Robert Lee "Smokey" Wilson (July 11, 1936 – September 8, 2015) was an American West Coast blues guitarist. He spent most of his career performing West Coast blues and juke joint blues in Los Angeles, California. He recorded a number of albums for record labels such as P-Vine Records, Bullseye Blues and Texmuse Records. His career got off to a late start, with international recognition eluding him until the 1990s.
Wilson was born in Glen Allan, Mississippi, and raised in Lake Village, Arkansas. He was eight when his father bought him his first guitar. His teenage years were spent developing his singing and playing skills. In 1961 he became a member of Junior Green And His Soul Searchers Band, which, after some years, he left to join Roosevelt ‘Booba’ Barnes, with whom he played for four years.
He played alongside Big Jack Johnson and Frank Frost, before his move to Los Angeles in 1970 where he hoped that his down-home style would be popular. He played in a number of clubs and became part-owner of the Casino Club, where he worked on a regular basis as frontman of the house band. He also In booked blues musicians to perform at the club, including Big Joe Turner, Percy Mayfield, Pee Wee Crayton and Albert Collins. His down-to-earth guitar playing was typical of his Mississippi Delta background. "I bring the cotton-field with me," he said, "and I got the juke-joint inside."
Whilst Wilson's years of residency at the Pioneer Club did little to secure nationwide recognition, he appeared on the PBS special Three Generation of Blues, with Robert Cray and John Lee Hooker. He also appeared in various television commercials, including UPN's "The Watcher," and FOX's "Divas", plus in a music video made by Babyface.
Wilson released two albums on Big Town Records in the 1970s. His 1983 album, 88th Street Blues, for the Murray Brothers label (later reissued by Blind Pig Records) had contributions from Rod Piazza (harmonica and record producer) and Hollywood Fats (rhythm guitar). Wilson performed at the Long Beach Blues Festival in 1980, 1981 and 1999; having earlier appeared at the San Francisco Blues Festival in 1978.
A new contract with the Bullseye Blues label saw Wilson through the 90s and marked a resurgence in his career. Smoke N’ Fire (1993) had guest appearances by Larry Davis and Jimmy McCracklin, effectively flattering Wilson’s modest talent. The Real Deal (1995) followed, as Wilson's reputation began to grow as he reached his sixtieth year. He made one further recording for Bullseye (1997’s The Man From Mars)
During 2003 Wilson recorded an album with Andy T and his band who backed him on stage since 1997. Smokey, as always demonstrative, sang pretty well but left most of the guitar parts to Andy T. Nine days after this album Smokey suffered a stroke. In the years that follow, as his health gradually deteriorated, he remained very discreet and finally died in his sleep on September 8, 2015, in Los Angeles, California.
(Edited from Wikipedia, Blind Dog Radio & Blues Sessions)
Fulton Allen (July 10, 1904 – February 13, 1941), known as Blind Boy Fuller, was an American blues guitarist and singer. Fuller was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists, along with Blind Blake, Josh White, and Buddy Moss.
Allen was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina, United States, one of ten children of Calvin Allen and Mary Jane Walker. Most sources date his birth to 1907, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc indicate 1904. After his mother died, he moved with his father to Rockingham, North Carolina. As a boy he learned to play the guitar and also learned from older singers the field hollers, country rags, traditional songs and blues popular in poor rural areas. He married young, to Cora Allen, and worked as a labourer. He began to lose his eyesight in his teens. According to the researcher Bruce Bastin, "While he was living in Rockingham he began to have trouble with his eyes. He went to see a doctor in Charlotte who allegedly told him that he had ulcers behind his eyes, the original damage having been caused by some form of snow-blindness." Only the first part of this diagnosis was correct. A 1937 eye examination attributed his vision loss to the long-term effects of untreated neonatal conjunctivitis.
Blind Blake
By 1928 he was completely blind. He turned to whatever employment he could find as a singer and entertainer, often playing in the streets. By studying the records of country blues players like Blind Blake and live performances by Gary Davis, Allen became a formidable guitarist, playing on street corners and at house parties in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Danville, Virginia; and then Durham, North Carolina. In Durham, playing around the tobacco warehouses, he developed a local following that included guitarists Floyd Council and Richard Trice, harmonica player Saunders Terrell (better known as Sonny Terry), and washboard player and guitarist George Washington.
