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Porter Wagoner
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In a world where the term is overused, Porter Wagoner is a true legend. He kicked out hard-hitting honky-tonk anthems in the 50s; pioneered music television with the amazingly long-running "Porter Wagoner Show" 1960-1980, where he discovered Dolly Parton; started the Nudie suit craze; influenced everyone from Johnny Cash and Dwight Yoakam to the Byrds & Gram Parsons; and recorded seminal concept albums in the early 70s, populated with the lonely, addicted, and mentally ill, capturing the imagination of nascent punks like Alex Chilton with songs like "The Rubber Room." Last year, Marty Stuart, longtime Johnny Cash sideman and torchbearer of traditional country music, approached his longtime hero with an unrecorded song Johnny Cash had written for Porter, called "Committed to Parkview." In the tradition of Porter`s haunted ballads, "Committed to Parkview" is the first-person account of a tenant of Nashville`s legendary sanitorium, listening in on the tormented cries of his fellow inmates. Porter and Marty decided to build an album, Wagonmaster, around the song, revisiting the classic feel of his chilling concept albums, interwoven with stomping barroom honkytonk that rides with the best of Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb. The results are magnificent, a record of raw beauty capturing a proud, ragged man looking back unflinchingly at his life.
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One facet of Porter Wagoner’s death on Sunday worth cheering is the fact that he enjoyed his place as a Country Music Hall of Fame member during his lifetime. In fact, next Tuesday (Nov. 6) marks the anniversary of his official 2002 induction. He spent the last five years of his life knowing his achievements were recognized and deemed substantial enough to provide a permanent place in the Hall.
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It was the quintessential country music showbiz moment, and Porter Wagoner was playing right along. There he was, on stage at the Grand Ole Opry as honered guest rather than host, for the first time as long as anyone could remember, being feted for celebrating fifty years - fifty years! - as a member of country music's most venerated institution, while Dolly Parton moistened every eye in the house with a genuinely heart-tugging rendition of "I Will Always Love You," the number she wrote for Porter three decades earlier to commemorate their disintegrating partnership. And Porter, The Thin Man From West Plains, The Ambassador of Country Music, the man who proudly wore the mantle of "Mr. Grand Ole Opry" ever since Roy Acuff's death in 1992, was soaking it up like a rhinestone-studded sponge. But if you were looking closely, into the space between Porter's farmer gaze and Dolly's Barbie-doll emoting, you might have noticed a crack in the veneer. Not the kind of crack "where the light gets in," as Leonard Cohen put it, but rather, an opening where, if you happened to have your emotional AM radio tuned to just the right frequency, you might have caught a little bit of the darkness coming out.
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(Shell Point Records) Porter Wagoner's been making albums for nearly 50 years. He was instrumental in bringing country music to a mass audience via TV starting in 1960with "The Porter Wagoner Show," which ran for 21 years. He gave Dolly Parton her start in the business. He topped the charts both as a solo artist and with his duets with Dolly, and picked up a wagonload of awards along the way. He's beena mainstay and one of the most popular actsat the Opry,since he became a member in 1957. Porter Wagoner, with his flashy rhinestone suits, is a truecountry music icon and legend.
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From 1960 to 1979, "The Porter Wagoner Show" was broadcast in an estimated 100 markets, bringing a weekly dose of downhome country charm into American living rooms. Never released on DVD, episodes have since found a new life on websites such as YouTube, where fans marvel at Mr. Wagoner's chemistry with Parton.
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Porter Wagoner, who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer, has been released from the hospital and moved to hospice care on Friday, a spokeswoman for the Grand Ole Opry said. Read more! Read Full Story
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Porter Wagoner