Country Music

Classic Country Music Hits

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AT 72, AFTER A KIDNEY TRANSPLANT AND HEART TROUBLE, DONNIE FRITTS ASSUMED HIS RECORD-MAKING DAYS WERE OVER. “SEVENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD MEN DON’T GET RECORD DEALS,” HE SAID. THEN JOHN PAUL WHITE HEARD HIM SINGING ALONE AT AN OLD WURLITZER. Fritts had spent most of his life standing beside other people. He had helped shape the early Muscle Shoals scene, written songs recorded by Waylon Jennings, Dusty Springfield, Ray Charles and others, and spent decades playing keyboards behind Kris Kristofferson. Yet by 2015, he had released only three solo albums in more than forty years. His health had also taken a toll. A kidney transplant and heart problems had slowed him, and Fritts did not expect another label to come looking. Still, he believed he had one good record left in him. John Paul White heard it almost by accident. White, formerly of the Civil Wars, had become friendly with Fritts around the 2013 premiere of the *Muscle Shoals* documentary. During a visit to Fritts’ home, he listened as the older musician sat at his weathered Wurlitzer and played songs he loved. Some were not even Fritts compositions. It did not matter. White heard something in the bare combination of that worn voice and electric piano that decades of sideman work had never fully exposed. He told Fritts that if they made a record, he wanted to start with exactly that sound. The project became *Oh My Goodness*. White and Ben Tanner produced it, keeping Fritts and the Wurlitzer at the center while friends and admirers including John Prine, Jason Isbell, Brittany Howard, Spooner Oldham and Reggie Young gathered around him. Fritts revisited songs connected to Arthur Alexander, John Prine and Dan Penn, but also recorded newer material such as “Tuscaloosa 1962.” He later said something surprising about the result. After more than half a century around studios, he felt he had finally found his own voice. *Oh My Goodness* arrived in October 2015. For decades, Donnie Fritts had been the man whose keyboard, songs and friendships helped other records become part of American music. This time, the younger musicians came into the room for him. And instead of asking the old Muscle Shoals veteran to sound young again, they built the record around everything age had put into his voice.

“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.”

DONNIE FRITTS THOUGHT HIS RECORD-MAKING DAYS WERE OVER AT SEVENTY-TWO. THEN JOHN PAUL WHITE HEARD HIM SINGING ALONE AT AN OLD WURLITZER — AND BUILT A WHOLE ALBUM AROUND THAT WORN VOICE.

Donnie Fritts had spent most of his life standing beside other people.

He helped shape the early Muscle Shoals scene, wrote songs recorded by Waylon Jennings, Dusty Springfield, Ray Charles, and others, and spent decades playing keyboards behind Kris Kristofferson. His fingerprints were all over American music, even when his own name was not the one printed largest on the cover.

That was the strange part of his career.

Fritts had been close to everything.

But by 2015, after more than forty years, he had released only three solo albums.

The Body Had Started Saying No

By then, age had become more than a number.

Fritts had survived a kidney transplant. Heart trouble had slowed him too. The road, the studios, the late nights, and the years of being everybody’s favorite sideman had left their mark.

He did not expect the business to come looking again.

As he put it, seventy-two-year-old men did not get record deals.

Still, something in him had not gone quiet.

Fritts believed he had one good record left.

Not a comeback built on pretending to be young again.

A record that sounded like the man who had lived long enough to sing it.

John Paul White Heard The Record Before It Existed

John Paul White heard it almost by accident.

White, formerly of the Civil Wars, had become friendly with Fritts around the 2013 premiere of the Muscle Shoals documentary. During a visit to Fritts’ home, he listened as the older musician sat at his weathered Wurlitzer and played songs he loved.

Some of them were not even Fritts compositions.

It did not matter.

White heard something in that bare room that decades of sideman work had never fully exposed — the sound of Donnie Fritts alone with an electric piano, his voice carrying age, humor, tenderness, loss, and the kind of soul that cannot be manufactured in a session plan.