In 1935, James Baxter Long, a record store manager and talent scout in Burlington, North Carolina, secured Allen a recording session with the American Recording Company (ARC). Allen, Davis, and Washington recorded several tracks in New York City, including the traditional "Rag, Mama, Rag". To promote the records, Long credited Allen as Blind Boy Fuller and Washington as Bull City Red. Over the next five years Fuller recorded over 120 sides, released by several labels. His singing style was rough and direct, and his lyrics were explicit and uninhibited, drawing on every aspect of his experience as an underprivileged, blind black man on the streets—pawnshops, jailhouses, sickness, death—with an honesty that lacked sentimentality. Although he was not sophisticated, his artistry as a folk singer lay in the honesty and integrity of his self-expression. His songs expressed desire, love, jealousy, disappointment, menace, and humour.
In April 1936, Fuller recorded ten solo performances and also recorded with guitarist Floyd Council. In 1937, after auditioning for J. Mayo Williams, he recorded for Decca Records, but then reverted to ARC. Later that year he made his first recordings with Sonny Terry. In 1938, Fuller, who was described as having a fiery temper, was imprisoned for shooting a pistol at his wife, wounding her in the leg. His imprisonment prevented him from performing in "From Spirituals to Swing", a concert produced by John Hammond in New York City that year. Sonny Terry performed in his place; it was the beginning of Terry's long career in folk music. After Fuller was released from prison, he held his last two recording sessions in New York City in June 1940, but by then he was increasingly physically weak, and much of the material lacked the quality and energy of his earlier recordings.
Fuller's repertoire included a number of popular double-entendre "hokum" songs, such as "I Want Some of Your Pie", "Truckin' My Blues Away" (1936) (the inspiration for Robert Crumb's comic "Keep On Truckin'"), "Let Me Squeeze Your Lemon", and "Get Your Yas Yas Out" (1938) (adapted as Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out for a Rolling Stones album title), and the autobiographical "Big House Bound", about his time in prison. Much of his material was culled from traditional folk and blues songs. He had a formidable fingerpicking guitar style. He played a steel National resonator guitar. Some criticized Fuller as derivative, but his fusion of elements of traditional and contemporary songs attracted a broad audience. He was an expressive vocalist and masterly guitarist, best remembered for his up-tempo ragtime hits, including "Step It Up and Go". He was also capable of deeper material; his versions of "Lost Lover Blues", "Rattlesnakin' Daddy", and "Mamie" are as deep as most Delta blues.
Brownie McGhee
Fuller underwent a suprapubic cystostomy in July 1940, probably due to the urethral stricture noted on his death certificate, a narrowing or blockage of the urethra that can be caused by syphilitic chancres, gonorrhoea, or chlamydia, but continued to require medical treatment. He died at his home in Durham, North Carolina, on February 13, 1941. The cause of death was pyaemia, due to an infected bladder, gastrointestinal tract, and perineum, plus kidney failure. He was so popular when he died that his protégé, Brownie McGhee, recorded "The Death of Blind Boy Fuller" for Okeh Records, and then reluctantly began a short-lived career as Blind Boy Fuller No. 2, so that Columbia Records could profit from Fuller's popularity.
Fuller's grave is Grove Hill Cemetery, on private property in Durham. According to state records, this was once an official cemetery, and Fuller's interment is recorded. Only one headstone remains, that of one Mary Caston Langey. The funeral arrangements were handled by McLaurin Funeral Home of Durham, and the burial took place on February 15, 1941. Fuller has been recognized with two plaques in Durham. The North Carolina Division of Archives and History placed a plaque a few miles north of Fuller's gravesite, along Fayetteville St. The city of Durham officially recognized Fuller on July 16, 2001, with a commemorative plaque along the American Tobacco Trail, adjacent to the property containing Fuller's unmarked grave (several hundred feet east of Fayetteville St.).
