| 29th October 2007 03:54 PM |
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| Nellcote |
October 29, 2007
Porter Wagoner, Country Singer, Dies at 80
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Porter Wagoner, a country singer who mixed rhinestone suits, a towering pompadour and cornball jokes with direct, simple songs over a career best known for his partnership with Dolly Parton, died last night in Nashville. He was 80.
His death, in a Nashville hospice, was announced by the Grand Ole Opry. Mr. Wagoner, who survived an abdominal aneurysm last year, was hospitalized this month with lung cancer, his publicist, Darlene Bieber, had said. Mr. Wagoner had 81 singles on the country charts, 29 of them in the Top 10. His many hits, typically songs seeking honest answers to hard questions, included “Green, Green Grass of Home,” “Skid Row Joe” and “The Cold Hard Facts of Life.”
For 21 years, appearing on television in flashy suits and a cotton-candy pompadour, he was the host of “The Porter Wagoner Show,” which was eventually syndicated in 100 markets, reaching 3.5 million viewers a week.
Mr. Wagoner recorded some of country music’s earliest concept albums, in which individual tracks combine in a thematic whole. On one, titled “What Ain’t To Be Just Might Happen” (1972), he explored insanity with songs that included “Rubber Room,” derived from his experience in a psychiatric ward. He won three Grammys for gospel recordings he made with the Blackwood Brothers.
For more than half a century, Mr. Waggoner was a fixture of the Grand Ole Opry; in 1992, after the death of Roy Acuff, he became its unofficial spokesman. And if Mr. Wagoner did not exactly discover Ms. Parton, her regular appearances on his television show were the foundation of her career. They won the Country Music Association’s award for duo of the year three times.
Though Mr. Wagoner never achieved the sort of country music sainthood accorded Hank Williams, Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson, his pure adherence to traditional forms became esteemed. Waylon Jennings once said, “He couldn’t go pop with a mouthful of firecrackers.”
In its citation honoring his induction in 1992, the Country Music Hall of Fame called Mr. Wagoner “one of country’s elder statesmen.”
Yet he was hardly shy about making waves. After Ms. Parton left his show in 1974, there ensued a six-year, very public legal mess — and not a few tawdry tabloid headlines. One asserted that Mr. Wagoner’s wife had found him and Ms. Parton in bed and shot both.
“There wasn’t nothing to that,” Mr. Wagoner said “with a wink” in an interview with The Tennessean in 2000. “She didn’t even hit Dolly.”
Mr. Wagoner riled country traditionalists in 1979 by inviting James Brown, the godfather of soul, to the Opry. Though Mr. Brown performed the country standards “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “Tennessee Waltz,” which Mr. Wagoner had taught him, his rendition of his own “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” generated hate mail.
Mr. Wagoner’s life had elements of an old-fashioned country song. He was born on Aug. 12, 1927, on a farm where mules still pulled the plow, not far from West Plains, Mo., in the Ozark mountains. He sold the pelts of rabbits he trapped to scrape together the $8 he needed to buy his first guitar, a National, from Montgomery Ward. He spent hours pretending that the stump of a felled oak tree was the Opry stage and that he was introducing country stars.
After the family was forced to auction off their farm in the Depression, they moved to West Plains, where a local butcher hired Mr. Wagoner. When he heard him play the guitar, he put him on the radio to sing advertisements. Mr. Wagoner then moved to a station in Springfield, Mo., and signed a record contract in 1952 with Steve Shoals, the same RCA producer who signed Elvis Presley three years later.
In 1953, Mr. Wagoner spent $350 to buy his first Nudie suit, one of the extravagant rhinestone-studded creations by the tailor Nudie Cohn. Mr. Wagoner’s was a peach-colored number with wagon wheels on it. He eventually owned 50 of them, for which he paid as much as $12,000 apiece. A special feature on most was the word “Hi!” in foot-high letters on each side of the lining. He would throw the jacket open when he saw somebody snapping his picture.
Mr. Wagoner recorded, performed in a local television show, joined the Opry and in 1960 started his own television show. In 1967, his vocal partner, Norma Jean, left, and Ms. Parton succeeded her. In addition to doing the show, the two recorded and toured together. They had a string of hit duets, including “Please Don’t Stop Loving Me,” which they wrote. It was No. 1 in October 1974.
Mr. Wagoner had several long periods when he did not record or tour. He sometimes explained that there was little good material available. The lyrics in at least two of his songs came from spending time in a Nashville mental hospital. One, “Committed to Parkview,” was written by Johnny Cash about a Nashville institution in which both men had stayed. It is part of an album Mr. Wagoner released last year, “The Rubber Room: The Haunting Poetic Songs of Porter Wagoner, 1966-1967.”