White told him that if they made a record, he wanted to start right there.

Fritts and the Wurlitzer.

Nothing to hide behind.

The Younger Musicians Came To Him

The project became Oh My Goodness.

John Paul White and Ben Tanner produced it, keeping Fritts at the center instead of surrounding him with distractions. The point was not to modernize him. The point was to let people finally hear what had been sitting inside the room all along.

Friends and admirers gathered around him.

John Prine.

Jason Isbell.

Brittany Howard.

Spooner Oldham.

Reggie Young.

They did not come to rescue an old musician from the past.

They came because he had helped build the ground they were standing on.

This time, the room was forming around Donnie Fritts.

The Songs Carried A Whole Life Through Them

Fritts revisited songs connected to Arthur Alexander, John Prine, and Dan Penn. He also recorded newer material, including “Tuscaloosa 1962.”

That mixture mattered.

The album did not treat Fritts as a museum piece. It let the old songs, the friendships, the memories, and the newer reflections sit together like people gathered around a kitchen table after midnight.

The Wurlitzer stayed close.

So did the voice.

It was not polished smooth.

It was weathered in the right way — the sound of a man who had known studios, grief, laughter, back roads, famous friends, and quiet rooms where the real song sometimes arrives after everybody else has left.

He Finally Heard Himself

After more than half a century around records, Fritts said something surprising about Oh My Goodness.

He felt he had finally found his own voice.

That line carries weight because he had never been absent from music. He had been there all along — behind Kristofferson, inside Muscle Shoals, in songs other people cut, on keyboards that helped other singers sound more complete.

But being essential is not the same as being heard.

On Oh My Goodness, the spotlight did not ask him to become larger than life.

It simply moved close enough for listeners to hear the life that was already there.

What Oh My Goodness Really Leaves Behind

The deepest part of this story is not only that Donnie Fritts made a record at seventy-two.

It is that the record happened because someone listened carefully to what age had not taken.

A Muscle Shoals veteran.

A kidney transplant.

Heart trouble.

Decades beside Kris Kristofferson.

Songs carried by Waylon Jennings, Dusty Springfield, Ray Charles, and others.

Then John Paul White in a quiet room, hearing an old Wurlitzer and a worn voice that still had one more truth to give.

For years, Donnie Fritts helped other people’s records become part of American music.

On Oh My Goodness, the younger musicians came into the room for him.

And instead of asking him to sound young again, they finally let the record sound like everything it had taken seventy-two years to become.

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TOM BRUMLEY JOINED BUCK OWENS’ BAND AS A REPLACEMENT. MONTHS LATER, ONE PEDAL-STEEL SOLO ON “TOGETHER AGAIN” BECAME SO DEFINITIVE THAT JERRY GARCIA LATER POINTED TO IT AS AN INSPIRATION TO LEARN THE INSTRUMENT. Tom Brumley was not the first steel guitarist in the Buckaroos. He joined Buck Owens’ band in 1963 after Jay McDonald left, stepping into a group that was rapidly becoming the defining sound of Bakersfield country. Don Rich was already shaping the guitars and harmonies. Buck had the songs. Brumley’s job was to find a place inside that sound without softening it. Then came “Together Again.” Buck recorded the ballad in early 1964 as the flip side of “My Heart Skips a Beat.” The faster song looked like the obvious hit. Brumley changed the balance. In the middle of “Together Again,” his pedal steel answered Buck’s vocal with a slow, aching solo. It was restrained, melodic and full of the crying bends the instrument could produce when the mechanics and the player’s touch worked together. Music theorists have since singled out the passage as a classic example of how the pedal steel can deepen the emotional meaning of a country song. The B-side did not stay a B-side. “Together Again” reached No. 1 on the country chart, interrupting the run of “My Heart Skips a Beat” at the top. The two sides effectively traded places as hits. Brumley’s solo became part of the record’s identity. It was later cited among country music’s finest pedal-steel performances, and Jerry Garcia pointed to “Together Again” as one of the recordings that inspired him to take up steel guitar before playing the instrument with New Riders of the Purple Sage. Brumley stayed with the Buckaroos through most of the 1960s, during the band’s peak years, before leaving in 1969 and later spending more than a decade with Rick Nelson. His distinctive playing became known among steel players as the “Brumley Touch.” Buck Owens supplied the voice and the song. But for a few measures in 1964, Tom Brumley gave “Together Again” the part listeners would spend decades trying to reproduce.