Alex Welsh (9 July 1929 – 25 June 1982) was a Scottish jazz musician and vocalist, who played cornet and trumpet and led one of Britain's best jazz groups from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Archie Semple & Alex Welsh
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Welsh began his musical life in Leith on the smaller cornet, later switching to trumpet. The teenage Leith Silver Band and later gigs with Archie Semple's Capital Jazz Band represented the earliest phases of his gigging. After moving to London in 1954, he formed a band with clarinetist Archie Semple, pianist Fred Hunt, trombonist Roy Crimmins, and drummer Lennie Hastings. The band played a version of Chicago-style Dixieland jazz and was part of the traditional jazz revival in England.
Within a year the band played several times at the Royal Festival Hall, made it's first broadcasts and recordings and established a reputation for it's dedication to the Dixieland style and the excellence of its playing. From 1955 the band made several tours overseas. During the 1960s and early 1970s, Welsh continued to tour, including many visits to the United States. He was influenced by his fellow trad jazz bandleader Chris Barber and built up and extensive musical repertoire, working from popular music as well as jazz and building up a large mainstream following for ensembles.
Welsh recorded for the British Decca label from 1955 and had four records released that year, "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" (Decca F10538), "Blues My Naughtie Sweetie Gives to Me" (Decca F10557) and "What Can I Say After I Say I'm Sorry" (Decca F10652) plus "Dixielanders at the RFH" an EP (extended play single) on Decca DFE 6254. Six years later in 1961 the band's single "Tansy" on Columbia Records DB 4686 peaked at No. 45 and remained on the UK singles chart for four weeks.
In January 1963, British music magazine NME reported that the biggest trad jazz event to be staged in Britain had taken place at Alexandra Palace. The event included George Melly, Diz Disley, Acker Bilk, Chris Barber, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer, Monty Sunshine, Bob Wallis, Bruce Turner, Mick Mulligan and Welsh. Although Welsh's ensemble was noted for its few personnel changes, by 1966 the trombonist Roy Crimmins had been replaced by Roy Williams and the clarinestist Archie Semple by John Barnes and Al Gay, who between them played seven different reed instruments. This gave the band a greater tonal variety and although it retained its early ideals, it also began to approach other forms of jazz and became highly regarded for its versatility.
Welsh toured internationally and played at the 1967 Antibes jazz festival, the 1968 Newport Jazz Festival (at great acclaim), and 1978 Nice Jazz Festival. In the period 1970-1980 Welsh was a performer with his Alex Welsh Band at public house venues throughout the UK, having performed at the Bell Pub in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where he was a regular in the early 1970s, and the Five Ways Pub in Sherwood, Nottingham in 1981 among many others.
By the mid-'70s, Welsh's health started to fail, but the trumpeter continued reaching for the high notes as long as he could until his death on June 25, 1982 in Hillingdon hospital in London, England, at the age of 52.
(Edited from The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Wikipedia)
Alice Gerrard (born July 8, 1934) is an American bluegrass and old-time music performer, writer, editor and teacher. As a singer who plays guitar, fiddle and banjo, she performed and recorded solo and in ensembles, notably in a duo with Hazel Dickens.
Alice Gerrard was born in Seattle, Washington. Her parents both had backgrounds in classical music, and Alice learned to play the piano at a young age. However, while there were occasional family sings around the piano, Gerrard didn't hear much in the way of folk music until she attended Antioch College in Ohio. Gerrard made friends with folk music fans in her dorm, and through them heard Harry Smith's influential collection Anthology of American Folk Music. Gerrard became fascinated with the stark music and dark themes of Smith's Anthology, and she learned to play guitar. One of her peers was Jeremy Foster, who became her first husband in 1956.
Gerrard left Antioch without graduating and relocated to Washington, D.C., where she discovered a lively folk music community, with special enthusiasm for bluegrass and old-time music. As Gerrard became a presence on the D.C. folk music scene, she became friends with Mike Seeger of the New Lost City Ramblers (they would marry years later after the death of Gerrard's first husband, who was killed in an automobile accident while commuting to work in 1964). Seeger introduced Gerrard to Hazel Dickens, a West Virginia-born singer living in Baltimore, Maryland who had a passion for classic Appalachian folk songs. Dickens and Gerrard discovered they harmonized well together, and they started playing shows together, quickly developing a loyal following in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.
