Great Neck Public Library (Parkville branch), February 26, 2023 Click here to read your program notes!
Music History
Program Notes: Tennessee Walt’s An Afternoon in the Country
Friday, December 9, 2022 * Westbury Memorial Public Library, Westbury, New York Click here to read your program notes!
Program Notes: ‘Tennessee Walt’s Riding with the Outlaws’
Bayport-Blue Point Public Library, Blue Point, New York * November 13, 2022 To read your program notes, please click here.
Program Notes: Tennessee Walt’s ‘Three Chords and the Truth: Country’s Greatest Songwriters’
Great Neck Public Library (Parkville branch), February 26, 2023 1. “Always on My Mind” (Johnny Christopher, Mark James and Wayne Carson, 1970). People are often surprised to learn that Nelson didn’t write this song, and that it actually had been recorded by a number of famous singers in the decade before Nelson got to it. … Continue reading Program Notes: Tennessee Walt’s ‘Three Chords and the Truth: Country’s Greatest Songwriters’
Program Notes: Tennessee Walt’s ‘Hanks a Lot”
Voorhies Hall, Bay View, Michigan * July 20, 2022 “Honky Tonking” (Hank Williams, 1947) Williams actually recorded and released this song twice in consecutive years, once for the low-budget, no-royalties Sterling Records in 1947 and again for the far more professional MGM Records in January 1948. Sterling didn’t have much distribution, so the MGM recording … Continue reading Program Notes: Tennessee Walt’s ‘Hanks a Lot”
The Night that Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb and Porter Wagoner Came to Town
Is it a mystery if not many people care what the answer is? I say it’s a mystery if even one person cares—and, in this case, I’m that person. I didn’t initially recognize it as a mystery. It started out looking like a song: “The Night Hank Williams Came to Town” (1987). It’s a pretty … Continue reading The Night that Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb and Porter Wagoner Came to Town
Program Notes: Tennessee Walt’s ‘A Year in a Distant Country’
March 13, 2021 “Honky Tonking” (Hank Williams, 1947) Williams actually recorded and released this song twice in consecutive years, once for the low-budget, no-royalties Sterling Records in 1947 and again for the far more professional MGM Records in January 1948. Sterling didn’t have much distribution, so the MGM recording is the version almost everybody knows … Continue reading Program Notes: Tennessee Walt’s ‘A Year in a Distant Country’
Program Notes: Tennessee Walt’s The Other Great American Songbook
Chappaqua Library, January 28, 2023 “Setting the Woods on Fire” (Hank Williams, 1952) Written by Fred Rose and Edward G. Nelson, this is a great example of why many people said that Fred Rose could write a Hank Williams song better than anyone, even Williams himself. Since the song first hit the airwaves, people have … Continue reading Program Notes: Tennessee Walt’s The Other Great American Songbook
Program Notes: Tennessee Walt’s Bristol and Beyond: The Birth of Country Music
Voorhies Hall, Bay View, Michigan, July 18, 2022 “Keep on the Sunny Side” (Carter Family, 1928) Songwriters get their ideas from all over, but the best ones keep their ears open, knowing that any random phrase they hear might be the germ of a great song. In the case of lyricist Ada Blenkhorn, she had … Continue reading Program Notes: Tennessee Walt’s Bristol and Beyond: The Birth of Country Music
Whisper It Loud
When people talk about the great country stars born in the 1930s, the names that come up first tend to be people like Johnny Cash (1932), Loretta Lynn (1932), Patsy Cline (1932), Willie Nelson (1933), Kris Kristofferson (1936), Waylon Jennings (1937) and Merle Haggard (1937). It was a tremendously fruitful generation of artists, and their … Continue reading Whisper It Loud
Tennessee Walt 