This article's lead section may not adequately summarize its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points. (August 2008)

Starday Records was a record label producing traditional country music during the 1950s and 1960s.

History[link]

The label began in 1953 in Beaumont, Texas when local businessmen Jack Starnes (Lefty Frizzell's manager) and Houston record distributor Harold W. Daily (better known as "Pappy") decided to form a record label. The Starday name is a combination of Starnes' and Daily's last names.^[1] After four releases, former Four Star vice president Don Pierce was brought into the fold and the three men founded the Starday Recording and Publishing Company.

In addition to creating the largest bluegrass catalogue throughout the 1950s and ‘60s, Starday was also known for its legendary rockabilly catalogue, an extensive Texas honky-tonk outpouring, classic gospel and sacred recordings and as a Nashville independent powerhouse studio and record label. Starday was the largest exclusively country label of the period and is renowned among record collectors for producing a level of pure, undiluted country music that was becoming increasingly rare on the major labels. Starday released the first recordings of George Jones and country stars like the, Willie Nelson, Dottie West, the Big Bopper, and Roger Miller. Comedienne Minnie Pearl released a number of records for the label. Several veteran country stars were also on Starday, including Cowboy Copas, Helen Carter, Johnny Bond, and T. Texas Tyler. The label also featured several legendary country radio-based acts in the twilight of their careers, such as the Blue Sky Boys, Lulu Belle and Scotty, Texas Ruby, and Moon Mullican, performers not likely of much interest to the big labels in the 1960s. The label may be best known for the dozens of budget-priced compilation albums it released featuring artists on or at one time on the label.

Starday's most successful artist was perhaps Red Sovine, who scored a number of hits in the 1960s on the label. Starday also produced a series of classic anthologies of trucker records by various artists including Copas, Bond, Sovine, The Willis Brothers and bluegrass acts including Moore & Napier and Reno & Smiley. These LPs were renowned for their color covers shot at Nashville area truck stops with real rigs and shapely female models dressed as waitresses.

When Syd Nathan died in 1968, his label King Records was acquired by Hal Neely's Starday Company. Neely relaunched the label as Starday-King Records. The label was sold to Lin Broadcasting (sale consummated in 1970), which in turn sold it to Tennessee Recording and Publishing Company, owned by Freddy Bienstock, Hal Neely, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who sold it in 1974 to Gusto Records.^[2]

By the end of the 1960s, Starday's new product was limited and most of its recordings were reissues, many of them originally recorded or released on other small labels. The Starday label briefly made a strong comeback in the mid 1970s when Gusto Records' Red Sovine took his recitation song record "Teddy Bear" to number one on the Billboard country chart in 1976 using the Starday label, and even made the back of the pop chart. This record rose to #1 in seven weeks, the fastest rise to the #1 position for any 45 rpm record released before or since.

University Press of Mississippi will publish the Starday Story: The House That Country Music Built, written by Nathan D. Gibson with Starday president Don Pierce, in January 2011. The book retraces the label’s origins in 1953 through 1968 and the Starday-King merger.

Starday's greatest hits[link]

See also[link]

• List of record labels

References[link]

External links[link]

• Starday Records website with discography

Clyde Moody (September 19, 1915 – April 7, 1989), also known as the "Hillbilly Waltz King" and sometimes as "The Genial Gentleman of Country Music" was one the great founders of American Bluegrass music.

Born in Cherokee, North Carolina, Moody got his start in the late 1938 in the string band J. E. Mainer's Mountaineers. In September 1940 he joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys on the Grand Ole Opry. He appeared on Monroe's first solo recording session for RCA Victor's Bluebird label on October 7th of that year, playing guitar and singing lead vocals and bass on the Blue Grass Quartet's first recording ("Cryin' Holy Unto My Lord"). He was featured on that session singing "Six White Horses", a blues-based original. He also has the rare distinction of having played mandolin on a Blue Grass Boys session, as he provided the rhythm chops on "Mule Skinner Blues" and "Dog House Blues", while Monroe played guitar - the only instance where a Blue Grass Boy other than Monroe played mandolin at a Bill Monroe recording session. Upon his departure from the Blue Grass Boys in 1944, he remained at WSM and the Opry for several years as a solo artist. In 1952, he recorded as a member of the Brown's Ferry Four with The Delmore Brothers on King Records. He later played at the first Bluegrass Festival at Fincastle, Virginia, in 1965.