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RALPH MOONEY’S WIFE LEFT HIM BECAUSE OF HIS DRINKING. HE SAT DOWN WITH A GUITAR AND WROTE “CRAZY ARMS” — THEN RAY PRICE TURNED IT INTO A NO. 1 HIT THAT HELPED RESET THE SOUND OF HONKY-TONK. In 1949, Ralph Mooney was living in Las Vegas, playing steel guitar at night and drinking hard enough that his marriage was beginning to break. One day, after he stopped for a drink while out with his wife, she had enough. She took their young daughter and left for Los Angeles. Mooney went home alone and wrote the song that became “Crazy Arms.” He later recalled that the opening lines came quickly, pulled directly from the shock of watching his family leave. The song did not become famous immediately. Wynn Stewart recorded an early version in 1954, but it was not released. Mooney later sold the song, and another small-label recording found its way onto radio in Tampa. A disc jockey there played it for Ray Price and urged him to cut it. Price recorded “Crazy Arms” in Nashville in 1956. He changed more than the singer. The record used a walking bass, fiddle, steel guitar and a hard 4/4 shuffle that pushed country away from the older two-beat feel. “Crazy Arms” went to No. 1 and stayed there for twenty weeks, becoming one of the records most closely associated with the rise of the Ray Price shuffle. Mooney’s own name stayed mostly outside the spotlight. He went on to play steel with Wynn Stewart, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and, for roughly two decades, Waylon Jennings. His sharp, crying style became one of the most recognizable sounds behind West Coast country and outlaw-era records. Waylon would sometimes simply call out, “Pick it, Moon,” and leave space for him. By then, Mooney had already done something rarer than writing a hit. A private disaster had become part of the rhythmic language country bands would use for years after it.

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BUDDY EMMONS DIDN’T JUST PLAY PEDAL STEEL BEHIND ERNEST TUBB AND RAY PRICE. HE REWORKED THE PEDALS AND ADDED STRINGS — AND COUNTRY STEEL GUITARS ARE STILL BUILT AROUND IDEAS HE HELPED CREATE. Buddy Emmons was still in his teens when he became good enough to work professionally on steel guitar. By the mid-1950s, however, playing the instrument was not enough for him. Pedal steel was still evolving, and Emmons kept hearing musical moves the hardware could not easily make. So he changed the hardware. In 1956, Emmons helped separate two pitch changes that had previously been operated together, creating the split-pedal arrangement that became standard on E9 pedal steel. He later recalled first using the setup on Ernest Tubb’s “Half a Mind.” That same year, he and steel guitarist Shot Jackson formed Sho-Bud, combining their names and building instruments for a generation of country players. Emmons later developed additional mechanical ideas and eventually co-founded the Emmons Guitar Company. The innovations followed him onto records. In 1962, after joining Ray Price’s Cherokee Cowboys, Emmons added two higher strings to his E9 setup, helping establish the ten-string tuning that became standard. Price soon made him bandleader. Then came Willie Nelson’s “Night Life.” Ray Price recorded it in 1963, and Emmons opened the track with a dark, blues-heavy steel line that sounded far removed from the bright country clichés often associated with the instrument. His fills and solo became one of the defining sounds of the recording. Emmons spent the rest of his career refusing to stay inside one vocabulary. He played hard country, Western swing and jazz, recording with artists ranging from George Jones and Roger Miller to Gram Parsons and Ray Charles. By then, younger steel players were not simply learning Buddy Emmons licks. They were sitting behind instruments whose basic language had already been altered by his hands.

