 | Columbia High School , Jenny walks to graduate West Columbia ,Texas , May 2008 , Jenny graduates |
 | Only Daddy That Will Walk The Line BCB Band sings Only Daddy That Will Walk The Line by Waylon Jennings. learned to play guitar and snagged a disc jockey job at a Littlefield station while still a boy. In 1958 he moved to Lubbock, where he worked as a DJ and met rising star Buddy Holly, with whom he toured and played electric bass during 1958 and 1959. It was Jennings who gave up his seat to the Big Bopper (J. P. Richardson) on the doomed 1959 plane flight that took the lives of Holly, Richardson, and singer Ritchie Valens. The disaster stunned Jennings and it took him several years to regain his momentum. But his time with Holly had been pivotal: "Mainly what I learned from Buddy," Jennings recalled, "was an attitude. He loved music, and he taught me that it shouldn't have any barriers to it." After working West Texas radio again, Jennings began performing at a bar called J. D.'s in Phoenix, Ariz. There he began to craft a sound that combined his aggressive Telecaster electric guitar style, his rough-edged vocals, and an eclectic repertoire that often borrowed from rockabilly, rock and folk. And it was there that Nashville-based Bobby Bare, then a country hitmaker for RCA Records, heard Jennings and immediately called RCA producer Chet Atkins. Although Jennings had already recorded some country-folk sides for A&M Records in Los Angeles, A&M agreed to let Atkins sign him, and his first RCA session took place in March 1965. Over the next five years, Jennings won mainstream country stardom with hits like "Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" and "The Taker." Though it wasn't typical of his work, his rendition of "MacArthur Park" (recorded with the Kimberlys), won a 1969 Grammy for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group. Despite his achievements, the high-spirited Jennings chafed under Nashville's typical production process, in which salaried staff producers chose song material and session musicians and recorded artists in company studios. Gradually he won the right to choose his own songs, producers, and sidemen (often his road band), in the process turning out albums like 1973's Lonesome, On'ry and Mean and Honky Tonk Heroes, which showcased the hard-hitting, stripped-down music he much preferred to pop-tinged Nashville Sound productions. Hit singles such as "I'm a Ramblin' Man" and "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" also exemplified his hard-charging, rock-influenced style. In 1975 he won CMA's male vocalist of the year award. By this time Jennings was extending his audience to embrace hordes of college-age fans, who flocked to see him at venues including Willie Nelson's free-wheeling outdoor music festivals at Dripping Springs, Texas. In 1976, both artists soared to even more dizzying heights with the RCA release Wanted! The Outlaws. Featuring Jennings, Nelson, Tompall Glaser, and Jennings's wife, Jessi Colter, it became the first country album to be certified platinum. By the turn of the 21st century, 13 additional Jennings albums (including duet projects) had sold half a million copies or more. As the '70s progressed, Jennings and Nelson recorded duet albums and crossover hits like "Luckenbach, Texas" and "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys," which won a 1978 Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. Jennings himself rode high on the charts into the late 1980s, chalking up No. 1 singles including "I've Always Been Crazy," "Amanda," "I Ain't Living Long Like This" and "Lucille (You Won't Do Your Daddy's Will)." During many of these same years, the TV series The Dukes of Hazzard --- for which Jennings wrote and sang the theme song and served as offscreen narrator --- further popularized his sound and the trademark image of his leather-covered guitar. While Jennings was selling albums in numbers previously associated with rock stars, his excessive lifestyle also resembled those of many rock icons. Substance abuse eroded his career for a time, but he eventually beat this problem and stabilized his personal life. He set an example for others by completing his high school equivalency diploma, and has spoken to schoolchildren about the importance of staying in school. The singer continued a scaled-down but no less creative career, recording for MCA and Epic during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and touring into 1997. With Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson, Jennings gained another No. 1 smash with 1985's "Highwayman," title cut for a gold-selling Columbia album. (The foursome recorded two follow-up albums and also made limited concert tours.) In addition to important albums reissued by RCA and by Buddha Records, he recorded new albums for RCA, Ark 21 Records, and a children's album titled Cowboys, Sisters, Rascals, and Dirt (Sony Wonder, 1993). Other achievements include motion picture and TV movie roles and a televised documentary on cowboys that aired on TNN. |
