The Greatest Oldies Music

Alan Jackson spent ten years living with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease before explaining publicly why he was having trouble keeping his balance onstage. By the end of his touring career, he was using his farewell to help fund research into the condition. Diagnosed in 2011, Jackson had inherited the degenerative nerve disorder from his father, Eugene. His grandmother and older sister were also affected. As it weakened his lower legs and feet, moving around during concerts became more difficult. He disclosed the diagnosis on Today in September 2021, concerned that audiences might mistake his unsteadiness for drinking. He continued performing, launching Last Call: One More for the Road in 2022. The arena tour concluded in Milwaukee in May 2025. Along the way, he adapted: singing from a tall stool or using the microphone stand for support. Even as his fingers became less nimble, he kept signing cowboy hats and tossing them to fans near the stage. On June 27, 2026, more than 50,000 people gathered at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium for his final full-length concert. Jackson was 67. Luke Combs, Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Luke Bryan, Jon Pardi and Lee Ann Womack joined the celebration. The evening also supported the CMT Research Foundation. One dollar from each ticket went toward its work, with anonymous donors contributing another two dollars per seat. After decades of touring and 35 No. 1 country hits, Jackson stepped away from full-length concerts to spend more time in Tennessee with Denise, their three daughters and their grandchildren. His last stadium audience had helped support research into the disease that made leaving the road necessary. More below follows the final Last Call tour and the Nissan Stadium celebration, alongside one of Jackson’s classic performances.

admin November 5, 2026 No Comments

ALAN JACKSON SPENT TEN YEARS HIDING A NERVE DISEASE THAT TOOK HIS BALANCE — THEN CLOSED HIS TOURING CAREER BEFORE MORE THAN 50,000 FANS IN NASHVILLE. On June 27, 2026,…

Country

Jerry Reed filled “Amos Moses” with things listeners weren’t supposed to believe. The one-armed poacher, the father who used his son as alligator bait, the sheriff who vanished in the swamp—all belonged to a tall tale. The law pursuing Amos, however, had a real reason to be there. When the record arrived in October 1970, alligator hunting was illegal in Louisiana. Reed had set his story roughly 45 minutes southeast of Thibodaux. Louisiana had closed its alligator season in 1962 after a steep population decline, and the ban remained in place. A limited legal hunt would not return until September 1972, when 59 hunters were permitted to participate in a single parish. The storyteller himself came from Georgia. Born in Atlanta in 1937, Reed spent seven childhood years in foster homes and orphanages and taught himself to thumb-pick guitar on a porch in a cotton mill village. By 1970, he was an established Nashville session musician, and Elvis Presley had recorded his songs. “Amos Moses” gave Reed a character as distinctive as his guitar playing. Country radio took the single to No. 16, while its bigger audience came through pop: it reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1971 and sold a million copies. No documented real-life Amos has emerged behind the story. Reed nevertheless kept the fictional poacher close. In 2005, when asked to choose three songs he could sing for the rest of his life, he named “Amos Moses” first.

admin November 5, 2026 No Comments

In the fall of 1970, Jerry Reed sent a one-armed Cajun alligator poacher named Amos Moses onto American radio. The song was a tall tale from the first bar to…

Country

Waylon Jennings arrived at the Ryman Auditorium in a wheelchair on July 3, 2001, to say goodbye to Chet Atkins. Diabetes had made walking difficult, but he had returned from Arizona to honor the producer who signed him—and with whom he had so often argued. Atkins brought Waylon to RCA in 1965 and produced his early hits. Their disagreements grew from the records themselves. Chet favored Nashville’s established session musicians; Waylon wanted to record with his own band and follow the sound he heard onstage. In 1972, Waylon secured creative control. The following year, he made Honky Tonk Heroes without Atkins. Nearly three decades later, those battles remained part of the friendship he remembered outside Chet’s funeral. Listed among the honorary pallbearers, Waylon called him a genius. He recalled arguments that left them furious with each other, followed by sessions that produced records he was proud of. He also told a local television reporter about an earlier moment, when he was new in Nashville. Faced with someone in the studio who doubted him, Chet had announced that he had found himself a star. Waylon and Jessi Colter had already sold their Nashville home and moved to Arizona. His health was deteriorating, and five months after the funeral, doctors amputated his left foot. He died at home on February 13, 2002, a little over seven months after Chet’s service. On that final visit to the Ryman, he had remembered both the man who challenged his musical choices and the man who believed in him before the hits arrived.

admin November 5, 2026 No Comments

On the morning of July 3, 2001, a long caravan of limousines pulled up to the side door of the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Out of the back of the…

