like it I think, but it just

Dave Dudley: 1928 to 2003

For 40 years, Dave Dudley was the accidental voice of truck-driving music. After an injury to his pitching arm forced Dudley to sideline his dreams of a professional baseball career, he financed the 1962 recording session that produced "Six Days On The Road" with the insurance settlement from

Gene Clark - No Other

In 1966, Gene Clark left the Byrds at the peak of their fame for a solo career that must, at the time, have seemed a sure thing. The most prolific and talented songwriter in the group, Clark was also their quietly charismatic focal point onstage, joining in the three-part harmonies

Kinky Friedman - Sold American

Kinky Friedman has been getting by on the same punchlines for 30 years now. But back in the day, they were some disturbingly funny punchlines. And long after his mystery novels have gone out-of-print, what is likely to linger in the cosmos is 1973's Sold American -- the