 | JOHNNY CASH-PLEASE DON'T PLAY RED RIVER VALLEY Born Feb. 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Ark., Johnny Cash was born John R. Cash, one of six children belonging to Ray and Carrie Rivers Cash. When John was 3 years old, his father took advantage of a new Roosevelt farm program and moved his young family to Dyess Colony in northeast Arkansas. There the Cash family farmed 20 acres of cotton and other seasonal crops, and young John worked alongside his parents and siblings in the fields. Music was an integral part of everyday life in the Cash household. John soaked up a variety of musical influences ranging from his mother's folk songs and hymns to the work songs from the fields and nearby railroad yards. He absorbed these sounds like sponge absorbs water. In later years Cash would draw from his life in Arkansas for inspiration: "Pickin' Time," "Five Feet High and Rising" and "Look at Them Beans" are all reflections on Cash's early life. Cash remained in Dyess Colony until his graduation from high school in 1950. As a young man he set off for Detroit in search of work. He ended up in Pontiac, Mich., and took work in an automotive plant. His tenure in the North Country was short-lived and Cash soon enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. After basic training in Texas (where he met first wife Vivian Liberto), he was shipped to Landsberg, Germany. While in the service Cash organized his first band, the Landsberg Barbarians. After his discharge in 1954, Cash returned stateside and married Liberto. He and his new bride soon settled in Memphis where Cash worked a variety of jobs -- including that of appliance salesman -- while trying to break into the music business. In 1954, Cash auditioned as solo artist for Sam Phillips' Sun Records. He entertained hopes of recording gospel music for the label, but Phillips immediately nixed that idea. By the following spring, though, Cash was in the Sun Studios to record with his band The Tennessee Three. The original group consisted of guitarist Luther Perkins, bass player Marshall Grant and Red Kernodle on pedal steel. Kernodle bailed out of the session and Cash's first release for the label, "Hey Porter" had a sparse, but highly effective instrumental accompaniment. Though an impressive single, the song failed to chart. Cash's follow-up release for Sun, however, fared substantially better. "Cry, Cry, Cry" managed to crack Billboard's Top 20, peaking at No. 14. A long succession of chart singles followed. "So Doggone Lonesome" and "Folsom Prison Blues" both broke into the trade publication's Top 10. But Cash's fourth chart single proved to be his career song. "I Walk the Line" shot to Billboard's No. 1 position and remained on the record charts for an incredible 43 weeks, ultimately selling over 2 million copies. In 1956, he realized a longtime dream when he was invited to perform on the Grand Ole Opry. By 1957 Cash had racked up an impressive string of hits and was working more than 200 dates a year. The following year he switched to Columbia Records in search of more artistic freedom. He still had aspirations of making gospel records and felt he had a better chance of accomplishing this goal at another label. Throughout the remainder of the 1950s and into the 1960s, Cash continued to produce remarkable records and charted consistently. "Don't Take Your Guns to Town," "I Got Stripes," "Ring of Fire," "Understand Your Man" and "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" all hit the upper registers of the record charts. Appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show and other top-rated network programs followed. In the early 1960s, concept albums such as Bitter Tears and Ballads of the True West made him a favorite among the folk music crowd, culminating in an appearance at the Newport Folk Festival. But all was not well. Cash was spinning out of control PART OF A BIO OFF THE CMT WEBSITE. |
