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THE GUITAR SAT IN THE SPOTLIGHT. NOBODY PLAYED IT. On July 3, 2001, Chet Atkins’ orange Gretsch sat alone in a spotlight at center stage of the Ryman, his white hat beside it on a small table, a half-circle of flowers behind. He had died at home three days earlier, at 77. Outside, about a thousand people waited in line. Connie Smith opened with “Farther Along,” her husband Marty Stuart on mandolin. Paul Yandell — Atkins’ friend and longtime sideman — picked up a guitar like the one on the table and played “Mr. Sandman.” Steve Wariner and Vince Gill joined him, both plainly shaken, and the three of them did what nobody could say out loud. Garrison Keillor gave the eulogy. He took the room back to a Saturday night in 1946, when Red Foley finished “Old Shep” and, before the tobacco ad, turned and introduced his guitarist by his full name — Mr. Chester Atkins — who then played “Maggie.” Afterward Minnie Pearl kissed him and told him he was exactly what the place had been needing. Keillor said Atkins had known Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Elvis. He never once counted himself among them. The service lasted fifty minutes. That afternoon they buried him at Harpeth Hills.

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The Guitar Sat in the Spotlight. Nobody Played It. On July 3, 2001, the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville held a…

BEFORE DOLLY PARTON STOOD BESIDE PORTER WAGONER, MILLIONS OF VIEWERS ALREADY KNEW THE WOMAN IN THAT SPOT: “PRETTY MISS NORMA JEAN.” Norma Jean was no unknown singer waiting for a break. Raised in Oklahoma, she had been performing since childhood. By the early 1960s, she became the regular female singer on The Porter Wagoner Show, appearing on television each week as the program grew to nearly 100 markets and more than three million viewers. Her records were working too. “Go Cat Go” reached the country Top 10. Pretty Miss Norma Jean climbed to No. 3 on the country album chart. “The Game of Triangles,” recorded with Bobby Bare and Liz Anderson, reached No. 5 and helped earn the trio a Grammy nomination. Then Norma Jean left the show in 1967 after marrying Jody Taylor. Porter needed another female singer. He chose Dolly Parton. Some viewers initially wanted Norma Jean back, but Dolly and Porter soon built one of country music’s most famous partnerships. That is what history sometimes forgets. Dolly Parton did not step into an empty spot. She stepped into one Norma Jean had already spent years building. The camera simply kept rolling after Norma Jean walked off the set.

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Before Dolly Parton, Norma Jean Had Already Won the Spotlight Long before Dolly Parton became the female voice beside Porter…

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HIS WIFE WROTE A SONG ABOUT HOW MERLE HAGGARD WAS BREAKING HER HEART. HE LISTENED TO IT, CRIED — THEN RECORDED IT HIMSELF. By the early 1980s, Merle Haggard’s marriage to singer-songwriter Leona Williams was coming apart. She didn’t hide what it felt like. Leona wrote “You Take Me for Granted” about loving a man who had stopped noticing what she was giving him. Then she played it for Merle. He knew exactly who the song was about. Leona later recalled that Merle cried when he heard it. A few days later, he went into the studio and recorded the song himself. That may be the most revealing part. Merle didn’t change the words to make himself look better. He didn’t turn the husband into somebody else. He simply sang a woman’s account of what it felt like to be married to him. The record reached No. 1 in 1983. Merle Haggard spent a lifetime singing hard truths. This time, the hardest one had been written by the woman sleeping beside him.

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When Merle Haggard Heard the Song His Wife Wrote About Him By the early 1980s, Merle Haggard and Leona Williams…

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HIS BIGGEST SONGS BECAME LEGENDS IN OTHER PEOPLE’S VOICES. THAT MAY HAVE BEEN KRIS KRISTOFFERSON’S GREATEST GIFT — AND HIS QUIETEST CURSE. Kris Kristofferson wrote “Me and Bobby McGee.” Janis Joplin sang it like she had lived every mile of it, then died before the world made it her only No.1 hit. Fifty years later, many people still think of it as Janis’s song first. He wrote “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.” Johnny Cash turned it into a country standard. He wrote “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” and Sammi Smith carried it to places Kris’s own rough voice never could. Elvis recorded his words. So did Frank Sinatra, Ray Price, Willie Nelson, and half of Nashville. That was the strange thing about Kris. He was a Rhodes Scholar who gave up the clean road for cheap rooms, studio floors, and songs that sounded like they had slept badly. When he died in 2024, some headlines remembered the actor from A Star Is Born. But the deeper truth was quieter. Kris Kristofferson changed music by writing songs so honest they could leave him — and still come home sounding like truth.

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Kris Kristofferson’s Songs Became Legends in Other People’s Voices There are songwriters who chase the spotlight, and then there was…

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ON SEPTEMBER 1, 2008, A 71-YEAR-OLD MAN DIED IN A HOUSE IN BRENTWOOD, TENNESSEE — THE SAME HOUSE HE HAD SHARED WITH THE SAME WOMAN FOR FORTY-NINE YEARS. Priscilla was there. So were Seidina and Lottie, his two daughters. His parents separated four months after he was born. Jerry Reed Hubbard came into the world in Atlanta in 1937, the son of two cotton mill workers. He and his sister spent the next seven years in other people’s houses — foster homes, orphanages, a rotation of strangers. His mother took them back in 1944. He was seven years old. He taught himself guitar. At eighteen he had a record deal. In 1967 Elvis Presley cut his song “Guitar Man” and sent for Reed himself, because the session men in Nashville couldn’t get the part right. Ten years later he sat in a truck cab beside Burt Reynolds and sang “East Bound and Down” — three minutes about a man who cannot afford to stop moving. He stopped. One wife. Two daughters. One address. Forty-nine years. The Country Music Hall of Fame called in 2017. He had been dead for nine.