His career highlights include appearing in the White House 3 times and writing and recording the million-seller Shenandoah Waltz. He sang with a young Elvis Presley in 1955 when Tom Parker paired them for a six-week tour. It is rumored that he was considered for the role of The Lone Ranger but lost the part to Clayton Moore.

He died in Nashville, Tennessee.

His nephew, Bruce Moody was also a popular bluegrass musician and toured with him from 1962-1969.

External links[link]

• Clyde Moody at Allmusic

The Stanley Brothers were an American bluegrass duo made up of brothers Carter and Ralph Stanley.

Biography[link]

Carter and Ralph Stanley were born in the Clinch Mountains of Dickenson County, Virginia. They were raised on a small farm near McClure, Virginia in that same county. Music was a part of their lives from early on, as they were able to listen to the likes of the Monroe Brothers, J. E. Mainer's Mountaineers and the Grand Ole Opry on local radio. The brothers soon formed a band, the Lazy Ramblers, and performed as a duo on WJHL radio in Johnson City, Tennessee.^[1] World War II interrupted any thoughts of a musical career, and it was not until both brothers returned from the service that they were able to make their own mark in music.

They formed their band, the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys, in 1946 as the first band to copy the Monroe sound.^[2] Carter played guitar and sang lead while Ralph played banjo and sang with a strong, high tenor voice. Additional members of this early band were Darrell "Pee Wee" Lambert on mandolin and Bobby Sumner on fiddle. Sumner was soon to be replaced by Leslie Keith.^[3] On December 26, 1946, the band began performing at radio station WCYB in Bristol, Tennessee as stalwarts of the famed "Farm and Fun Time" radio show.^[4] They made their recording debut in September 1947 for Rich-R-Tone Records which had been founded the year before. Their records sold well "outselling even Eddy Arnold" regionally.^[5] Up to now, Ralph had been playing the banjo with two fingers only on recordings and in concerts but switched in 1948 to the three-finger style popularised by Earl Scruggs.^[6] In March 1949, the Stanley Brothers began recording for Columbia Records.^[7]

During this time, Bill Monroe was not particularly fond of groups like the Stanley Brothers and Flatt & Scruggs whom he believed "stole" his music by copying it and they were therefore seen as "economic threats."^[8][9] Financially hard times in the early 1950s forced the brothers to take a short break in their musical career and they began working for the Ford Motor Company in Detroit. Eventually, Monroe and the Stanley Brothers became friends and Carter performed for several months with Bill Monroe in the summer of 1951. In August 1951, Ralph was involved in a serious automobile accident that almost ended his career.^[10] Following his recovery, Carter & Ralph reunited to front their Clinch Mountain Boys.

As bluegrass music grew less popular in the late 1950s, the Stanley Brothers moved to Live Oak, Florida to headline the weekly Suwannee River Jamboree radio show on WNER from 1958 to 1962. The three-hour show was also syndicated across the Southeast.^[11] In 1966, the brothers toured Europe and upon returning home they continued to perform together until Carter's death in December 1966.^[12]

The brothers wrote many of their own songs and Carter had a particular knack for writing deceptively simple lyrics that portrayed strong emotion. The Stanley's style can best be described as a traditional "mountain soul" sound that remained close to the Primitive Baptist vocal stylings they learned from their parents and others near their southwestern Virginia home. Ralph has often used the expression "...old-time, mountain style, what they call 'bluegrass' music", to differentiate the Stanley's sound from mainstream bluegrass. They later added an innovative touch to their traditional sound with the guitar solos of George Shuffler, an early proponent of the crosspicking guitar style.

Later, Ralph revived the Clinch Mountain Boys and is still performing as of 2010. Among the musicians who have played in the revived Clinch Mountain Boys are Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Larry Sparks, Curly Ray Cline, Jack Cooke, Roy Lee Centers, Charlie Sizemore, Ray Goins, and Ralph Stanley II. Ralph's career received a big boost with his prominent role on the phenomenally successful soundtrack recording of the 2000 film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?. The Stanley Brothers were inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1992. In 2005, The Barter State Theatre of Virginia premiered an original stage production entitled, "Man of Constant Sorrow: The Story of the Stanley Brothers," written by Dr. Douglas Pote.