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AT 72, AFTER A KIDNEY TRANSPLANT AND HEART TROUBLE, DONNIE FRITTS ASSUMED HIS RECORD-MAKING DAYS WERE OVER. “SEVENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD MEN DON’T GET RECORD DEALS,” HE SAID. THEN JOHN PAUL WHITE HEARD HIM SINGING ALONE AT AN OLD WURLITZER. Fritts had spent most of his life standing beside other people. He had helped shape the early Muscle Shoals scene, written songs recorded by Waylon Jennings, Dusty Springfield, Ray Charles and others, and spent decades playing keyboards behind Kris Kristofferson. Yet by 2015, he had released only three solo albums in more than forty years. His health had also taken a toll. A kidney transplant and heart problems had slowed him, and Fritts did not expect another label to come looking. Still, he believed he had one good record left in him. John Paul White heard it almost by accident. White, formerly of the Civil Wars, had become friendly with Fritts around the 2013 premiere of the *Muscle Shoals* documentary. During a visit to Fritts’ home, he listened as the older musician sat at his weathered Wurlitzer and played songs he loved. Some were not even Fritts compositions. It did not matter. White heard something in the bare combination of that worn voice and electric piano that decades of sideman work had never fully exposed. He told Fritts that if they made a record, he wanted to start with exactly that sound. The project became *Oh My Goodness*. White and Ben Tanner produced it, keeping Fritts and the Wurlitzer at the center while friends and admirers including John Prine, Jason Isbell, Brittany Howard, Spooner Oldham and Reggie Young gathered around him. Fritts revisited songs connected to Arthur Alexander, John Prine and Dan Penn, but also recorded newer material such as “Tuscaloosa 1962.” He later said something surprising about the result. After more than half a century around studios, he felt he had finally found his own voice. *Oh My Goodness* arrived in October 2015. For decades, Donnie Fritts had been the man whose keyboard, songs and friendships helped other records become part of American music. This time, the younger musicians came into the room for him. And instead of asking the old Muscle Shoals veteran to sound young again, they built the record around everything age had put into his voice.

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TOM BRUMLEY JOINED BUCK OWENS’ BAND AS A REPLACEMENT. MONTHS LATER, ONE PEDAL-STEEL SOLO ON “TOGETHER AGAIN” BECAME SO DEFINITIVE THAT JERRY GARCIA LATER POINTED TO IT AS AN INSPIRATION TO LEARN THE INSTRUMENT. Tom Brumley was not the first steel guitarist in the Buckaroos. He joined Buck Owens’ band in 1963 after Jay McDonald left, stepping into a group that was rapidly becoming the defining sound of Bakersfield country. Don Rich was already shaping the guitars and harmonies. Buck had the songs. Brumley’s job was to find a place inside that sound without softening it. Then came “Together Again.” Buck recorded the ballad in early 1964 as the flip side of “My Heart Skips a Beat.” The faster song looked like the obvious hit. Brumley changed the balance. In the middle of “Together Again,” his pedal steel answered Buck’s vocal with a slow, aching solo. It was restrained, melodic and full of the crying bends the instrument could produce when the mechanics and the player’s touch worked together. Music theorists have since singled out the passage as a classic example of how the pedal steel can deepen the emotional meaning of a country song. The B-side did not stay a B-side. “Together Again” reached No. 1 on the country chart, interrupting the run of “My Heart Skips a Beat” at the top. The two sides effectively traded places as hits. Brumley’s solo became part of the record’s identity. It was later cited among country music’s finest pedal-steel performances, and Jerry Garcia pointed to “Together Again” as one of the recordings that inspired him to take up steel guitar before playing the instrument with New Riders of the Purple Sage. Brumley stayed with the Buckaroos through most of the 1960s, during the band’s peak years, before leaving in 1969 and later spending more than a decade with Rick Nelson. His distinctive playing became known among steel players as the “Brumley Touch.” Buck Owens supplied the voice and the song. But for a few measures in 1964, Tom Brumley gave “Together Again” the part listeners would spend decades trying to reproduce.

