Porter Wagoner has died at age 80

[charlene]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Musi....ap/index.html

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- Porter Wagoner was known for a string of country hits in the '60s, perennial appearances at the Grand Ole Opry in his trademark rhinestone suits, and for launching the career of Dolly Parton.


Porter Wagoner's 50-year career included hit records, a TV show and many Grand Ole Opry appearances.

Like many older performers, his star had faded in recent years. But his death from lung cancer Sunday, at 80, came only after a remarkable late-career revival that won him a new generation of fans.

The Missouri-born Wagoner signed with RCA Records in 1955 and joined the Opry in 1957, "the greatest place in the world to have a career in country music," he said in 1997. His showmanship, suits and pompadoured hair made him famous.

He had his own syndicated TV show, "The Porter Wagoner Show," for 21 years, beginning in 1960. It was one of the first syndicated shows to come out of Nashville and set a pattern for many others.

"Some shows are mechanical, but ours was not polished and slick," he said in 1982.

Among his hits, many of which he wrote or co-wrote, were "Carroll County Accident," "A Satisfied Mind," "Company's Comin'," "Skid Row Joe," "Misery Loves Company" and "Green Green Grass of Home."

The songs often told stories of tragedy or despair. In "Carroll County Accident," a married man having an affair is killed in a car crash; "Skid Row Joe" deals with a once-famous singer who's lost everything.

In 2002, he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

In May, after years without a recording contract, he signed with ANTI- records, an eclectic Los Angeles label best known for alt-rock acts like Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Neko Case.

Wagoner's final album, "Wagonmaster," was released in June and earned him some of the best reviews of his career. Over the summer, he was the opening act for the influential rock duo White Stripes at a sold-out show at New York's Madison Square Garden.

"The young people I met backstage, some of them were 20 years old. They wanted to get my autograph and tell me they really liked me," Porter said with tears in his eyes the day after the New York show. "If only they knew how that made me feel -- like a new breath of fresh air."

To many music fans, Wagoner was best known as the man who boosted Parton's career. He had hired the 21-year-old singer as his duet partner in 1967, when she was just beginning to gain notice through songs such as "Dumb Blonde."

They were the Country Music Association's duo of the year in 1970 and 1971, recording hit duets including "The Last Thing on My Mind."

Parton's solo country records, such as her autobiographical "Coat of Many Colors," also began climbing the charts in the early 1970s. She wrote the pop standard "I Will Always Love You" in 1973 after Wagoner suggested she shift from story songs to focus on love songs.

The two quit singing duets in 1974 and she went on to wide stardom with pop hits and movies such as "9 to 5," whose theme song was also a hit for her.

Wagoner sued her for $3 million in assets, but they settled out of court in 1980. He said later they were always friendly, "but it's a fact that when you're involved with attorneys and companies that have them on retainer, it makes a different story."

At a charity roast for Wagoner in 1995, she explained the breakup this way: "We split over creative differences. I was creative, and Porter was different."

He said in a 1982 Associated Press interview that his show "was a training ground for her; she learned a great deal and I exposed her to very important people and the country music fans."

She was present at the ceremony in May 2007 honoring Wagoner on his silver anniversary with the Opry. At the time, he called Parton "one of my best friends today." She also visited him in the hospital as he battled cancer.

Wagoner, who had survived an abdominal aneurysm in 2006, was hospitalized again this month and his publicist disclosed he had lung cancer. He died at 8:25 p.m. CDT Sunday in a Nashville hospice, said Darlene Bieber, a spokeswoman for the Opry.

Country singer and Opry member Dierks Bentley visited Wagoner in the hospice over the weekend and said Wagoner led them in prayer, thanking God for his friends, his family and the Grand Ole Opry.

"The loss of Porter is a great loss for the Grand Ole Opry and for country music, and personally it is a great loss of a friend I was really just getting to know," Bentley said. "I feel blessed for the time I had with him."

Pete Fisher, vice president and general manager of the Opry, said the Opry family of musicians and performers was deeply saddened by the news. "His passion for the Opry and all of country music was truly immeasurable," Fisher said.

Wagoner was born in West Plains, Mo., and became known as "The Thin Man From West Plains" because of his lanky frame. He recalled that he spent hours as a child pretending to be an Opry performer, using a tree stump as a stage.