Selected recordings[link]

Among the Stanley Brothers' best known recordings are:

• I'm A Man of Constant Sorrow (Columbia 20816, Rec: Nov. 3, 1950, Released: May, 1951)
• Rank Stranger
• Angel Band (1955)
• How Mountain Girls Can Love
• How Far to Little Rock? (novelty)
• Still trying to get to Little Rock (novelty)
• Ridin' That Midnite Train
• Clinch Mountain Backstep
• She's More To Be Pitied
• The Memory of Your Smile
• Love Me Darlin' Just Tonight

Clinch Mountain Boys Members[link]

• Carter Stanley (guitar)
• Ralph Stanley (banjo)
• Darrell "Pee Wee" Lambert (mandolin)
• Jim Williams (mandolin)
• Curly Lambert (mandolin, guitar)
• Leslie Keith (fiddle)
• Robert "Bobby" Sumner (fiddle)
• Les Woodie (fiddle)
• Ralph Mayo (fiddle, guitar)
• Chubby Anthony (fiddle)
• Art Stamper (fiddle)
• Joe Meadows (fiddle)
• Paul Moon Mullins (fiddle)
• Red Stanley (fiddle)
• Don Miller (fiddle)
• Vernon Derrick (fiddle, guitar)
• Curly Ray Cline (fiddle) (part-time)
• James "Jay" Hughes (bass)
• Ernie Newton (bass)
• James "Chick" Stripling (bass)
• Mike Seeger (bass)
• Charlie Cline (guitar)
• Bill Napier (guitar, mandolin)
• George Shuffler (guitar, bass)
• Larry Sparks (guitar)
• Keith Whitley (guitar)
• Ricky Skaggs (guitar,mandolin)
• Ernie Thacker (Guitar,lead vocals)

Discography[link]

78 RPM[link]

^[13][14][15]

Albums (US)[link]

^{[1][16][17][18][19]}

Video[link]

Charted singles[link]

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• Malone, Bill C. (1975) Judith McCulloh, Stars of Country Music, University of Illinois Press
• Rosenberg, Neil V. (2005) Bluegrass: A History, University of Illinois Press
• Wright, John (1995) Traveling the High Way Home, University of Illinois Press

External links[link]

• Ralph Stanley Discography
• Recording of "We Are Going to Paint the Town" from a 1958 Florida radio show (made available for public use by the State Archives of Florida)
• Podcast (mp3) of one of the Stanley Brothers' Suwannee River Jamboree radio show from 1958 (made available for public use by the State Archives of Florida)
• Ralph Stanley Museum & Traditional Mountain Music Center
• Barter Theatre "Man of Constant Sorrow" show details
• Production photos from "Man of Constant Sorrow"
• The Stanley Brothers - a listing of all their songs

George Jones
Jones performing at Harrah's Metropolis in Metropolis, Illinois in June 2002
Background information
Birth name	George Glenn Jones
Also known as	No Show Jones[1] The Possum[1]
Born	(1931-09-12) September 12, 1931 (age 80) Saratoga, Texas, USA
Origin	Vidor, Texas, USA
Genres	Country
Occupations	singer-songwriter
Instruments	acoustic guitar vocals
Years active	1954–present
Labels	Starday Mercury United Artists Musicor Epic MCA Nashville Asylum Bandit
Associated acts	Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard
Website	www.GeorgeJones.com

George Glenn Jones (born September 12, 1931) is an American country music singer known for his long list of hit records, his distinctive voice and phrasing, and his marriage to Tammy Wynette.

Over the past 20 years, Jones has frequently been referred to as the greatest living country singer.^[2][3] Country music scholar Bill C. Malone writes, "For the two or three minutes consumed by a song, Jones immerses himself so completely in its lyrics, and in the mood it conveys, that the listener can scarcely avoid becoming similarly involved."