In 1965, Dickens and Gerrard recorded a set of old-time classics at a church in Washington, D.C., backed by a group that included David Grisman on mandolin, Lamar Grier on banjo, and Chubby Wise and Billy Baker on fiddles. The session was released by Verve Folkways under the title Who's That Knocking? Years later, artists such as Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch would cite it as a key influence, and Dickens and Gerrard are often acknowledged as the first female-led act in bluegrass. But a follow-up LP, Won't You Come and Sing for Me, also recorded in 1965, wasn't released until Rounder Records brought it out in 1973. Rounder would release two more albums by Dickens and Gerrard, 1973's Hazel & Alice and 1976's Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard; the duo's four albums were collected into a CD set, 1996's Pioneering Women of Bluegrass.
Here's "Bowling Green" from above album.
In 1980, Gerrard recorded an album with Mike Seeger, simply titled Alice Gerrard & Mike Seeger (they had previously made a live album in 1971, and the two were reissued on one disc in 2008 as Bowling Green), but she spent most of the decade working behind the scenes. She founded and was editor-in-chief of The Old Time Herald magazine from 1987 to 2000 and in collaboration with Les Blank and Cece Conway, she directed Sprout Wings and Fly, a documentary about Appalachian fiddler Tommy Jarrell. Gerrard would also go on to teach courses on music and folklore at the University of North Carolina and Duke University.
It wasn't until 1994 that Gerrard made her belated debut as a solo artist, recording Pieces of My Heart for the respected bluegrass label Copper Creek Records. She teamed up with multi-instrumentalists Brad Leftwich and Tom Sauber, forming the trio Tom, Brad & Alice, and the act cut three albums together, 1998's Been There Still, 2000's Holly Ding, and 2001's We'll Die in the Pig Pen Fighting. Gerrard's second solo effort, Calling Me Home: Songs of Love and Loss, was released in 2002, and in 2005 Tom, Brad & Alice reunited for a fourth and final album, Carve That Possum.
Gerrard turned her attention to academics and live performances for several years, but returned to the recording studio to cut 2013's Bittersweet. While teaching at Duke University, Gerrard met M.C. Taylor, a student pursuing a master's degree in folklore who also happened to be a musician, writing and recording under the rubric Hiss Golden Messenger. Taylor was a fan of Gerrard's early recordings with Hazel Dickens, and offered to produce an album for her. The result was the 2014 release Follow the Music. In 2017, Gerrard and fellow old-time music advocate Kay Justice joined forces to cut the album Tear Down the Fences.
In the 2020s, she has continued to perform and record, was the subject of a documentary film by Kenny Dalsheimer, You Gave Me a Song, and has been a frequent staff member at the Augusta Heritage Center in West Virginia, the Port Townsend, Washington Festival of American Fiddle Tunes and other summer music camps and festivals across the United States. In June 2026, CBS News included her song Calling Me Home in its list of the 250 essential American songs of the past 250 years.
Mary Ford (July 7, 1924 – September 30, 1977) was an American guitarist and vocalist, comprising half of the husband-and-wife musical team Les Paul and Mary Ford. Between 1950 and 1954, the couple had 16 top-ten hits, including "How High the Moon" and "Vaya con Dios", which were number one hits on the Billboard charts. In 1951 alone they sold six million records. With Paul, Ford became one of the early practitioners of multi-tracking.
Mary Ford was born Iris Colleen Summers in El Monte, California. Her father was a minister, and her mother was Dorothy May White Summers. Mary came from a very musical family. All of Mary's brothers and sisters were musicians. Her parents travelled across the United States. When she was in junior high school, Colleen Summers performed in churches. She sang with a local girl named Mildred "Milly" Watson and later made gospel recordings with Milly's older brother, Marvin. Colleen even wrote some of the songs for these recordings. In 1939, Colleen and Milly won a talent contest in Pasadena. Famous people like a young Judy Garland were judges. They loved music so much that they left school to focus on their musical dreams. They briefly worked as ushers in a movie theater.