As a teenager Mr. Wagoner was married for a short time to Velma Johnson. In 1946, he married Ruth Olive Williams; they separated in 1966 and divorced in 1986. He is survived by his children, Richard, Denise and Debra.
As a songwriter, Mr. Wagoner was known for producing surprising literary twists. At the end of “Green, Green Grass of Home,” it is revealed that the story about a happy homecoming is the dream of a prisoner. On “I Knew This Day Would Come,” a young woman leaves her aging husband for a young lover, only to find herself in the same situation years later.
For all Mr. Wagoner’s accomplishments, he could not escape a certain question.“Did you sing with Dolly?” too many people asked.
“No,” he would say with a smile. “She sang with me.”
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Country Star Porter Wagoner Dies
Monday October 29, 2007
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — Porter Wagoner was known for a string of country hits in the '60s, perennial appearances at the Grand Ole Opry in his trademark rhinestone suits, and for launching the career of Dolly Parton.
Like many older performers, his star had faded in recent years. But his death from lung cancer Sunday, at 80, came only after a remarkable late-career revival that won him a new generation of fans.
The Missouri-born Wagoner signed with RCA Records in 1955 and joined the Opry in 1957, "the greatest place in the world to have a career in country music," he said in 1997. His showmanship, suits and pompadoured hair made him famous.
He had his own syndicated TV show, "The Porter Wagoner Show," for 21 years, beginning in 1960. It was one of the first syndicated shows to come out of Nashville and set a pattern for many others.
"Some shows are mechanical, but ours was not polished and slick," he said in 1982.
Among his hits, many of which he wrote or co-wrote, were "Carroll County Accident," "A Satisfied Mind," "Company's Comin'," "Skid Row Joe," "Misery Loves Company" and "Green Green Grass of Home."
The songs often told stories of tragedy or despair. In "Carroll County Accident," a married man having an affair is killed in a car crash; "Skid Row Joe" deals with a once-famous singer who's lost everything.
In 2002, he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
In May, after years without a recording contract, he signed with ANTI- records, an eclectic Los Angeles label best known for alt-rock acts like Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Neko Case.
Wagoner's final album, "Wagonmaster," was released in June and earned him some of the best reviews of his career. Over the summer, he was the opening act for the influential rock duo White Stripes at a sold-out show at New York's Madison Square Garden.
"The young people I met backstage, some of them were 20 years old. They wanted to get my autograph and tell me they really liked me," Porter said with tears in his eyes the day after the New York show. "If only they knew how that made me feel — like a new breath of fresh air."
To many music fans, Wagoner was best known as the man who boosted Parton's career. He had hired the 21-year-old singer as his duet partner in 1967, when she was just beginning to gain notice through songs such as "Dumb Blonde."
They were the Country Music Association's duo of the year in 1970 and 1971, recording hit duets including "The Last Thing on My Mind."
Parton's solo country records, such as her autobiographical "Coat of Many Colors," also began climbing the charts in the early 1970s. She wrote the pop standard "I Will Always Love You" in 1973 after Wagoner suggested she shift from story songs to focus on love songs.
The two quit singing duets in 1974 and she went on to wide stardom with pop hits and movies such as "9 to 5," whose theme song was also a hit for her.
Wagoner sued her for $3 million in assets, but they settled out of court in 1980. He said later they were always friendly, "but it's a fact that when you're involved with attorneys and companies that have them on retainer, it makes a different story."
At a charity roast for Wagoner in 1995, she explained the breakup this way: "We split over creative differences. I was creative, and Porter was different."
He said in a 1982 Associated Press interview that his show "was a training ground for her; she learned a great deal and I exposed her to very important people and the country music fans."
She was present at the ceremony in May 2007 honoring Wagoner on his silver anniversary with the Opry. At the time, he called Parton "one of my best friends today." She also visited him in the hospital as he battled cancer.
Wagoner, who had survived an abdominal aneurysm in 2006, was hospitalized again this month and his publicist disclosed he had lung cancer. He died at 8:25 p.m. CDT Sunday in a Nashville hospice, said Darlene Bieber, a spokeswoman for the Opry.
Country singer and Opry member Dierks Bentley visited Wagoner in the hospice over the weekend and said Wagoner led them in prayer, thanking God for his friends, his family and the Grand Ole Opry.
