Many musical genres claim “Blue Christmas” as their own, but the holiday classic was first catapulted to No. 1 by Ernest Tubb during the 1949 Christmas season, solidifying its place as a Country Christmas song. Despite Tubb’s success with the song, it is impossible...
Some novelty songs are popular for a while before just fading away. Then there are some that last decades. And love it or hate it, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer’ has endured.The zany story tells how Grandma staggers outside during a snowstorm, drunk of...
Rhinestone cowboys and rhinestone cars. It seems impossible that a child born in the Ukraine in 1902 could have imagined such things, let alone create them, but that’s what Nuta Kotlyarenko did. At age 11 Kotlyarenko was sent to America by his parents to protect him...
She may have been raised on country sunshine, but her style became pure Hollywood. Dottie West began her music career in the 1950s, garnering commercial success in the early 1960s. Album covers and publicity photos from those years show a fresh-faced young woman in...
When young singer-songwriter Bill Anderson moved to Nashville half a century ago, the successful country music stars were easy to identify with cowboy boots, western hats and embroidered, rhinestone-studded and fringed clothing. “I was from Georgia, and I had never...
