Monday, October 29, 2007

Loss of a Legend

Porter Wagoner
(August 12, 1927 – October 28, 2007)

The country music world lost one of its heroes last night.

In a CNN interview on July 25, 2007, the morning after a gig opening for the White Stripes at Madison Square Garden, an emotional Wagoner had this to say about the experience:

"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. If only they knew how that made me feel, like a new breath of fresh air. To have new fans now is a tremendous thing."

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Update:
Porter Wagoner provided his view on the Grateful Dead to Robert Hunter backstage at the Opry. The story goes:

"We (the Dead) were getting off of that psychedelic run that we were on,” said Hunter, who watched the show each week with Garcia in Northern California. “We had evolved from bluegrass and old-timey bands, but what we didn’t know was country & western, or whatever it was that Dolly and Porter were doing. So a little bit of Nashville moved into the Bay Area, and it was like nothing I’d ever seen.”

Hunter eventually made his way backstage at the Opry, where he told that story to Mr. Wagoner, who smiled and said, “Well, I never did hear nothing by that Grateful Dead that I didn’t like.”

http://www.knoxviews.com/

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