Today In Country Music History

2003 The Man In Black's Final Ride

Johnny Cash holds his final session, recording "Engine One-Forty-Three" at the Cash Cabin Studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee. The song pays tribute to the tradition of early American train wreck songs, based on the true story of the wreck of the FFV near Hinton, West Virginia on 23 October 1890. The train was on its way to Clifton Forge, Virginia, when it hit a rock slide. Early accounts record that the engineer, George Alley, remained on the train to try to slow it and save the lives of its passengers. Alley died at the scene, but the fireman is said to have jumped to safety.

The author of the song is unknown, but is attributed amongst others to a worker at the Hinton rail yard and to a C&O engineer. The best-known version of the song was written down by A. P. Carter and recorded by the Carter Family in 1927 and/or 1929, released in 2009 on JSP Records. However, these may be the same recording. It is also available on the 1993 Rounder compilation My Clinch Mountain Home: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1928–1929). Cash performed the song for the tribute album The Unbroken Circle - The Musical Heritage of the Carter Family in 2004.

Watch This Incredible Cover Of A Cash Classic

photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images
photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images
2011
Eric Church stopped a concert in Aberdeen, Washington, to have a security guard removed for preventing a female fan from getting a boot signed during the show.
“She wasn’t hurting anything,” says Church. “She threw me her boot and the security guard tried to manhandle her. I got real irritated with the security guard. I stopped singing, but the band kept playing. I couldn’t get his attention.”
Church threw the boot toward the guard, but the guard “looked at me and couldn’t understand what was going on,” says Church, who then asked the woman to give him the boot again. “She brought the boot to me and I’ll be damned if he didn’t try to kick her out again. By that time, I had lost it, so I stopped the show and had my guys kick the security guard out. The fans loved it.”
1999
Sara Evans and now ex-husband Craig Schelske welcomed a son, Avery Jack Lyons Schelske, in Nashville. The former couple have three children, Avery Jack, Olivia Margaret (6/21/03) and Audrey Elizabeth (10/6/04).
1979
"The Devil Went Down To Georgia" brought The Charlie Daniels Band a gold single. From their album Million Mile Reflections, the song has sold over 1.3 million copies to date.
1960
Patsy Cline records "Crazy" at the Bradley Film & Recording Studio in Nashville. The song, written by Willie Nelson, it spent 21 weeks on the chart, climbing to #2.
Cline's version is #85 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Birthdays
Singer Kenny Rogers is 76
Harold Reid (The Statler Brothers) is 75
Guitarist James Burton (Elvis Presley's band) is 75
Guitarist Nick Kane of The Mavericks is 60
Singer Kacey Musgraves is 26
Actress Hayden Panettiere (Nashville) is 25

Filed Under: Today In Country Music History

Categories: Country Music News, History

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