Throughout his long career, Jones made headlines often as much for tales of his drinking, stormy relationships with women, and violent rages as for his prolific career of making records and touring. His wild lifestyle led to Jones missing many performances, earning him the nickname "No Show Jones."^[1] With the help of his fourth wife, Nancy, he has been sober for over 10 years. Jones has had more than 150 hits during his career, both as a solo artist and in duets with other artists. The shape of his nose and facial features have given Jones the nickname "The Possum." Jones said in an interview that he has chosen to tour only about 60 dates a year.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

George Glenn Jones was born on September 12, 1931 in Saratoga, Texas, and was raised in Vidor, Texas, with his brother and five sisters.^[4] When he was seven, his parents bought a radio and he heard country music for the first time. Given a guitar when he was nine, Jones was soon busking for money on the streets of Beaumont.

He left home at 16 and went to Jasper, Texas, where he sang and played on the radio station. He married his first wife Dorothy when he was 19, but they divorced within a year. The Korean War was underway, and he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was stationed in California for his entire service. Not long after his discharge, his music career took off.^[5]

Wild years[link]

Jones's identity was closely tied to his alcoholism. One of the best known stories of Jones' drinking days happened when he was married to his second wife, Shirley Corley. Jones recalled Shirley making it physically impossible for him to travel to Beaumont, located 8 miles away, and buy liquor. Because Jones would not walk that far, she would hide the keys to each of their cars they owned before leaving. She, however, did not hide the keys to the lawn mower. Jones recollects being upset at not being able to find any keys before looking out the window and at a light that shone over their property. He then described his thoughts, saying: "There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine under a seat. A key glistening in the ignition. I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour. It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did."^[6]

In her 1979 autobiography, former wife Tammy Wynette recalled waking at 1 AM to find her husband gone: "I got into the car and drove to the nearest bar 10 miles away. When I pulled into the parking lot there sat our rider-mower right by the entrance. He'd driven that mower right down a main highway. He looked up and saw me and said, `Well, fellas, here she is now. My little wife, I told you she'd come after me.'"^[7]

Jones later jokingly sang of the lawn mower incident in his 1996 single "Honky Tonk Song", and parodied his arrest in the music video.

In the 1970s, a manager introduced Jones to cocaine before a show, because he was too tired to perform. His self-destructive behavior brought him close to death and he was in an Alabama psychiatric hospital by the end of the decade. Celebrated by some of his fans as the hard-drinkin', fast-livin' spiritual-son of his idol, Hank Williams, Jones missed so many engagements that he gained the nickname of "No-Show Jones." (The song "No-Show Jones" makes fun of Jones and other country singers.) He was often penniless and admits that Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash came to his financial aid during this time.

Poking fun at his past, three country music videos would feature Jones arriving on a riding lawn mower. The first was Hank Williams, Jr's "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" in 1984 while the second was Vince Gill's "One More Last Chance" in 1993. Gill's song mentioned the mower with the lines "She might have took my car keys, but she forgot about my old John Deere." At the end of Gill's video, he is leaving the golf course on a John Deere tractor and greets Jones with "Hey, possum." Jones, arriving at the golf course driving a John Deere riding lawn mower with a set of golf clubs mounted behind him, replies to Gill "Hey, sweet pea." The third is John Rich's "Country Done Come to Town" and shows George mowing grass on the rooftop on a zero turn mower.

The Jones Boys band[link]

George Jones has had many great musicians over the years, with many finding much success in Nashville as session players and singers. These singers include: Hank Singer, Brittany Allyn, Sonny Curtis, Ron Gaddis, Kent Goodson, Bobby Burkhead, Dan Schafer^[8] and Steve Hinson.

Marriages[link]

Jones was married twice before he was 24. His 1950 marriage to Dorothy Bonvillion lasted a year, but they had a daughter, Susan. In 1954, Jones married Shirley Ann Corley. This marriage lasted until 1968 and produced two sons, Jeffrey and Bryan. He married Tammy Wynette in 1969. They stayed married for six years and had a daughter, Tamala Georgette. As Georgette Jones, she is a country singer and has performed on stage with her father. Jones married his current wife, Nancy Sepulvado, on March 4, 1983 in Woodville, Texas. Nancy became his manager. Jones credits his wife Nancy for rescuing him from drinking and cocaine. They now live in Franklin, Tennessee.

