DECEMBER 28
1915: Roebuck “Pops” Staples was born in Winona, MS, eventually forming The Staple Singers with his son and three daughters. The soul group’s “Touch A Hand, Make A Friend” is remade as a country hit by The Oak Ridge Boys.
1920: Gospel singer Brock Speer was born in Double Springs, AL. He sang with The Speer Family, and has background vocal parts on three Elvis Presley hits: “Heartbreak Hotel,” “I Was The One” and “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You.”
1952: Hank Williams gave his final performance, for 130 people at a holiday party for members of the Musicians’ Union in Montgomery.
1956: Charley Pride married Rozene Cohran in Hernando, MS.
1958: Joe Diffie was born in Tulsa, OK. Emerging in 1990, he blended traditional country with borderline-novelties to create a string of hits that includes “Ships That Don’t Come In,” “Honky Tonk Attitude” and “Third Rock From The Sun.”
1960: Marty Roe was born in Lebanon, OH. He became the lead singer of Diamond Rio, whose tight harmonies, strong musicianship and hook-filled songs bring Vocal Group honors from the Country Music Association four times.
1965: Johnny Cash pleaded guilty to drug possession in El Paso, TX, where he was busted in October with more than 1,000 pills. A related newspaper photo leads the Ku Klux Klan to boycott Cash concerts under the misguided premise that Cash’s wife is black.
1970: Decca releases Loretta Lynn’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter” album.
1978: Columbia releases Moe Bandy’s “It’s A Cheating Situation,” featuring supporting vocals by Janie Fricke.
1981: WEA, the distribution company for Warner Bros., Elektra and Atlantic, raised the price of 45 rpm vinyl singles from $1.68 to $1.99. The move affected such country acts as Eddie Rabbitt, Hank Williams Jr., Emmylou Harris and Eddy Raven.
1985: The Judds climb to #1 on the Billboard country chart with “Have Mercy.”
1991: Brad Paisley saw “Father Of The Bride” in West Virginia. The irony? He was on a first date, but infamously saw one of the film’s stars, Kimberly Williams for the first time. Fast forward four years later and that girlfriend dumped him for a friend…and he went to see “Father of the Bride II” in the hopes of getting cheered up. It worked, but they didn’t cross paths until 2000…when he asked that she star in his video for “I’m Gonna Miss Her.” They began dating soon after, got engaged eight months later…and married in 2003.
2002: George Strait’s “She’ll Leave You With A Smile” reached #1 on the Billboard country singles chart.
2009: Charlie Daniels played a “mean fiddle” as a GEICO insurance commercial made its debut on television.
2012: In response to a request from a former president, The Oak Ridge Boys gathered around a phone to sing “Elvira” and a verse of “Amazing Grace” for George H.W. Bush, who was hospitalized in Houston.
