#Countrymusic
Veteran's Day Flashback: Eric Church Performs Alongside Bruce Springsteen
Every year around Veteran’s Day, the Bob Woodruff Foundation’s Stand Up for Heroes benefit takes place in New York City. Bruce Springsteen has performed at every benefit since the inaugural one in 2006, and always treats the guests to a star-studded, surprise-filled evening. Last year, The Boss invited North Carolina’s own country superstar Eric Church to sing a few songs with him. Check out their duet of Springsteen’s tune “Working on the Highway” below.
Happy Birthday Charlie Daniels!
On October 28, 1936, musician Charlie Daniels was born in Wilmington, N.C. Daniels developed an interest in music early in life and was strongly influenced by a number of styles. He honed his skills on guitar, mandolin and fiddle in North Carolina, learning to play his first chords from his friend Russell Palmer. After graduating from Goldston High School in 1955, he formed a rock and roll band with Palmer, that regularly played a Saturday show on Sanford N.C.’s WWGB radio station.
Daniels later began playing with an R&B group, The Rockets. Their recording of “Jaguar” was picked up for national distribution by Epic in 1957. Throughout the 1960s he gained more national attention, co-writing “It Hurts Me,” a song performed by Elvis Presley and playing with Bob Dylan.
In 1970, he formed the Charlie Daniels Band, who gained fame for their melding of rock, country, blues, bluegrass and gospel. The band’s hits include “Uneasy Rider,” “Long Haired Country Boy,” “The Legend of Wooley Swamp” and “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
Daniels’ many musical accolades include: membership in the Grand Ole Opry; induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the N.C. Music Hall of Fame; and several Grammy, CMA and Gospel Music Association awards.
Mark Your Calendars! UNC-TV Preview Screening of Ken Burns' "Country Music" Documentary on September 5
UNC-TV Public Media North Carolina, Bank of America and the North Carolina Museum of History invite you and a guest to join us for a preview screening of Country Music, a film by Ken Burns and a special Music in the Round performance featuring BJ Barham, H.C. McEntire and Eliza Meyer.
This is a free event, but space is limited and registration is required. RSVPs accepted on a first come, first served basis. Please register you and your guests via Eventbrite or contact Karen Nowak at knowak@unctv.org or 919-549-7273.
UNC-TV Public Media North Carolina, Bank of America and the North Carolina Museum of History staff will screen clips from Ken Burns’ upcoming 16-hour documentary series, Country Music, followed by an intimate Music in the Round experience featuring local country music-inspired artists BJ Barham, H.C. McEntire and local up-and-coming bluegrass artist Eliza Meyer. The film, which chronicles the history of the uniquely American art form, features many North Carolina artists and their stories, including Fred Foster, Jimmie Rodgers, Betty Johnson and Rhiannon Giddens.
DETAILS:
6:30 PM - Doors Open
7PM - Preview Screening of Ken Burn’s Country Music
7:40 PM - Music in the Round: Conversations and Performances
8:45 PM - Event concludes
Country Music premieres on UNC-TV, Sunday-Wednesday, September 15-18, and Sunday-Wednesday, September 22-25, from 8-10 PM.
Trivia Tuesday: Before the Everly Brothers, There Were The Blue Sky Boys
The Blue Sky Boys, made up by brothers Earl and Bill Bolick, were two of the most popular duet singers in country music in the 1930s. Raised in Hickory N.C., the brothers made nearly 100 recordings, and their music would influence groups like the Everly Brothers and the Louvin Brothers. The Blue Sky Boys left a vast repertoire of recordings and radio performances that continue to fuel country and folk musicians’ catalog of songs.
Anniversary of Jimmie Rodgers Death
Today marks 86 years since Jimmie Rodgers passed away at the age of 35. Nicknamed "The Singing Brakeman", "The Blue Yodeller", and "The Father of Country Music", Jimmie Rodgers' music career kicked off with a weekly radio show on Asheville's WWNC. When the Country Music Hall of Fame was established in 1961, Jimmie Rodgers was among the first three people to be inducted.
Below, you'll find an essay from the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program commemorating his road sign, casted in 2013.
The influence of Jimmie Rodgers on country music was considerable and many argue that he was the most important artist of the genre. Modern-day performers from Bob Dylan to Dolly Parton count him as an influence. He is known as the “Singing Brakeman,” the “Blue Yodeler,” and the “Father of Country Music.” Born James Charles Rodgers near Meridian, Mississippi, in 1897, Jimmie Rodgers took his first railroad job at thirteen working as a waterboy alongside his father. Rodgers developed a distinctive vocal style and incorporated yodeling into most of his songs.
By March 1927 Jimmie Rodgers had moved to Asheville, following a friend who worked for the Southern Railway. He lived for a while in the Western Hotel, then in a furnished cabin behind Pisgah View Apartments on Patton Avenue, and in a fire station at Bartlett and Depot in the present River Arts District. He worked as a janitor, cab driver, and city detective, alongside Fred Jones, chief of detectives.