 | Ramblin' Fever Stereo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uibm_QIdq0&fmt=18 Buck Norris sings "Ramblin' Fever" recorded by Merle Haggard and written by Billy Joe Shaver. Billy Joe Shaver never became a household name, but his songs -- including "Good Christian Soldier," "Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me," and "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train" -- became country standards during the '70s and his reputation among musicians and critics didn't diminish during the ensuing decades. One of the best synopses of Shaver's upbringing is his own song, "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train." When he sings, "my grandma's old-age pension is the reason that I'm standing here today," he ain't kidding. The "good Christian raising" and "eighth grade education" -- not to mention being abandoned by his parents shortly after being born, working on his uncles' farms instead of going to high school, and losing part of his fingers during a job at a sawmill -- are all part of his life story. "I got all my country learning," he sings, "picking cotton, raising hell, and bailing hay." Shaver did a quick turn in the Navy and worked a series of nowhere jobs (including the one in the sawmill) before trying his luck in Nashville. After several back and forth trips between Texas and Tennessee that gained him no response, he appeared one day in 1968 in Bobby Bare's Nashville office, where he convinced Bare to listen to him play. Bare ended up giving him a writing job. Shaver recorded one song for Mercury, "Chicken on the Ground," which went nowhere, but soon his songs began to see the light thanks to Kris Kristofferson ("Good Christian Soldier"), Tom T. Hall ("Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me"), Bare ("Ride Me Down Easy"), and later, the Allman Brothers ("Sweet Mama") and Elvis Presley ("You Asked Me To"). Shaver's real breakthrough, though, came in 1973 when Waylon Jennings recorded an album composed almost entirely of Shaver's songs, Honky Tonk Heroes -- largely considered the first true "outlaw" album. Shaver's debut album was Old Five and Dimers Like Me, produced by Kristofferson and released by Monument (Kristofferson's label) in 1973. Along with the title track, it contained the now-classic Shaver songs "Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me" and the aforementioned "Georgia on a Fast Train." Shaver switched to MGM a year later, but no album materialized. "Raising hell" was, as he had sung, part of his lifestyle at the time, and it kept him out of sight for a couple years. In 1976 Shaver resurfaced with When I Get My Wings on Capricorn, and followed it up a year later with Gypsy Boy. In 1978 Johnny Cash recorded "I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal (But I'm Gonna Be a Diamond Some Day)," a song Shaver wrote just after he chose to give up drugs and booze and turned to God for help. Religious references do crop up his songs (including "Chunk of Coal"), but they never dominate the emotions or get in the way of the earthy rhythms and melodies. Shaver switched labels again, this time to Columbia, in 1980, and recorded three more albums during the next decade: I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal, Billy Joe Shaver, and Salt of the Earth. The latter was produced by Shaver with his son, Eddy, who has played on every Billy Joe record since Old Chunk of Coal (he also toured in Dwight Yoakam's band in the 1980s). After a few more years out of the spotlight, Billy Joe returned once again in 1993, this time recording under the name Shaver. Tramp on Your Street, released on Zoo/Praxis, featured Eddy on lead guitar and Billy Joe's own raspy but lovable voice, and coming out during a time when hunky hat acts where the new flavor in Nashville, it was quickly recognized as one of the strongest and hardest country records to hit the shelves in many years. Shaver toured regularly over the next couple of years and recorded a live album for Zoo, Unshaven, in 1995, but was dropped by the label a year later. Victory followed on the New West label in 1998, with Electric Shaver appearing a year later. The rock-oriented Earth Rolls On appeared in spring 2001. His next four albums, Freedom's Child (2002), the emotional Billy and the Kid (which saw Shaver singing songs written by his late son, Eddy Shaver) (2004), Real Deal (2005), and Everybody's Brother (2007), were all released on the Compadre label. 2007 also saw the release of Storyteller, a live set recorded in 1992, on Sugar Hill Records. |
