Dave Carter, whose work with Tracy Grammer positioned the duo among the rising stars of contemporary folk/Americana, died of a heart attack on July 19 in Hadley, Massachusetts. He was 49. Born in Oxnard, California, and raised in rural Texas and Oklahoma, Carter earned an MFA in music (plus BA’s in mathematics and psychology) from [...]

Bass player Hillous Butrum died on April 27 in Nashville. Butrum was most famous for being a member of Hank Williams’ Drifting Cowboys, but he also played with Benny Martin, Marty Robbins, Hank Snow, and the blackface duo Jamup & Honey. He was 74. Lionel Delmore, who co-wrote “Swingin’” with John Anderson, died May 20 [...]

Songwriter Otis Blackwell, author of several touchstones of early rock ‘n’ roll, died May 6 in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 70. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Blackwell briefly pursued a singing career as a young man, but it was as a writer that he discovered himself — and that he helped to invent what we [...]

The story is told that sometimes at the pickin’ sessions held at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville during the 1960s, one of the songwriters would wax enthusiastically about a new idea he had for a song. Harlan Howard would reply, “Don’t bother. I’ve already written it.” And more often than not, it would be true. [...]

Mandolinist Paul Buskirk, who played with Roy Acuff, Lefty Frizzell and Tex Ritter, died March 16 at age 78. A frequent collaborator with Willie Nelson, Buskirk co-wrote the classic “Night Life” and recorded one album, 1993′s The Nacogdoches Waltz.… Producer Walter Heebner, who worked on television’s “The Spade Cooley Show” from 1950-53, died February 10 [...]

“I’m just me, really. I don’t put anybody on in no way. Because I’m a man, you know. I’m very human…as far as an image is concerned, it’s in the minds of the people. There’s none in my mind, except there goes a psychedelic cowboy singer.” – Waylon Jennings, 1970 The obits were predictable: The [...]

Many will remember Dave Van Ronk as “The Mayor of MacDougal Street,” the folkie giant who let Bob Dylan crash on his couch back before anyone had ever heard of either of them. Many will remember Van Ronk for his fingerpicking, or his grand, crazy, wheezy Merchant Marine voice. Many will remember him for the [...]

James Blackwood, the legendary Southern gospel vocalist, died February 3 at age 82, completing a career that spanned the genre’s history. Like so many Southerners of his generation, Blackwood learned four-part harmonies in a traveling singing school. James teamed with his brothers Roy and Doyle and his nephew R.W. in the original Blackwoods lineup in [...]

Legendary R&B vocalist Rufus Thomas, whose hits included “Walking The Dog” and “Do The Funky Chicken”, died in Memphis on December 15. The singer, along with his daughter Carla Thomas, are featured in D.A. Pennebaker’s upcoming documentary Only The Strong Survive. He was 84.… Stuart Adamson, former lead singer of Scottish band Big Country, died [...]

Toni Price took the stage at the Continental Club on November 6, as she does every Tuesday night for happy hour — but the chair at stage right was empty. In its place rested a bushel of flowers, a scattering of guitar picks and mementos, a small fiddle-playing stuffed doll, a longneck beer, and a [...]