Wives[link]

• Dorothy Bonvillion (1950 – 1951) (divorced) 1 daughter
• Shirley Ann Corley (September 14, 1954 – June 11, 1968) (divorced) 2 sons
• Tammy Wynette (February 16, 1969 – March 13, 1975) (divorced) 1 daughter
• Nancy Sepulvado (March 4, 1983 – present)

Awards and honors[link]

Jones has received many honors during his long career, from Most Promising New Country Vocalist in 1956, being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992, and being named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2008. In 2012 he was presented with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award. At the ceremony his longtime friend Merle Haggard paid tribute to him.^[9]

He served as judge in 2008 for the 8th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.^[10]

Number one country hits[link]

1. "White Lightning" (1959)
2. "Tender Years" (1961)
3. "She Thinks I Still Care" (1962)
4. "Walk Through This World with Me" (1967)
5. "We're Gonna Hold On" (with Tammy Wynette) (1973)
6. "The Grand Tour (song)" (1974)
7. "The Door (George Jones song)" (1975)
8. "Golden Ring (song)" (with Tammy Wynette) (1976)
9. "Near You" (with Tammy Wynette) (1977)
10. "He Stopped Loving Her Today" (1980)
11. "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool" (with Barbara Mandrell) (1981)
12. "Still Doin' Time" (1981)
13. "Yesterday's Wine" (with Merle Haggard) (1982)
14. "I Always Get Lucky with You" (1983)

Discography[link]

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	United States Marine Corps portal

• Academy of Country Music
• List of country musicians
• Country Music Association
• List of best-selling music artists
• Inductees of the Country Music Hall of Fame (1992 inductee)

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• I Lived to Tell it All, George Jones with Tom Carter, Dell Publishing, 1997, ISBN 0-440-22373-3
• In The Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music, Nicholas Dawidoff, Vintage Books, 1998, ISBN 0-375-70082-X
• Country Music U.S.A., Bill C. Malone, University of Texas Press, 1985, ISBN 0-292-71096-8
• Joel Whitburn's Top Country Songs, 1944 to 2005, Record Research, Inc., Menomonee Falls, WS, 2005, ISBN 0-89820-165-9

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Jones (musician)

• Official Website
• A Tribute to the Greatest Country Song of All Time
• Official MySpace
• George Jones Country Sausage
• Record Label
• at the Country Music Hall of Fame

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2011)

Woodrow Wilson Sovine (July 17, 1918 – April 4, 1980), better known as Red Sovine, was an American country music singer associated with truck driving songs, particularly those recited as narratives but set to music. The most famous example was his 1976 number one hit "Teddy Bear".

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Born in 1918 in Charleston, West Virginia, Sovine (whose last name was pronounced So VINE) was taught to play guitar by his mother. His first venture into music was with his childhood friend Johnnie Bailes, with whom he performed as "Smiley and Red, the Singing Sailors" in the country music revue Jim Pike's Carolina Tar Heels on WWVA-AM in Wheeling, West Virginia^{[citation needed]}. Faced with limited success, Bailes left to perform as part of The Bailes Brothers. Sovine got married, and continued to sing on Charleston radio, while holding down a job as a supervisor of a hosiery factory.^{[citation needed]} With the encouragement of Bailes, Sovine formed The Echo Valley Boys.^[1]

After a year of performing in West Virginia, Sovine moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, where the Bailes Brothers were performing on KWKH-AM. Sovine's own early morning show wasn't very popular, but he gained greater exposure performing on the famed KWKH radio program, Louisiana Hayride. One of his co-stars was Hank Williams, who steered Sovine toward a better time slot at WSFA in Montgomery, Alabama, and toward a contract with MGM Records in 1949. That same year, Sovine replaced Williams on Louisiana Hayride when Williams jumped to the Grand Ole Opry. Over the next four years he recorded 28 singles, mostly following in Williams' honky tonk footsteps, that didn't make much of a dent on the charts but did establish him as a solid performer.

Fame[link]

Another Louisiana Hayride co-star who helped Sovine was country music legend Webb Pierce. Pierce convinced Sovine to lead his Wondering Boys band and helped him toward a contract with Decca in 1954. The following year Sovine cut a duet with Goldie Hill, "Are You Mine?" which peaked in the Top 15, and in 1956 he had his first number one hit when he duetted with Pierce on a cover of George Jones' "Why Baby Why". Sovine had two other Top Five singles that year and joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry. After recording close to 50 sides with Decca by 1959, Sovine signed to Starday Records and began touring the club circuit as a solo act.