By 1943, Colleen Summers joined Vivian Earles and June Widener. They formed a western trio called the Sunshine Girls. They sang backup for Jimmy Wakely and his trio. The Sunshine Girls were regular performers on The Hollywood Barn Dance. This was a popular weekly radio show on CBS Radio. It was broadcast on Saturday nights. In 1944, the Sunshine Girls appeared in a film called I'm from Arkansas. They sang "You Are My Sunshine" in the movie. In 1945, Eddie Dean introduced Colleen Summers to guitarist Les Paul. At this time, she was a popular western singer on radio station KXLA. She and Les Paul began performing together in 1946. Colleen left the Sunshine Girls to work with Paul. Her older sister, Eva, later sang with the other members of the trio.
Colleen Summers also appeared on Gene Autry's Melody Ranch radio show. She was a cast member and featured singer from July to November 1946. From 1946 to 1948, Summers was a regular actor on The All-Star Western Theatre. This was a radio drama program. It was through her career in early country music and connections to singers Gene Autry and Eddie Dean that she joined her future husband’s group, the Les Paul Trio. By 1947, Colleen Summers and Les Paul became a couple. In January 1948, they were in a car accident in Oklahoma. Their car went off the road and fell into a frozen creek. Les Paul was badly hurt. His right elbow was shattered, and it took him 18 months to play guitar again. Colleen moved in with Paul to help him recover from his injuries.
By 1949, Summers was adopted the stage name Mary Ford after Paul turned to a phone directory to find a short, memorable name to differentiate his partner’s new pop-oriented music from her country past. Under this moniker, she went from a background vocalist to the forefront, singing and playing alongside one of the seminal names in guitar history. That same year, Les Paul and Mary Ford got married. They had a small ceremony in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on December 29. They later had three children: a baby who passed away shortly after birth in 1954, a fostered daughter named Mary Colleen Paul, and a son named Robert Ralph "Bobby" Paul. After their wedding, Paul and Ford started making radio shows for NBC. One show was called Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home. It was a 15-minute program broadcast every Friday night.
Mary Ford and Les Paul became huge music stars in the early 1950s. They released 28 hit songs for Capitol Records between 1950 and 1957. Some of their famous songs included "Tiger Rag", "Vaya con Dios", "Mockin' Bird Hill", and "How High the Moon". "Vaya con Dios" was number one for 11 weeks, and "How High the Moon" was number one for nine weeks. These songs featured Mary Ford singing harmonies with herself. This gave their music a unique and new sound. Paul and Ford recorded all their music at home or while traveling. They then sent the finished recordings to Capitol Records. Les Paul was very involved in deciding which songs would become hits. They also used a recording technique called close miking. This means the microphone was very close to the singer's mouth. This made the sound more personal and clear. It was a different style from older singing methods.
After touring and recording a lot, the couple moved to New York City. They wanted to move from radio to television. They recorded their famous song "How High The Moon" there. This song had many layers of guitar and Mary's voice, using 12 overdubs. Capitol Records was not sure about releasing it at first. But after more hits like "Tennessee Waltz" and "Mockin' Bird Hill", "How High The Moon" was released in March 1951. Within a month, "How High The Moon" and "Mockin' Bird Hill" were the number one and number two songs on Your Hit Parade. In 1951, Ford and Paul earned a lot of money. They had more top ten hits that year than many other famous artists combined. They also sold over six million records since January 1951. Paul bought a Cadillac for their tours to carry all their equipment. They also bought a home in Mahwah, New Jersey. It had a recording studio and a special echo chamber. In September 1952, Ford and Paul travelled to London. They performed at the Palladium Theatre. They even performed for Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family.
In 1953, the couple recorded "Vaya con Dios". This became the biggest-selling song of their career. It was number one on the Billboard charts for nine weeks. After the records success, they hosted The Les Paul and Mary Ford Show. This was their own daily television program. It was five minutes long and ran from 1953 to 1960 on NBC television in the mid-1950s, rock and roll music became very popular. This caused the popularity of many performers, including Paul and Ford, to decline. In 1955, they performed a concert at Carnegie Hall. In 1956, they performed at the Eisenhower White House. As rock and roll grew, Ford and Paul's songs appeared less on the charts in the late 1950s. In July 1958, Paul and Ford left Capitol Records and signed with Columbia. However, this move did not bring back their earlier success. They appeared on NBC's Five Star Jubilee in 1961. In November 1963, Mary Ford released her first solo song. It was an English version of "Dominique". By December 1964 Les and Mary were divorced. Around 1965, Mary Ford married Donald Hatfield. She had known him since high school. They settled in Monrovia, California. Mary and her sisters sang on an album called The New Sound of American Folk. This album was recorded at her brother Bobby Summers' studio.