He started in radio, then became a regular on the "Ozark Jubilee," one of the first televised national country music shows. On the Opry since 1957, he joined Roy Acuff and other onetime idols.

At one point his wardrobe included more than 60 handmade rhinestone suits.

"Rhinestone suits are just beautiful under the lights," he said. "They've become a big part of my career. I get more compliments on my outfits than any other entertainer -- except for Liberace."

While he continued with the Opry, and even had a small part in the 1982 movie "Honky Tonk Man" starring Clint Eastwood, his recording career dried up in the 1980s -- until his return this year.

"I stopped making records because I didn't like the way they were wanting me to record," he said. "When RCA dropped me from the label, I didn't really care about making records for another label because I didn't have any say in what they would release and how they would make the records and so forth."

[Jesse Joe]

Very sad to hear this. I really did like him...

[lighthead2toe]

Thanks for putting this out there Char. I remember growing up as a child in Nfld. even before television hearing the voice of Porter Wagoner on the radio. It made an impression on me then and as technology bettered we were able to hear and see more of him. He was born into an era with many of the greats like Johnny Cash so when these folks start to disappear it's a sad feeling. At the same time it's also nice to have had them around for the many years we did and not having their lives cut short accidentially as sometimes is the case with these folks . A great presence if the world of country music will be missed. Ron J.

[Rainbow Trout]

We learned of his passing @ 10:00 Sunday evening, he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and had only been at the hospice center for a couple of days when he passed away. There will be a tribute to him most certainly.

[charlene]

The Opry had a wonderful show for his 80th just a few weeks ago...Marty Stuart was a great friend of his..
A 50th anniversary show was also recorded at the Opry back in May.

Porter Wagoner, 80; Grand Ole Opry star
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...ck=1&cset=true

John Russell / Associated Press
MEMORIES: Grand Ole Opry star Porter Wagoner sings "Someone I Used To Know" with Dolly Parton at his May 2003 induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tenn.
By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 29, 2007
Porter Wagoner, the blond pompadoured, rhinestone-encrusted personification of Nashville tradition, host of the longest-running country-music variety show in TV history and mentor to Dolly Parton, died Sunday night of lung cancer. He was 80.

Wagoner died at a hospice in Nashville, according to an announcement on the Grand Ole Opry's website.

Parton recently went to a Nashville hospital to visit the man who inspired her best-known song, "I Will Always Love You," after their acrimonious career split in the mid-1970s.

She described him then as very weak, but said Wagoner "had his wits and joked around," and she vowed she would sing with him again at the Grand Ole Opry when he was ready. Wagoner was released from the hospital Friday and transferred to hospice care.

A little more than a year ago, Wagoner had been seriously ill after suffering an intestinal aneurysm, but defied a dire medical prognosis and recovered sufficiently to mount a career comeback that led to appearances last summer on "The Late Show With David Letterman" and an opening slot at Madison Square Garden with upstart rock band the White Stripes, whose members are ardent Wagoner fans.

Country singer and songwriter Marty Stuart, a generation younger than Wagoner, coaxed his childhood idol into a recording studio last winter to record a new album, "The Wagonmaster." The recording brought Wagoner renewed attention, some of the best reviews of his career and created a new cachet among fans who are yet another generation younger than Stuart. The album also is expected to garner Wagoner at least one Grammy Award nomination from members of an industry that has long favored rewarding veterans who successfully reignite their careers.

When Wagoner performed in Los Angeles in June in conjunction with the album's release, it wasn't at an old-line country-music club, but at the trendy Safari Sam's nightclub on the edge of Silver Lake and Hollywood. Performing in one of his signature jewel-laden western suits and dazzling silver cowboy boots, he was cheered by fans young enough to be his grandchildren -- and called it one of the biggest thrills of his life.

This year he also celebrated his 50th year as a member of the Grand Ole Opry cast. He returned to the country-music institution in March after recuperating from the aneurysm and resumed his role as one of the organization's most recognizable stars.

Over a period of nearly 40 years, Wagoner placed 81 songs on the country-music chart, 19 of those duets with Parton, who joined his show in 1967 as a replacement for his first female co-star, Norman Jean. Wagoner and Parton were named country group and country duo of the year in 1970 and 1971 by the Country Music Assn.