"The loss of Porter is a great loss for the Grand Ole Opry and for country music, and personally it is a great loss of a friend I was really just getting to know," Bentley said. "I feel blessed for the time I had with him."
Pete Fisher, vice president and general manager of the Opry, said the Opry family of musicians and performers was deeply saddened by the news. "His passion for the Opry and all of country music was truly immeasurable," Fisher said.
Wagoner was born in West Plains, Mo., and became known as "The Thin Man From West Plains" because of his lanky frame. He recalled that he spent hours as a child pretending to be an Opry performer, using a tree stump as a stage.
He started in radio, then became a regular on the "Ozark Jubilee," one of the first televised national country music shows. On the Opry since 1957, he joined Roy Acuff and other onetime idols.
At one point his wardrobe included more than 60 handmade rhinestone suits.
"Rhinestone suits are just beautiful under the lights," he said. "They've become a big part of my career. I get more compliments on my outfits than any other entertainer — except for Liberace."
While he continued with the Opry, and even had a small part in the 1982 movie "Honky Tonk Man" starring Clint Eastwood, his recording career dried up in the 1980s — until his return this year.
"I stopped making records because I didn't like the way they were wanting me to record," he said. "When RCA dropped me from the label, I didn't really care about making records for another label because I didn't have any say in what they would release and how they would make the records and so forth."
By AP/John Gerome
[Edited by Nellcote] |
| 29th October 2007 05:45 PM |
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| lotsajizz |
fine musician..... |
| 29th October 2007 05:59 PM |
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| Child of the Moon |
Man, that's a bummer. I'm glad it was all over quite quickly, though. I mean, it was only a recent development that he'd become very sick.
Raise your glasses to a damned fine musician, songwriter, and all-around performer. Here's to you, Porter. |
| 29th October 2007 06:37 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
R.I.P. |
| 29th October 2007 06:50 PM |
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| mojoman |
RIP Mr Wagoner......... |
| 29th October 2007 08:48 PM |
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| gypsy |
I watched his show religiously as a kid - I thought that he and Dolly were the best. |
| 29th October 2007 11:17 PM |
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| Bloozehound |
I thought I had just heard that he was hospitalized a week ago, this seemed real quick
This class of musicians are becoming fewer and fewer each year, see'um while you still can |
| 30th October 2007 12:57 AM |
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| Larry Dallas |
According to country music legend, Mr Wagoner was rumored to possess one of the biggest penises in the genre. His backstage nickname at the Opry was "Nine and a Quarter Porter." No shit. I mean no disrepect to Mr Wagoner and I guess that's hard to say after submitting something like that, but that's something the press just doesn't put in the obituary.
Check out Porter's video "Commited to Parkview" that he just shot this summer over on youtube. The song itself gets considerable airplay on Sirius radio's "Outlaw Country" station. It's an old Johnny Cash tune, which is cool considering that Johnny covered Porter's "A Satisfied Mind" which ended up in the movie "Kill Bill." |
| 30th October 2007 01:55 AM |
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| Child of the Moon |
quote:
Larry Dallas wrote:
According to country music legend, Mr Wagoner was rumored to possess one of the biggest penises in the genre. His backstage nickname at the Opry was "Nine and a Quarter Porter." No shit. I mean no disrepect to Mr Wagoner and I guess that's hard to say after submitting something like that, but that's something the press just doesn't put in the obituary.
Shit, man, I believe it. |
| 30th October 2007 09:21 PM |
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| Brainbell Jangler |
quote:
Larry Dallas wrote:
According to country music legend, Mr Wagoner was rumored to possess one of the biggest penises in the genre. His backstage nickname at the Opry was "Nine and a Quarter Porter." No shit. I mean no disrepect to Mr Wagoner and I guess that's hard to say after submitting something like that, but that's something the press just doesn't put in the obituary.
You'd have to possess that kind of equipment to get in close with Dolly, wouldn't you? |
| 30th October 2007 10:45 PM |
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| Bloozehound |
quote:
Larry Dallas wrote:
According to country music legend, Mr Wagoner was rumored to possess one of the biggest penises in the genre. His backstage nickname at the Opry was "Nine and a Quarter Porter."
Dangit, sounds like he might need a 2 casket funeral |
| 30th October 2007 10:51 PM |
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| glencar |
Another internet rumor? Anyway, RIP Porter. I enjoyed his show as a child. He & Dolly were great together. |
| 30th October 2007 10:57 PM |
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| guitarman53 |
My brother was a country 'N' Western when he lives, & I got a lot of respect for old time country musicians, he used to cover his songs, God rest his soul. |
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