Ford succumbed to complications of alcohol abuse in 1977. After eight weeks in a diabetic coma, she died in Arcadia, California, on September 30, 1977, at the age of 53. She is buried at Forest Lawn-Covina Hills in Covina, California. Engraved on her tombstone, are the words "Vaya con Dios" ("Go with God"), the name of one of her most popular songs.
Mary Ford and Les Paul received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located at 1541 Vine Street in Hollywood. In 1978, they were honoured by being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Jeannie Seely (July 6, 1940 – August 1, 2025) was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and author who broke barriers for women in Country Music with her bold style, emotional depth and trailblazing presence on the Grand Ole Opry. Seely's musical style categorized and identified with the country genre, while also incorporating elements of pop and soul. Critics and writers named her "Miss Country Soul," a title used throughout her career spanning seven decades due to not only her style, but also her emotional vocal performances.
Born Marilyn Jeanne Seely in Titusville, Pennsylvania, she was drawn to music at an early age. After singing at local dances, talent shows, and on the radio, Seely decided to pursue music professionally after graduating high school. Moving to Los Angeles in 1961, she worked as a secretary at Imperial Records, becoming a professional songwriter in her spare time and earning a promotion to professional songwriter. Her first break arrived in 1964, when Irma Thomas took "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)" -- a song she co-wrote with Randy Newman, as well as Judith Arbuckle and Pat Sheeran -- into Billboard's R&B Top 40; on its flipside was "Time Is on My Side," a song the Rolling Stones would soon turn into a standard.
Signing with Challenge Records, Seely released a pair of singles for the label in 1965, "What Am I Doing in Your World" and "Bring It on Back," but her primary success came as a songwriter. Country singers especially were drawn to her material, leading Seely to move to Nashville later in 1965. Aligning herself with Hank Cochran, Seely received a big break when she was hired to step into the vacancy left by Norma Jean, Porter Wagoner's partner on television and stage. Shortly afterward, she signed with Monument Records.
"Don't Touch Me," a song written by Hank Cochran, appeared in March 1966 and became a runaway hit, climbing to two on Billboard's Country chart while also scraping the bottom of the Hot 100. It'd win the Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance and help Seely become a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1967; she was the first singer to wear a mini-skirt on the Opry stage. By that point, she had racked up two additional Country Top 20 hits in "It's Only Love" and "A Wanderin' Man." Early in 1968, she once again reached the Top Ten thanks to "I'll Love You More (Than You Need)." Seely married songwriter Hank Cochran June 15, 1969, in Renfro Valley, Kentucky, in a church ceremony. Around 1975, the couple built a home set on a farm with 77 acres of property in Hendersonville, Tennessee, but in the late 1970s, the couple separated and officially filed for divorce in 1979.
Seely's busy solo career led her to part ways with Wagoner, as he had replace her with Dolly Parton, and she left Monument for Decca in 1969, where she collaborated with producer Owen Bradley. "Wish I Didn't Have to Miss You," her first big hit for the label, was a duet with Jack Greene that reached number two early in 1970. Seely and Greene reteamed a few times during the early '70s, reaching the charts in 1972 with "Much Oblige" and "What in the World Has Gone Wrong with Our Love," singles which punctuated individual hits by Seely. Additionally, Seely continued to work as a songwriter; Faron Young took her "Leavin' and Sayin' Goodbye" to number one in 1972.