Country Music

TOM T. HALL WENT TO MIAMI BEACH FOR THE 1972 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION. LATE ONE NIGHT, AN OLD HOTEL JANITOR TOLD HIM THE ONLY THREE THINGS THAT NEVER LET A MAN DOWN — AND HALL TURNED THE CONVERSATION INTO A NO. 1 COUNTRY SONG. In 1972, Tom T. Hall traveled to Miami Beach during the Democratic National Convention that nominated George McGovern. He was already known as one of Nashville’s sharpest story-song writers, but the song he brought home did not come from politics. It came from a hotel bar after hours. Hall later said he met an elderly janitor or porter who was cleaning up. The man was nearing his 66th birthday and began talking with Hall about age, disappointment and the things he had learned to trust. Hall listened. The old man talked about friends who disappear when money runs out, lovers who move on, and the few things he believed were still dependable. Old dogs. Children. Watermelon wine. Hall did not need to invent much beyond the frame. The power was already in the conversation. He carried the encounter back to Nashville and turned it into “(Old Dogs, Children and) Watermelon Wine,” recording it in July 1972. Released later that year, the song reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart in January 1973 and became one of Hall’s signature recordings. The record barely behaves like a conventional hit. Hall mostly talks his way through it, recreating the room, the old man and the pauses between observations. There is no dramatic chorus designed to explode on radio. The tension comes from waiting to hear what the stranger will say next. That was Hall’s gift. He could stand beside someone most people would pass without noticing and recognize that the story was already there. Years later, “Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine” remained one of the songs most closely associated with “The Storyteller.” The man who inspired it apparently never became famous. For a few minutes in a nearly empty Miami hotel, he did not need to be.

Country Music

TOM T. HALL SPENT DECADES WRITING HITS FOR NASHVILLE. THEN HE AND HIS WIFE DIXIE TURNED THEIR FARM OUTSIDE TOWN INTO A STUDIO WHERE BLUEGRASS MUSICIANS COULD MAKE RECORDS OF THEIR OWN. Tom T. Hall had grown up playing bluegrass in Kentucky long before Nashville knew him as “The Storyteller.” By the 1970s, country music had made him famous. He had No. 1 records, an Opry membership and songs being cut across Nashville. But bluegrass never disappeared from his life. Hall and his wife Dixie lived at Fox Hollow, their farm in Williamson County outside Nashville. Over time, the property became more than a home. The Halls built publishing companies and a recording studio there, creating a place where bluegrass musicians could write, rehearse and record away from the usual commercial machinery. The timing mattered. By the mid-1990s, Hall had stepped back from full-time touring. Dixie returned deeply to songwriting, and the two began writing together with increasing frequency. Younger singers and veteran pickers passed through Fox Hollow, and the studio became part of a small bluegrass community built around songs rather than chart positions. One early beneficiary was singer Nancy Moore. Her 1999 album *Local Flowers* was produced by Dixie at Fox Hollow, with all twelve songs written by Dixie and/or Tom. Other artists followed, and the Halls became known not just for their own catalog but for helping keep traditional bluegrass writing alive. The partnership eventually produced albums of their own songs as well. In 2004, the International Bluegrass Music Association gave Tom and Dixie a Distinguished Achievement Award. In 2018, they were inducted together into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. By then, Hall’s career had already supplied country music with some of its most famous stories. Fox Hollow showed what happened after the storyteller stopped needing every story to belong to him. He built a room where other voices could leave with one of their own.