Country

Before Toby Keith built OK Kids Korral, a grieving mother told him what it meant to arrive at a hospital with nothing—and find that someone had thought of what she would need. Her two-year-old daughter, the child of one of Toby’s bandmates, had been diagnosed with a tumor. Toby helped connect the family with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Doctors could not save her, but her mother never forgot the support she received: a room, meals at any hour, and gift cards for necessities, all without a bill. Toby wanted families in Oklahoma to have that kind of help. His foundation began supporting children with cancer in 2006. On January 7, 2014, it opened OK Kids Korral near the children’s hospital in Oklahoma City, offering free accommodation to families whose children were undergoing treatment. He described the place as “Ritz Carlton meets Disney World.” His golf classic raised more than $15 million to support it, and the Korral grew to welcome about 300 families each year. When Toby received his own stomach cancer diagnosis in 2021, he later said one of his early concerns was who would look after the Korral. He died in February 2024, at 62, having called it the best gift he ever gave the world. The idea had stayed with him because of one family’s experience. Years later, other parents could bring their children to Oklahoma City for treatment knowing that a place to stay—and help through the days ahead—was waiting for them.

admin November 5, 2026 No Comments

Long before he had a record deal, Toby Keith had a guitar player who stuck with him. That man later became his road manager, got married and had two children.…

Country

Glen Campbell’s “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” began with a remark he made after a difficult day of questions about Alzheimer’s. He told producer and co-writer Julian Raymond that he didn’t understand why everyone was so worried. After all, he wasn’t going to miss anyone. Raymond, who had been noting things Glen said, recognized the painful truth in that observation and helped turn it into a song. In January 2013, just weeks after his Goodbye Tour ended in Napa, Campbell entered Sunset Sound in Los Angeles to record it. Beside him were musicians he had known since his session-playing days in the 1960s: drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Joe Osborn and pianist Don Randi. James Keach filmed the session. Campbell sometimes stopped to apologize for forgetting the lyrics. Keach noticed, however, that the music remained sure. They recorded some passages line by line, occasionally working through a single word at a time. At one point, Glen remarked that he liked the song. When someone reminded him he had written it, he agreed that it was very good. Released in 2014 alongside the documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me, the recording reached audiences after Campbell had moved into a care facility near Nashville. For his wife, Kim, listening was difficult. She understood it as Glen reassuring his family that he would be spared an awareness of what he was losing. They would carry the grief of remembering. Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” drew much of its force from looking back. Campbell’s song faced a different sorrow: a future in which the people who loved him would remember their life together, even when he could no longer share those memories.

admin November 5, 2026 No Comments

In January 2013, Glen Campbell walked into Sunset Sound in Los Angeles to record “I’m Not Gonna Miss You,” a song built from a single offhand remark about his own…

Country

Nashville held two funeral services on August 4, 1964: one for Jim Reeves and another for Dean Manuel, the pianist who died with him in a plane crash. After a procession through quiet streets, Reeves began his final journey home to Texas. Chet Atkins, Eddy Arnold, Ernest Tubb and Roy Acuff attended. Only days earlier, fellow musicians had joined hundreds of volunteers searching the woods for the missing aircraft, hoping Reeves and Manuel might still be alive. In Carthage the following morning, mourners filed past Reeves’s casket at Hawthorn Funeral Home. The Shreveport Times described the gathering as one last packed house for the singer known as Gentleman Jim. He was buried on a two-acre site beside Highway 79, among the red hills of his childhood. His recording career, however, continued long after the funeral. Mary Reeves oversaw the release of material her husband had left behind, and his records kept reaching the charts for another twenty years. Listeners continued discovering songs in a voice whose owner would never sing them onstage again. In 1967, Reeves entered the Country Music Hall of Fame. His inscription recognized the millions of listeners he had brought to country music around the world. That reach is still reflected at his gravesite, where visitors have traveled from across America and dozens of other countries. The journey ends far from Nashville, in the Texas landscape where his life began.

admin November 5, 2026 No Comments

The Gentleman’s Final Packed House: The Legacy of Jim Reeves The Double Funeral in Nashville and the Silence of Highway 79 On August 4, 1964, Nashville stood still. Double funeral…

Country

When filmmakers wanted to cut a road up the hillside to Loretta Lynn’s childhood home, her family refused. The studio built a replica elsewhere for Coal Miner’s Daughter. That cabin later burned down. The original still stands above Butcher Holler. It is easy to look at the admission charge and nearby store and see a childhood turned into a business. Visitors pay five dollars. They can buy RC Cola and MoonPies. The place where Loretta grew up poor has become a destination for people who know her songs. But for more than thirty years, the person opening the door was her younger brother, Herman Webb. He guided strangers through the rooms where he had grown up, continuing until his death in 2018. He had also saved the house. By 1980, it was deteriorating badly. Herman rebuilt it himself, and his daughter has told visitors that without his work, there would be nothing left on the hill to visit. Inside are objects that belonged to the family, including their mother’s butter churn. Outside is the well Loretta used to draw water from. The house still has neither heat nor plumbing. Those details complicate the easy dismissal of the place as a tourist attraction. The admission money was being collected by a man showing people his own childhood home—a house he had repaired so it would survive. Hollywood’s version is gone. The family’s house remains up the dirt lane, open to visitors for five dollars, with no reservation required.

