As I took the pocketknife from my blue jean pocket, I opened it to the punch and began digging another hole in my leather belt.
It is was easy to see that the Thanksgiving and Christmas season provided me a gift beyond measure, at least the measure of what my waist once was.
It was just over 20 years ago when two-time Dove Award nominee Mark Wheeler of the Marksmen Quartet and I created a Christmas song beckoning listeners to do just that – “Let’s Live Every Day Like It Was Christmas.”
Millions around the world have heard songs or tunes I penned for radio, movies or television but none has had the widespread impact on listeners that it did.
Perhaps it was the simple message based in experience and the easy reminder that Christmas is about “the baby king who gave the world a chance.”
For me I always get caught up in the sentimentality of the season – the lights, the songs, the parades, the church services and programs. They always seem to take me back to my childhood and the excitement that mounted as Christmas day drew closer. Read more
Like many people around the world, I was saddened by the news just after Thanksgiving that someone who had caught the fascination of 300 million people in my youth had ended his adventure on this earth.
I too wondered for a summer “Who Shot J.R.?”
I recently was perusing in a used book store and I ran across a book now out of print that I have been trying to find for a while. It is called the “Country Music Book of Lists.” Several years ago I provided a list of funny happenings for the book that featured a variety of music stars. I had never seen a copy.
While reading through my list, I was reminded of an early incident that really began my interest in making people laugh.
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. There was a time in my memory when I hoped I might never hear those words sang again. It was just over 20 years ago and I was in the midst of trying to complete the musical orchestration of a special Christmas CD.
Alan Autry and Carroll O’Connor had asked me to bring together the “In the Heat of the Night” cast Christmas CD for charity.
A few weeks ago I was privileged to attend the Singing News Fan Awards along with the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductions at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
The streets of Dollywood were lined with fans as the musical stars of the genre walked the red carpet to cheers and flashing cameras. They then packed into the theater that housed the event as the fan favorites were announced and the industry legends were inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Do you ever find yourself looking around wondering what happened to the world around you?
The lenses through which you have looked at life become skewed by some new information you learn, the action of another, or simply a mistake that you have made yourself.
Throughout my career in music, one of my favorite acts to hear, watch on stage and to know has been the Marksmen Quartet of Murrayville, Ga. I was part of the group for several years in the 1980s and continue to aid them with promoting their weekly tours in venues around the country. That experience continues to emphasis to me the popularity of this two-time Dove Award nominee now marking 45 years of history, has not waned.
I don’t know about y’all, but it seems that more and more of what I buy just doesn’t seem to last.
When I made my first appearance for the Grand Ole Opry in 1984, I had already appeared on shows with one of the long-running stars of the show Rollin “Oscar” Sullivan of Lonzo & Oscar.
Lonzo and Oscar were one of country music’s best-known comedy duos. Although there were three Lonzo’s through the years that Oscar owned the name, there was only one Oscar, whose talents as a singer and mandolin player were top-notch. The country bumpkin costumes of their performances popularized in the heyday of classic country had eased to more of a leisure suit look by the time I came to know Oscar.
