Record producer and entrepreneur Ralph Peer coined the phrase “hillbilly music” to describe southern folk on this date in 1925.
Ronnie Milsap recorded his first two country hits, I Hate You and That Girl Who Waits On Tables, at Nashville’s Jack Clement Studios in 1973.
Roy Clark began an 18-day concert tour behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet city of Latvia in 1976. The tour included The Oak Ridge Boys and Buck Trent. The government asked Clark to drop the theme from Doctor Zhivago from a medley
A safe stolen from Bill Monroe’s bus in December was found at a creek in Hendersonville, TN in 1986. The safe, which had contained $10,000 in cash, was empty
Gaylord Entertainment bought CMT in 1991, giving the organization a second country music cable channel to complement The Nashville Network.
Johnny Cash was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame during a ceremony at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1992, along with Booker T. & The MGs, Jimi Hendrix, Sam & Dave, Bobby “Blue” Bland, guitar maker Leo Fender, songwriter Doc Pomus and The Yardbirds, including guitarist Eric Clapton