In 1973, Seely signed with MCA. "Can I Sleep in Your Arms," her first single for the label, was her last Top Ten hit, peaking at six. "Lucky Numbers" went to 11 early in 1974; later that year, "He Can Be Mine" became her last Top 40 hit on the Billboard Country charts. In June 1977, Seely was involved in a car collision in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, (located outside of Nashville) after her vehicle crashed into a tree. She was admitted to Nashville Memorial Hospital, suffering a fractured jaw, broken ribs, a punctured and collapsed lung. Upon arriving at the hospital, she was given same-day surgery to repair her lung. She was reported in "fair condition" and eventually recovered from her injuries. Friend Dottie West helped Seely following her hospital release, helping her when she was immobile and taking her on car rides for a change in scenery. Seely later reflected that the accident brought her a new appreciation for life. "You know, it sounds like a cliche, but it's true that your perspective changes when you have a close call, what you took for granted you come to appreciate more." Willie Nelson had her sing on the soundtrack to his 1980 film Honeysuckle Rose, then she re-teamed with Jack Greene in 1982 to re-record their old hits.
By the mid-'80s, Seely was concentrating on performances in Nashville -- she appeared regularly as a host at the Grand Ole Opry and played at her short-lived nightclub Jeannie Seely's Country Club, which morphed into regular TV appearances, particularly on the Nashville Network. Seely continued to balance the Opry and television throughout the '90s, dabbling in some acting work as well as an occasional stop in the recording studio. She released an eponymous independent album in 1990, then her first holiday set, Number One Christmas, in 1996. The covers album Been There…Sung That! arrived in 1999, followed by Life's Highway in 2003. Seely married Nashville attorney Gene Ward in 2010. In 2011 she released another covers album, Vintage Country: Old But Treasured, with Written in Song containing a collection of songs she wrote for other artists, following in 2017. The 2020 album An American Classic combined re-recordings of her hits with covers of songs from the likes of Sammy Cahn, Roger Miller, and Paul McCartney. She was also nominated for four CMA Awards, and in 2023 she was presented with the CMA Joe Talbot Award, which is awarded in recognition of outstanding leadership and contributions to the preservation and advancement of Country Music’s values and tradition.
In 2024, Seely was hospitalized in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after suffering from "acute diverticulitis" and "dehydration" on a trip to her hometown. She was later released and was reportedly "doing well". Her husband Gene Ward died on December 13, 2024, after a recent cancer diagnosis. As of her last Grand Ole Opry show on February 22, 2025, Seely had made 5,397 Opry performances, more than any other artist in the Opry’s 100-year history. Seely’s last public appearance was on March 1, 2025, when she attended the rebranded opening of the Legends of Country Music Museum located in Nashville’s Music Valley area. In May 2025, Seely said that she had multiple surgeries since March of that year, had later contracted pneumonia, and was undergoing rehabilitation. Seely died of an intestinal infection on August 1, 2025, at the age of 85. At the time of her death, she was hospitalized at TriStar Summit Medical Centre in Hermitage, Tennessee.
Throughout her career, Seely spearheaded efforts to support and enhance artist, musician, and songwriter roles in the music industry, especially paving the way for females who followed. Instrumental in instilling an atmosphere of fellowship and camaraderie at the Grand Ole Opry – and in any music circle she entered – Seely connected with artists, musicians, songwriters, and industry personnel from all generations and backgrounds.
(Edited from AllMusic, Country Music Association, Wikipedia & Fayfare's Opry Blog)
Owen Gray OD (5 July 1939 – 20 July 2025), also known as Owen Grey, was a Jamaican musician. His work spans the R&B, ska, rocksteady, and reggae eras of Jamaican music, and he has been credited as Jamaica's first home-grown singing star.
Gray seemed destined for stardom at an early age, born in Kingston, he showed an affinity for music and a love of singing very early in life, winning his first talent contest at the age of nine and also distinguishing himself in the local church choir, where he sang first tenor (and his mother played piano). His father was a career military man, but the younger Gray set his sights on music as a career early on, and by his teens he was an experienced singer and performer -- he attended the Alpha School, whose other alumni included such future legends as Tommy McCook and Dizzy Johnny Moore, and by 19 he was ready to turn professional.
In a sense, Gray and his contemporaries could not have timed their lives and careers better, as Jamaica's musical life was ready to bloom -- the world was already listening to the sounds of calypso music in the late '50s, initially by way of Trinidad (and pioneering figures such as Sir Lancelot) and more recently by such island-descended figures as Harry Belafonte and Lord Burgess, and Jamaica, which was already moving toward independence from Great Britain, was about to experience a cultural renaissance as well.