Wagoner's music often told dark tales of desperate people in stark terms that placed him in the gothic tradition of country music. This was best exemplified in his 1971 recording "The Rubber Room," a song about a man wrestling with the dark side of his psyche. "The Cold Hard Facts of Life," a 1967 hit, recounted the tale of a husband returning home early from a business trip to find his wife in the arms of another man. Without directly describing the outcome, the song ends with the husband sitting in his cell on death row, asking himself, "Who taught who the cold hard facts of life?"

Porter Wagoner was born Aug. 12, 1927, in West Plains, Mo. He grew up helping out on the family farm, but when he wasn't busy with farm chores he would spend hours standing on the trunk of a felled oak tree pretending he was host of the Grand Ole Opry, which he listened to religiously on the radio.

Once a neighboring farmer stumbled on the young man mimicking his act and asked what he was doing. When Wagoner told him of his dream to be an Opry star one day, the farmer told him, "You're as close to the Grand Ole Opry as you'll ever get. You'll be looking these mules in the rear end when you're 65."

Recalling that incident backstage at the Opry earlier this year, Wagoner, who was surrounded in his kingly dressing room by photos showing him with hundreds of celebrity well-wishers who had joined him on the show over the years, just smiled and said with a gentle laugh, "I wish I could see him now."

He got his first guitar from his older brother, Glenn, whose death before age 20 from a heart ailment hit Wagoner hard. He became determined to carry on his brother's love for music. Working at a department store in West Plains, Wagoner was hired by the owner to sing on a radio show he sponsored.

His initial attempts at a recording career were less than stellar, as Wagoner simply attempted to copy the sound of his idol, Hank Williams. But he quickly realized that his only chance at a meaningful life in music was to be himself.

He wrote and recorded "A Satisfied Mind," a song that discounts the rewards of the material world in favor of the facets of life that lead to peace of mind. It took him to the top of the country chart in 1955 for the first time and remained his biggest hit.

He sang with an unadorned, everyman voice, not the booming bass-baritone of a Johnny Cash, the jazz-inflected acrobatics of Willie Nelson or the bluegrass-steeped purity of a Vince Gill.

"I don't try to show off a so-called beautiful voice, because I don't feel my voice is beautiful," Wagoner once said. "I believe there is a different kind of beauty, the beauty of being honest, of being yourself, of singing like you feel it."

He reached the No. 1 spot two more times, in 1962 with "Misery Loves Company," and a dozen years later with "Please Don't Stop Loving Me," a duet with Parton.

More than his own music, Wagoner's greatest legacy was his syndicated TV series, "The Porter Wagoner Show," which ran from 1960 to 1979.

When Parton left his TV show to launch a solo career that made her one of country's biggest stars, Wagoner felt betrayed; meanwhile, she felt he had exploited her songwriting talent for his own benefit. Wagoner sued her, but they eventually settled the lawsuit and reconciled.

Part of the settlement was that Parton agreed to record another album with Wagoner during the height of her own success in the late 1970s and early '80s. The session yielded a pair of hits, "Making Plans" and "If You Go, I'll Follow You," but failed to substantially revive Wagoner as a hit-maker.

Parton acknowledged writing "I Will Always Love You" as a peace offering to Wagoner, but she said it took him years to understand its message. The song was a hit for her three separate times -- when it was released in 1974, as a remake for the 1982 movie "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and in 1995 as a duet with Vince Gill. It became an international pop smash when Whitney Houston recorded it in 1992.

Wagoner's old-school country style fell out of favor with Nashville, except for his role at the Opry, as country moved on in the '80s to younger, more pop-music minded stars such as Alabama. But Wagoner never relinquished his love for flashy Nudie Cohn-designed outfits.

At his Safari Sam's performance in June, Stuart, who led his backing band, quipped that "they should rename Lankershim as Porter Wagoner Boulevard" for his undying patronage of the veteran North Hollywood western-wear designer.

Marty Stuart, who spent time as a member of Johnny Cash's band in the '80s before launching a successful career of his own, grew up in Mississippi watching Wagoner's TV show every Saturday afternoon with his father.

The album they recorded together, "The Wagonmaster," resuscitated some of Wagoner's old songs and added a few new ones.

Funeral services were pending.

Wagoner's survivors include a son, Richard; and two daughters, Denise and Debra.

[Borderstone]

I didn't know much about his music but I'm sure he had good musical instincts and abilities.
What I do know is,Dolly Parton must be crying her eyes out right now.

May he RIP.