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The Last House in Brentwood On September 1, 2008, Jerry Reed died at home in Brentwood, Tennessee, at the age…

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ON SEPTEMBER 1, 2008, A 71-YEAR-OLD MAN DIED IN A HOUSE IN BRENTWOOD, TENNESSEE — THE SAME HOUSE HE HAD SHARED WITH THE SAME WOMAN FOR FORTY-NINE YEARS. Priscilla was there. So were Seidina and Lottie, his two daughters. His parents separated four months after he was born. Jerry Reed Hubbard came into the world in Atlanta in 1937, the son of two cotton mill workers. He and his sister spent the next seven years in other people’s houses — foster homes, orphanages, a rotation of strangers. His mother took them back in 1944. He was seven years old. He taught himself guitar. At eighteen he had a record deal. In 1967 Elvis Presley cut his song “Guitar Man” and sent for Reed himself, because the session men in Nashville couldn’t get the part right. Ten years later he sat in a truck cab beside Burt Reynolds and sang “East Bound and Down” — three minutes about a man who cannot afford to stop moving. He stopped. One wife. Two daughters. One address. Forty-nine years. The Country Music Hall of Fame called in 2017. He had been dead for nine.

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Jerry Reed: The Man Who Turned Motion Into Music On September 1, 2008, Jerry Reed died in Nashville, Tennessee, at…

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AFTER 20 YEARS AT THE ACMs AND 40 WINS, MIRANDA LAMBERT USED HER LATEST VICTORY TO TALK ABOUT SOMEBODY ELSE. Miranda Lambert has won more ACM Awards than anyone in country music history. But two of her newest trophies came from helping another woman shine. At the ACM Awards in May, Miranda won Single of the Year as a producer and Song of the Year as a co-writer for Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas.” She shared the songwriting honor with Luke Dick and Joybeth Taylor. When Miranda stepped up to accept the award, she turned the attention toward Ella. She thanked her for trusting them with her music and recognized the musicians who helped make the record. It was Miranda’s twentieth year attending the ACMs, and the victories brought her career total to 40. After two decades of collecting trophies, one of her biggest roles may now be helping the next woman earn hers.

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Miranda Lambert Used Her Latest ACM Wins to Shine the Spotlight on Ella Langley After two decades at the Academy…

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HE ASKED HIS PRODUCER TO KEEP HIM WORKING THE DAY AFTER HE BURIED HIS WIFE. HE CUT 30 SONGS IN FOUR MONTHS. FOUR MONTHS WAS ALL HE HAD. “I will die if I don’t have something to do.” — Johnny Cash to Rick Rubin, May 2003 Rubin put a studio in the bedroom. Nearly blind, in a wheelchair, Cash booked a session every day he woke up strong enough. Romanek had already filmed him inside the derelict House of Cash museum. Six MTV nominations. One win — cinematography. He was too sick to attend. July 5: Carter Family Fold. Three songs, sitting down. September 12, 2003. He was 71. The Grammy for that video arrived five months later. The album from those bedroom sessions went No. 1 — his first in 37 years. Trent Reznor, who wrote the song, said it wasn’t his anymore.

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Johnny Cash’s Final Creative Months: Work, Grief, and a Voice That Refused to Quit In the spring and summer of…

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REBA McENTIRE WAITED NEARLY 30 YEARS TO FALL IN LOVE WITH REX LINN. NOW THEY’VE BEEN ENGAGED FOR MORE THAN A YEAR — AND STILL CAN’T FIND TIME TO GET MARRIED. Reba first met Rex Linn in 1991 while working on Kenny Rogers’ movie The Gambler Returns. They went their separate ways, stayed in touch, and nearly three decades later reconnected. By 2020, friendship had become something more. Rex proposed on Christmas Eve 2024. Reba said yes. But more than a year later, there is still no wedding date. The reason is surprisingly simple: work. They star together on Happy’s Place, while Rex has also been working on Stick with Owen Wilson. Reba has said they are waiting for an opening in their schedules — enough time to plan it and send the invitations. After waiting almost 30 years to find each other, apparently neither of them feels the need to rush the last few steps.

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Reba McEntire and Rex Linn: Love, Work, and a Wedding Still Waiting for Its Day Sometimes the sweetest love stories…

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FORGET THE 38 NUMBER ONES. FORGET THE PARDON FROM REAGAN. MERLE HAGGARD WATCHED JOHNNY CASH PLAY SAN QUENTIN — FROM THE INMATE SEATS. New Year’s Day, 1959. Cash’s first prison concert. Somewhere in that crowd of thousands sat a 20-year-old doing fifteen years. Nine years later came “Mama Tried.” He wasn’t serving life without parole like the song says. But he did turn 21 behind those walls, and everybody could hear it. Then in 1969, on national television, Cash brought up San Quentin. Haggard told him that was where he’d first seen him play. Cash said he didn’t remember Merle being in that show. Haggard answered: “I was in the audience, Johnny.” The Grateful Dead played that song for thirty years. Joan Baez cut it. Bob Weir sang it while accepting his lifetime achievement award. And Cash once told Merle he was what people only thought Cash was. Country music was full of men singing about prison. One of them had the paperwork. Play it today. Listen to the second verse and notice he never once blames her.

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Johnny Cash at San Quentin and the Night Merle Haggard Was in the Crowd There are country music stories that…

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