Gray's breakthrough came in 1960 when he recorded "Please Don't Let Me Go" with the Caribs (including guitarist Ernest Ranglin on his first recording session) for a young would-be record producer from England named Chris Blackwell, who had begun to dabble in Jamaican music in between deciding what he wanted to do with his life. Released in Jamaica, it hit the top chart spot on the island, and the record was also issued in England through the jazz label Esquire, and sold surprisingly well -- a fact undoubtedly noted by Blackwell, who began to suspect around this time that there were enough Jamaican émigrés in England to make a viable business of recording and releasing music aimed at them.
Back in Kingston, Gray found himself in high demand, and his voice was quickly captured -- working in idioms from rock & roll to American-style R&B -- on tape by producers Leslie Kong, Prince Buster, Duke Reid, and, most importantly, Coxsone Dodd, who was just starting up his legendary Studio One label at the time; Gray's "On the Beach" (which featured local trombone virtuoso Don Drummond) was among the very earliest releases on that label. It was also a group of sides that he cut for Coxsone Dodd that resulted in Gray becoming the first solo Jamaican artist to have an LP of Jamaican popular music (as opposed to calypso music and folk songs) released in England -- the Esquire imprint Starlite Records combined a bunch of them in 1961 as Owen Gray Sings, which was also released in Jamaica; the album never sold even moderately well, but it was a beginning, and soon he had competing London labels issuing different tracks. With advance work like that going on without his direct input, he could hardly resist the opportunity to take the leap to the next career step, and cultivate a London audience from London, and in the spring of 1962 he moved there.
Gray recorded for Melodisc, which had previously licensed some of his Jamaican sides, and he was soon established in London, finding a large and serious club audience. He toured Europe in 1964, doing mostly soul music, and also signed with Blackwell's now established Island Records label. By 1966 he was well known in England as a soul singer as well as for his ska and reggae sides, and made the switch to rocksteady easily enough, cutting sides for producer Sir Clancy Collins, and also licensing some songs to the new Trojan Records label -- his versions of the ballads "These Foolish Things" and "Always" reflected the soft ballad style for which he was known at the time. He enjoyed some further success fronting the Maximum Band (on the Fab Records imprint of Melodisc) with the ballad "Cupid," which charted in 1968. He also found favour with the early skinheads, thanks to a jump beat-driven tune called "Apollo 12" that was released in 1970, even as he continued to keep his hand in ballads with releases such as "Three Coins in the Fountain."
Gray moved to the Pama label in 1968, releasing his sides on their Camel Records imprint, which included "Woman a Grumble" and his version of King Floyd's "Groove Me." By 1972 he was back with Island Records, where his reggae versions of the Rolling Stones' "Tumblin' Dice" and John Lennon's "Jealous Guy" were released to complete (and astonishing) indifference; strangely enough, one of his bigger successes around this time took place in Jamaica, where his "Hail the Man" -- a single praising the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie -- was embraced by the burgeoning Rasta audience. Gray briefly tried basing himself in New Orleans -- not surprising since his early idols included Fats Domino -- and then returned to Jamaica, where he found fresh inspiration in the booming demand for roots reggae. During the mid-'70s, working with producer Edward "Bunny" Lee, he saw success on both sides of the Atlantic as a mainstay of the roots reggae movement.
Since the 1970s Gray's career has waxed and waned, and he had returned to singing ballads by the 1990s. With the passing of his 40th anniversary as a professional musician in 1998, however, Gray had once more risen to stardom around the world, a fact confirmed by his international engagements and the release in 2004 of Shook, Shimmy & Shake: The Anthology, a double-CD set that spans a significant chunk of his career. The new millennium has seen Gray continue to focus on ballads as well as gospel material, including 2004's Jesus Loves Me on the True Gospel label. In 2023, Gray was awarded the Jamaican Order of Distinction, in recognition of his contributions to the nation's music industry. Two years later, Owen Gray died on July 20, 2025 at the age of 86. Writing, recording, and performing to the end, Owen Gray’s life represents an incredible chapter in the birth and formation of Jamaican music, and a contributing factor in its International success.
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