 | Georgia On A Fast Train Stereo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHoB0VtVzR0&fmt=18 Buck Norris sings "Georgia On A Fast Train" by Billy Joe Shaver. Billy Joe Shaver never became a household name, but his songs -- including "Good Christian Soldier," "Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me," and "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train" -- became country standards during the '70s and his reputation among musicians and critics didn't diminish during the ensuing decades. One of the best synopses of Shaver's upbringing is his own song, "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train." When he sings, "my grandma's old-age pension is the reason that I'm standing here today," he ain't kidding. The "good Christian raising" and "eighth grade education" -- not to mention being abandoned by his parents shortly after being born, working on his uncles' farms instead of going to high school, and losing part of his fingers during a job at a sawmill -- are all part of his life story. "I got all my country learning," he sings, "picking cotton, raising hell, and bailing hay." Shaver did a quick turn in the Navy and worked a series of nowhere jobs (including the one in the sawmill) before trying his luck in Nashville. After several back and forth trips between Texas and Tennessee that gained him no response, he appeared one day in 1968 in Bobby Bare's Nashville office, where he convinced Bare to listen to him play. Bare ended up giving him a writing job. Shaver recorded one song for Mercury, "Chicken on the Ground," which went nowhere, but soon his songs began to see the light thanks to Kris Kristofferson ("Good Christian Soldier"), Tom T. Hall ("Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me"), Bare ("Ride Me Down Easy"), and later, the Allman Brothers ("Sweet Mama") and Elvis Presley ("You Asked Me To"). Shaver's real breakthrough, though, came in 1973 when Waylon Jennings recorded an album composed almost entirely of Shaver's songs, Honky Tonk Heroes -- largely considered the first true "outlaw" album. Shaver's debut album was Old Five and Dimers Like Me, produced by Kristofferson and released by Monument (Kristofferson's label) in 1973. Along with the title track, it contained the now-classic Shaver songs "Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me" and the aforementioned "Georgia on a Fast Train." Shaver switched to MGM a year later, but no album materialized. "Raising hell" was, as he had sung, part of his lifestyle at the time, and it kept him out of sight for a couple years. In 1976 Shaver resurfaced with When I Get My Wings on Capricorn, and followed it up a year later with Gypsy Boy. In 1978 Johnny Cash recorded "I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal (But I'm Gonna Be a Diamond Some Day)," a song Shaver wrote just after he chose to give up drugs and booze and turned to God for help. Religious references do crop up his songs (including "Chunk of Coal"), but they never dominate the emotions or get in the way of the earthy rhythms and melodies. Shaver switched labels again, this time to Columbia, in 1980, and recorded three more albums during the next decade: I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal, Billy Joe Shaver, and Salt of the Earth. The latter was produced by Shaver with his son, Eddy, who has played on every Billy Joe record since Old Chunk of Coal (he also toured in Dwight Yoakam's band in the 1980s). After a few more years out of the spotlight, Billy Joe returned once again in 1993, this time recording under the name Shaver. Tramp on Your Street, released on Zoo/Praxis, featured Eddy on lead guitar and Billy Joe's own raspy but lovable voice, and coming out during a time when hunky hat acts where the new flavor in Nashville, it was quickly recognized as one of the strongest and hardest country records to hit the shelves in many years. Shaver toured regularly over the next couple of years and recorded a live album for Zoo, Unshaven, in 1995, but was dropped by the label a year later. Victory followed on the New West label in 1998, with Electric Shaver appearing a year later. The rock-oriented Earth Rolls On appeared in spring 2001. His next four albums, Freedom's Child (2002), the emotional Billy and the Kid (which saw Shaver singing songs written by his late son, Eddy Shaver) (2004), Real Deal (2005), and Everybody's Brother (2007), were all released on the Compadre label. 2007 also saw the release of Storyteller, a live set recorded in 1992, on Sugar Hill Records. |