admin November 5, 2026 No Comments

The Real Butcher Holler Cabin, Hollywood’s Rejection, and the Price of Authenticity The Cynical Narrative of Poverty as a Brand For over sixty years, the story of Butcher Holler has…

Country

Dolly Parton wouldn’t let Kenny Rogers retire without one more evening together. On October 25, 2017, they ended it at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, dropping their microphones after “Islands in the Stream” and leaving arm in arm. It was their final performance together. Rogers had announced his farewell tour on NBC’s Today two years earlier. At 77, walking had become difficult, and he wanted more time at home in Georgia with his wife, Wanda, and their eleven-year-old twins, Justin and Jordan. Looking back, he acknowledged that his ambition had sometimes crossed into selfishness. When he told Dolly he was retiring, she insisted they mark the occasion. “You cannot get out of town without us doing something,” he recalled her saying. The resulting celebration brought Lionel Richie, Don Henley, Chris Stapleton and other artists to the stage to perform his songs. Rogers watched much of the tribute from a seat beside the stage before joining Dolly. They sang “You Can’t Make Old Friends.” Then she sang “I Will Always Love You” to him. For their closing number, they returned to the 1983 duet that had become inseparable from their friendship. “How about me and you go out like rock stars?” Dolly asked. With “Islands in the Stream” finished, they dropped the microphones and walked away together. The following spring, Rogers canceled his remaining concerts on doctors’ advice. He died at home on March 20, 2020, surrounded by family. His twins were fifteen. Dolly died on August 25, 2026, at 80. Their last shared performance remained that Nashville night: familiar songs, affectionate teasing, and two old friends taking their bow together.

admin November 5, 2026 No Comments

On October 25, 2017, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers finished “Islands in the Stream” on the stage of Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, let their microphones fall to the floor, and walked…

Country

Merle Haggard had a paycheck to earn in Las Vegas, and he needed help getting through the show. It was February 2016. At 78, he was still recovering from double pneumonia that had hospitalized him in December. According to Toby Keith, the private convention booking at Mandalay Bay paid roughly three times Merle’s normal fee. After weeks of canceled work, Merle feared he could no longer keep his band together. Toby was in town for Super Bowl weekend and stopped by. He found his friend frail and relying on oxygen. Merle nevertheless went onstage. About eight songs into the performance, he called Toby up. Rather than turn the evening into a set of his own hits, Toby asked what Merle wanted him to sing. Merle’s answer was to follow the setlist. Toby helped carry the rest of the show. Afterward, Merle hugged him, said he loved him, and thanked him for helping him collect the money. They never saw each other again. Three days later, Merle crossed the road from his home to his studio to record “Kern River Blues,” written during his hospital stay. His son Ben played guitar on what became his father’s final recording. On February 13, Merle performed at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre. He acknowledged his shortness of breath, played fiddle for one number, and finished with “Okie From Muskogee.” He did not return for an encore. It was his last concert. His family later said that, about a week before his birthday, he told them he would die that day. On April 6, 2016, Merle Haggard died at 79—on the birthday he had named.

admin November 5, 2026 No Comments

In the last winter of his life, Merle Haggard was too sick to tour and too worried about his band to stay home. Double pneumonia had already put him in…

Country

Ronny Robbins spent three years touring with his father’s band after Marty Robbins died. The birth of his daughter in 1985 gave him a reason to stop—and a childhood memory helped him make the decision. “I knew what it felt like for Dad to be gone 200 days a year,” he later said. He wanted Courtney to grow up with her father at home. Ronny had been 33 when Marty died at Nashville’s St. Thomas Hospital at 11:15 p.m. on December 8, 1982. His mother, Marizona, and sister, Janet, were beside him at the hospital. Six days earlier, Marty’s third heart attack had required emergency quadruple bypass surgery. Only two months before, Eddy Arnold had surprised him on live television with his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Music had always been part of Ronny’s family life. As a boy, he sat beside his mother in their turquoise Cadillac while Marty worked on “El Paso” in the back seat. In 1969, Ronny released his own Columbia album as Marty Robbins Jr. After the funeral, he took the Marty Robbins Band back on the road. He continued until Courtney arrived, then settled into life in Nashville. For decades afterward, he worked to protect his father’s name, challenging cheap, unauthorized merchandise. He also returned to singing on occasions, performing “Big Iron” and “El Paso” on Country’s Family Reunion. The songs remained part of his life. The touring schedule did not. Ronny had known both the excitement of being Marty Robbins’s son and the long stretches of waiting for him to come home. When he became a father, he chose to be there.

admin November 5, 2026 No Comments

When Marty Robbins died in December 1982, his son Ronny was 33. He had grown up beside his father’s music, and he knew how much of his father’s life had…

You Missed