1960s[link]

In 1963, Sovine passed on the helping hand given him by older performers when he heard the singing of minor league baseball player Charley Pride and suggested that he move to Nashville, Tennessee. Sovine opened doors for Pride at Pierce's Cedarwood Publishing, but his own career had stalled: "Dream House For Sale", which reached number 22 in 1964, came nearly eight years after his last hit.

Trucker songs and sentimental tunes[link]

In 1965 Sovine found his niche when he recorded "Giddyup Go", which, like most of his other trucker hits, he co-wrote with Tommy Hill. It is spoken, rather than sung, as the words of an older long-distance truck driver who rediscovers his long-lost son driving another truck on the same highway. Minnie Pearl released an answer song titled "Giddy-Up Go Answer". Sovine's version of the song spent six weeks atop the country charts and crossed over to the pop charts. Other truck-driving hits followed, including:

• "Phantom 309", a tale of a hitchhiker who hops a ride from a trucker who turns out to be the ghost of a man who died years ago giving his life to save a school bus full of children from a horrible collision with his rig. This story was later adapted by singer-songwriter Tom Waits, who performed "Big Joe And Phantom 309" during his Nighthawks At The Diner recordings. Waits' version of this song was covered by Archers of Loaf on the 1995 tribute album, Step Right Up: The Songs of Tom Waits. Musician Steve Flett named a recording project after the song. The song was originally written and recorded by Tommy Faile.
• "Teddy Bear", the tale of a disabled boy who lost his truck driver father in a highway accident and keeps his CB radio base as his only companion.
• "Little Joe", a tale of a trucker and his devoted canine friend which became his last big hit.

Sovine was also remembered for his Christmas tear-jerkers, which included "Here It Is Christmas" (a divorcee's holiday lament), "Faith In Santa" (a dialog between a poor, runaway boy and a sidewalk Santa), and "What Does Christmas Look Like?" (a little blind girl asks her father to describe the Christmas she cannot see). He scored another sentimental hit with "Little Rosa" in which an Italian-American railroad employee tells a stranger, in broken English, about getting a bouquet to place on the grave of his small daughter who was killed by a train while he was away.

Death[link]

On April 4, 1980, Sovine suffered a heart attack while driving his Ford van in Nashville, which caused him to crash. The injuries and his heart attack were fatal. He was buried next to his wife Norma, who died in 1976.

For many years after his death, his greatest hits collection (The Best Of Red Sovine) was advertised on television, exposing his music to a new generation of fans.

Covers[link]

Sovine performed covers of many truck driving songs made popular by fellow country stars, such as Del Reeves and Dave Dudley, as well as "Why Baby Why", a duet with Webb Pierce originally recorded by George Jones. Other covers include "A Dear John Letter" (Jean Shepard and Ferlin Husky), "Old Rivers" (Walter Brennan), "Bringing Mary Home" (The Country Gentlemen), and "Roses for Mama" (C.W. McCall), among many more.

Many of Sovine's biggest truck driving hits were covered by artists such as, Del Reeves, Dave Dudley, Ferlin Husky, Boxcar Willie, Tex Williams and Australian country singer Nev Nicholls. Mike Judge covered "Teddy Bear" as Hank Hill for the King of the Hill soundtrack. Some of Sovine's songs were covered by Dutch artists and became big hits in the Netherlands (Teddy Bear, Giddy Up Go and Deck of Cards by Gerard de Vries, Phantom 309 (Stille Willie) by the B B Band, Little Joe (Kleine Waker) by Henk Wijngaard). Tom Waits released Big Joe and Phantom 309 on his 1975 "Nighthawks at the Diner".

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Compilation albums[link]

Singles[link]

• ^A"Teddy Bear" also peaked at #1 on the RPM Country Tracks chart and #49 on the RPM Top Singles chart in Canada. His song "Teddy Bear" was also made slightly famous by Mike Judge, better known by the alias Hank Hill, as "Hank" released a CD of covers with himself singing other songs. One of the songs on this CD was "Teddy Bear."

References[link]

• Red Sovine Feature in the WFMU Diesel Sniffing Series
• Official Site
• Allmusic
• Tales from the Truck Stop - A humorous, illustrated fiction blog that spoofs the sentimental and supernatural world Red Sovine created in his songs.
• Trott, Walt (1998). "Red Sovine". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 499. lpdiscography.com