 | Boz Scaggs - Sierra Boz Scaggs - Sierra For CC After learning guitar at the age of 12, Boz Scaggs met Steve Miller at St. Mark's School of Texas in Dallas. In 1959, he became the vocalist for Miller's band, The Marksmen. The pair later attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison together, playing in blues bands like The Ardells and The Fabulous Knight Trains. Leaving school, Scaggs briefly left Texas to join the burgeoning rhythm and blues scene in London. After singing in bands such as The Wigs and Mother Earth. He travelled to Sweden as a solo performer, and recorded his solo debut album, Boz in 1965, which was not a commercial success and did a brief stint with the band The Other Side with fellow American Jack Downing and Brit Mac MacLeod. Returning to the U.S., Scaggs promptly headed for the booming psychedelic music center of San Francisco in 1967. Linking up with Steve Miller again, he appeared on the Steve Miller Band's first two albums Children of the Future and Sailor, which received good reviews from music critics. After being spotted by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, Scaggs secured a solo contract with Atlantic Records in 1968. Despite good reviews, his sole Atlantic album, featuring the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and slide guitarist Duane Allman, was met with lukewarm sales, as were follow-up albums on Columbia Records. In 1976, he linked up with session musicians who would later form Toto and recorded his smash album Silk Degrees. The album reached number 2 on the U.S. charts and number 1 in a number of countries across the world, spawning three hit singles: "Lowdown", "Lido Shuffle", and "What Can I Say", as well as the MOR standard "We're All Alone", later a hit for Rita Coolidge and covered by Frankie Valli. A sellout world tour followed, but his follow-up album, the 1977 Down Two Then Left, did not fare as well commercially as Silk Degrees. The 1980 album Middle Man would spawn two top 20 hits, "Breakdown Dead Ahead" and "Jojo," and Scaggs would enjoy two more hits over 1980 and 1981 ("Look What You've Done to Me" from the Urban Cowboy soundtrack, and "Miss Sun" from a greatest hits set). But Scaggs' lengthy hiatus from the music industry (his next LP, Other Roads, wouldn't appear until 1988) slowed his chart career down dramatically. "Heart of Mine" in 1988, from Other Roads, was Scaggs' final top 40 hit but was a major AC success. Scaggs has continued to record and tour sporadically throughout the 1980s and 1990s, although he has semi-retired from the music industry, and now owns the San Francisco nightclub, Slim's. Boz Scaggs recorded Other Roads in the mid-1980s, took another hiatus and then came back with Some Change in 1994. He released Come On Home, an album of blues, and My Time, an anthology in the late 1990s. He garnered good reviews with Dig although the CD, which was released on September 11, 2001, was lost in the post-9/11 melée. In May 2003, Scaggs released But Beautiful, a collection of jazz standards that debuted at number 1 on the jazz charts. He tours each summer, has a loyal cadre of fans, remains hugely popular in Japan, and released a DVD and a live CD in 2004. Words to Sierra What about the one who said he loved you What about the one who said he cared Don't bother trying to find him Way up in the icy air O you played with his heartstrings And you played without a care But not up in the high sierra You won't play his heart out there The angels lay their clouds across his sky They line up for him every night Some have wings and others sing The rest do lazy ballets in the air There he's got a bird to give him warning And he's got a lookout too The beauty of the high sierra And she's looking out for you What about the one who said he loved you What about the one who said he cared He's off in the high sierra But don't bother looking there Discography Boz Scaggs first album coverBoz - 1965 Boz Scaggs - 1969 Moments - 1971 Boz Scaggs & Band - 1971 My Time - 1972 Slow Dancer - 1974 Silk Degrees - 1976 Down Two Then Left - 1977 Boz Scaggs - 1977 remix of 1969 album Middle Man - 1980 Other Roads - 1988 Some Change - 1994 Come on Home - 1997 My Time: A Boz Scaggs Anthology - 1997 Fade Into Light - 1999/2005 Dig - 2001 The Lost Concert (live) - 2001 But Beautiful - 2003 The Sierra Nevada stretches 400 miles (650 km), from Fredonyer Pass in the north to Tehachapi Pass in the south.[1] It is bounded on the west by California's Central Valley, and on the east by the Great Basin. Hetch Hetchy Valley, Yosemite Valley, Kings Canyon, Tehipite Valley and Kern Canyon are the most well-known of many beautiful, glacially-scoured canyons on the west side of the Sierra. Yosemite National Park Mount Whitney Sequoia National Park Giant Sequoias |
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