DECEMBER 31
1893: Bass player Pat Brady was born in Toledo, OH. In 1937, he replaced Roy Rogers as a member of the western harmony act The Sons Of The Pioneers. Brady was not part of the lineup that entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980.
1920: Rex Allen was born in Willcox, AZ. Considered the last of the singing cowboys, the western performer enjoyed a handful of hits, including 1953’s “Crying In The Chapel” and 1962’s “Don’t Go Near The Indians.”
1933: Fred Carter Jr. was born in Winnsboro, GA. The father of Deana Carter, he became a Nashville session guitarist, playing on hits by Simon & Garfunkel, Waylon Jennings, Kenny Rogers, Marty Robbins and Conway Twitty.
1943: John Denver was born in Roswell, NM. He straddles pop and country music in the mid-1970s, making him a controversial winner of the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award for 1975.
1947: Roy Rogers married Dale Evans at the Flying L Ranch in Murray County, OK. Rogers was late for the ceremony, delayed when he put out a fire started by a cigarette butt in another room.
1952: Hank Williams set out from Birmingham to Charleston, WV, for a New Year’s Eve show. Slowed by snow, he tried to grab a flight in Knoxville, but the flight was cancelled. Williams got a shot of morphine, then took what proved to be his final ride in the back seat of his blue Cadillac.
1961: Johnny Cash played Camden, NJ, with June Carter, Flatt & Scruggs and Marty Robbins. While Robbins performed, bass player Marshall Grant tosses an M-80 into a urinal backstage, the resulting blast covered a dressing room in sewage.
1968: Elvis Presley held a New Year’s Eve party for 200 at Memphis’ Thunderbird Lounge. Performers included B.J. Thomas, Billy Lee Riley and Ronnie Milsap.
1976: Roger Cook and Bobby Wood wrote “Talking In Your Sleep.”
1977: Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt flew from Los Angeles to Nashville to begin working with Dolly Parton on a trio album. It would be more than nine years before “Trio” is completed and hit the streets.
1985: Rick Nelson died in a plane crash outside of DeKalb, TX. A TV star on “The Adventures Of Ozzie & Harriet,” he crossed between pop and country with his 1950s rockabilly-influenced recordings, including “Stood Up” and “Poor Little Fool.”
1986: Epic released George Jones’ “Wine Colored Roses” album.
2002: Guitarist Jim McReynolds, of the bluegrass duo Jim & Jesse, died at Sumner Regional Medical Center in Gallatin, TN, of cancer. Jim & Jesse joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1964, and earned a Congressional Medal of the Arts in the 1990s.
