Honoring Country Music Legends

Merle Kilgore's career was bookended by his relationships with two legendary Hanks. When he was 14, he was hanging around the Louisiana Hayride radio show and wrangled his way into the inner circle of Hank Williams, as a gofer and a guitar roadie. The back half of Kilgore's professional life was devoted to managing Hank's son, Hank Williams Jr. In between, Kilgore found success as a singer, a songwriter, an actor, and a publisher. Being so close to Hank Sr., it was inevitable that Kilgore would try his hand at songwriting. And one of his first songs, "More and More," recorded by Webb Pierce in 1954, was a #1 country hit for 10 weeks. While he held down a job as a disc jockey at various stations in Louisiana, he honed his songwriting on the side. After he placed more hits with such artists as Johnny Horton and Carl Smith, Kilgore stepped into the spotlight himself. Though his performing career would be intermittent over the next two decades, he did have a few Top 10 singles, including "Love Has Made You Beautiful," and he toured as an opener for Johnny Cash.

George Jones, in full George Glenn Jones, (born September 12, 1931, Saratoga, Texas, U.S.—died April 26, 2013, Nashville, Tennessee), American honky-tonk performer and balladeer considered to be one of the greatest country singers of all time. Jones’s early work was influenced by Roy Acuff and Hank Williams (both renowned for their genuine, often mournful songs) and the Texas honky-tonk vocal tradition. In 1953 Jones signed with Harold W. (“Pappy”) Daily’s new Starday label in Beaumont, Texas. With Daily as his producer, Jones had a remarkable run of Top Ten hits, such as “The Race Is On” (1964), on the country music charts over the next 15 years. The first to reach number one was “White Lightning” (1959), a raucous novelty song written by his friend the rock-and-roll deejay, songwriter, and recording artist known as the Big Bopper. Other chart-toppers were “Tender Years” (1961) and, “She Thinks I Still Care” (1962). Gradually Jones began to develop a smoother, more romantic, and sensitive ballad style. He sang with a number of partners, especially his third wife, country music star Tammy Wynette, whom he married in 1969. In 1970 he moved to Wynette’s producer, Billy Sherrill, at Epic Records. Together and separately the couple, known as the “King and Queen of Country Music,” continued to record hits, including a series of songs that chronicled their stormy relationship (they divorced in 1975): the duets “The Ceremony” (1972), “We’re Gonna Hold On” (1973), “Golden Ring” (1976), and “Two Story House” (1980) and Jones’s “These Days (I Barely Get By)” (1975). His gut-wrenching “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” from the platinum album I Am What I Am, topped the charts and won him a Grammy and other awards in 1980. Jones also recorded with friends such as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Ray Charles, as well as with rock musicians he had influenced, such as Elvis Costello and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.

Johnny Cash grew up in a poor farming community and joined the Air Force in 1950. He co-founded a band following his discharge, and within a few years Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two had scored hits with songs like "Walk the Line." Cash's career was nearly derailed in the 1960s by a serious substance-abuse problem, but his marriage to June Carter and acclaimed album Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968) put him back on track. In later years, Cash joined the country supergroup the Highwaymen and released a series of recordings with producer Rick Rubin.

June Carter Cash and her sisters performed as the Carter Sisters, with June singing and playing rhythm guitar. She and Johnny Cash had a number of hits, including "It Ain't Me Babe" and "If I Were a Carpenter." She married Cash in 1968, and their story made it to the big screen in the Cash biopic Walk the Line 37 years later, with Reese Witherspoon playing Carter Cash.

Singer-songwriter June Carter Cash was born Valerie June Carter on June 23, 1929, in Maces Springs, Virginia. The daughter of Ezra Carter and Mother Maybelle Carter, June was born into the first family of country music. She and her sisters, Helen and Anita, performed as the Carter Sisters, with June singing, playing autoharp and rhythm guitar, and keeping audiences entertained with her comedic wit. In 1952, June married Carl Smith, with whom she performed at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, and they had a daughter, Rebecca Carlene. After their divorce, June toured with Elvis Presley and was briefly married to a local police officer, Edwin Nix, with whom she had another daughter, Rozanna who was called Rosie.