CAMILLE
BOHANNON

Hiram "Hank" Williams
(September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953)

Singer, songwriter, and musician Hank Williams is regarded as
one of the most significant and influential American singers and songwriters of the 20th century, he recorded 55 singles (five
released posthumously) that reached the top 10 of the Billboard
Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including 12 that reached
No. 1 (three posthumously).

Born and raised in Alabama, Williams was given guitar lessons
by African-American blues musician Rufus Payne in exchange
for meals or money. Payne, along with Roy Acuff and Ernest
Tubb, had a major influence on Williams’s later musical style.

Williams began his music career in Montgomery in 1937, when

producers at local radio station WSFA hired him to perform
and host a 15-minute program.

John R. Cash (February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003)

Cash is one of the best-selling music artists of all time,
having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. His
genre-spanning music embraced country, rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel sounds. This crossover
appeal earned him the rare honor of being inducted into
the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls
of Fame.

PORTLAND, OREGON (1959)

The King of Rock and Roll teamed up with TV’s reigning variety
program, as Elvis Presley appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show”
for the first time on September 9, 1956.

After earning big ratings for “The Steve Allen Show,” the
Dorsey Brothers “Stage Show” and “The Milton Berle Show,”
Sullivan finally reneged on his Presley ban, signing the
controversial singing star to an unprecedented $50,000 contract
for three appearances.

With 60 million viewers—or 82.6 percent of TV viewers at the time—tuning in, the appearance garnered the show’s best
ratings in two years and became the most-watched TV
broadcast of the 1950s.

   Ed Sullivan

If you took out a map of the United States and traced a line
beginning at New Orleans and running up the Mississippi
River to Memphis, the tip of your finger would pass through
the very birthplace of rock and roll—a region where nearly
every step in its early development took place and where
nearly every significant contributor to that development was
born. But if the foundation of rock and roll was mostly laid
down within 100 miles of the Mississippi River in the mid-
1950s, the blueprint for what would follow required the further contributions of a young man born 700 miles to the west on
this day in 1936: Charles Harden Holley. Writing and performing
under the name Buddy Holly, this Lubbock, Texas, native would
have an influence on rock and roll that would far outlast his
tragically shortened career.

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

Sir George Ivan Morrison is 77 years old today.

Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-
songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose
recording career spans six decades. He has
won two Grammy Awards.