Most importantly, he launched his music career with appearances on WWNC radio beginning on April 18, 1927. Rodgers and his friend Otis Kuykendall played live weekly on WWNC, in time adding other musicians billed as the Tenneva Ramblers and later as the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers. Rodgers travelled to Johnson City, Tennessee, on April 24 to play at a Rotary convention. Their initial appearances were sketchy. In Hendersonville only a housekeeper was present for the show. They did better at Marion on June 27 when they played the North Fork Mountain Resort.
WWNC, like Charlotte’s WBT and Raleigh’s WPTF, featured live old-time musicians. The station took to the air on February 2, 1927, with dance music from the George Vanderbilt Hotel (today the Vanderbilt Apartments) across from the Battery Park Hotel. The studio and transmitter were on the top floor of the nearby Flat Iron Building. Rodgers and company appeared on WWNC until June 1927.
On August 4, upon producer Ralph Peer’s invitation, he recorded his first two tracks, “The Soldier’s Sweetheart” and “Sleep, Baby, Sleep,” at the Bristol sessions in the town of that name that bestrides the Tennessee/Virginia line. The Carter Family made their first recordings that same week and the sessions are known as the “Big Bang of Country Music.” In December 1929, post-success, Rodgers returned to Asheville and handbills touted him as “Asheville’s Own.” He was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1924 and it killed him in 1933.
Throwback Thursday: Jimmie Rodgers' Asheville debut
On April 18, 1927, Jimmie Rodgers – one of country music’s first superstars – performed the first of his weekly live appearances on Asheville radio station WWNC.
Read more about "The Singing Brakeman" on the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources' blog!
Happy Birthday, Don Gibson!
Today marks what would have been country music singer and songwriter Don Gibson’s 91st birthday. Born in Shelby, North Carolina, Don Gibson is truly a country music pioneer and his legacy lives on today in his recordings and through the Don Gibson Theatre, a 400-person concert hall in downtown Shelby that presents acts from around the country. We remember Don Gibson today through a special blog post written by the Don Gibson Theatre, which hosts the 2019 Songwriter Symposium this weekend.
Don Gibson along with a few others changed the sound of Nashville and country music. Even outside of country music circles several of his songs are instantly recognized by fans and musicians across the globe, and across almost five decades of cultural change. Add the fact that Don was one of the most influential forces in the country music industry from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. We are proud to present one of Shelby’s most beloved sons.
Few people around the English-speaking world fail to remember Gibson’s two best-known compositions, Sweet Dreams which became one of Patsy Cline’s most indelible hits, and the Ray Charles classic single I Can’t Stop Loving You. Both were chart-crossing smash hits, both shattered stereotypes, and you can bet serious money that almost anywhere on earth, someone somewhere is singing one of those songs tonight.
And let’s not forget his third unforgettable country classic, Oh, Lonesome Me. Besides its later crossover to rock and rockabilly band playlists, his original recording was a revolutionary single for its day, as Gibson and producer Chet Atkins dropped the traditional fiddle and steel guitar treatment for a new and more aggressive sound featuring multiple guitars, a piano, a drummer, upright bass and background singers. Though it doesn’t sound like a radical move today, it was then, and both are given credit for having helped instigate what became known as the Nashville Sound. Gibson’s recording of Oh, Lonesome Me hit #1 on the national charts and stayed there for eight weeks, an almost unheard-of feat in that era.
Gibson’s own recordings of these songs and over 510 others were enormously accomplished and successful, and he racked up quite a string of hits. He was also a strong draw at the box office on tours across the U.S. and Europe. Today you can go to YouTube and find many vintage television clips of his appearances on every kind of music and variety show imaginable. “I consider myself a songwriter who sings rather than a singer who writes songs,” Gibson once said. That perspective is affirmed by the staggering evidence of his cross-genre appeal and relevance which continues to this very day.
Gibson’s songs have been recorded by such stars as Elvis, Neil Young, Ronnie Milsap, Emmylou Harris, and countless others and the hit, I Can’t Stop Loving You, has today been recorded more than 700 times, and it has been played on the radio over four million times. In all, Gibson continued to receive royalties throughout his life for over 150 of his compositions.
Don Gibson, also known as the Sad Poet, was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1973, an honor he shares with Bob Dylan, Jimmy Buffet and Johnny Cash. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001. Though Gibson passed away in 2003, he left behind an exceptional body of work — work that without the slightest exaggeration has touched the hearts of millions.
About the Don Gibson Theatre
The Don Gibson Theatre opened in 2009 and is slated to host its 300th concert in 2019. Over 250,000 people have visited the theatre to hear John Oats, Vince Gill, and the late Earl Scruggs. The theatre also hosts a summer movie series and an annual singer-songwriter competition. The Don Gibson Theatre was a central venue for the North Carolina Main Street Conference and it regularly hosts special events for the Cleveland County School System.
The theatre is located at 318 S Washington St., Shelby, N.C. https://www.dongibsontheater.com/
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D. Reid Wilson, Secretary; Roy Cooper, Governor
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