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When Southern Nights are Gentle on My Mind
A Rate-A-Record for a forgotten legend
Several weeks ago, I was watching a profile of the life of a country music legend whom I had, unforgivably, almost completely forgotten about. When it was over, I made a note to make his music the subject of my next Rate-A-Record installment…and then promptly misplaced the note. Relying on my memory is a risky thing lately, as evidenced by the fact that the Rate-A-Record episode never happened. Sometimes, however, the universe really wants you to write about something.
Fast forward to today. As my stepdad and I were about to head to lunch, he turned on the Cowboy Channel to check the current Professional Bull Riders standings (don’t laugh…some of you checked the leaderboard for this weekend’s Memorial Tournament, and golf is infinitely more boring than bull riding). Instead of this important sports news, what we saw was a country band from somewhere in Missouri playing a song by that legend I had forgotten not once, but twice.
I made a mental note (never a good move), and we headed off to our local pizza place/bar. We had barely taken our seats when a song by that same legend began playing over the bar’s sound system. I’m not normally the superstitious type, but there was no way I was putting the story off any longer. Thus, today I give you three songs from…
