Time to Celebrate!

 Category: News

Goodness, gracious, I’m over you!!!

The Country Music Hall of Fame class of 2022 was announced yesterday (5/17) at the Hall of Fame rotunda in Nashville.  The two musical inductees are a true delight to announce.

In the veterans category, Jerry Lee Lewis finally gets inducted.  After his severe stroke in 2019 it was becoming worrisome that he would not live to see his induction, but it has happened in 2022.  Lewis joins a select few who are inductees into both the Country Music and Rock and Roll halls of fame.  His rock induction was with the inaugural class in 1986.

If it seems strange that one of the founders of rock and roll would be going into the Country hall of fame, it shouldn’t.  Lewis’ career was far bigger and more expansive in country than in rock and roll.  As funny as it seems now, with the “anything goes” attitude in rock, Lewis was ostracized after his marriage to Myra Gale Brown, who was 13 and Lewis’ cousin once removed, in 1958. 

Lewis came back in country, scoring a number of hits such as “What Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me),” “Would You Take Another Chance on Me,” and “Once More With Feeling.”  While he’ll forever be known as “The Killer” and his assault on the piano in the early days of rock and roll, his country career was much bigger…and now has been acknowledged.

Sadly, the announcement came ten days after his cousin, Mickey Gilley, passed away. 

The modern era inductee is the late Keith Whitley.  From his early days of playing country in eastern Kentucky to a stint playing with bluegrass legends Ralph Stanley and J.D. Crowe, Whitley was destined for greatness.  As part of the “neo-traditional” movement in the late 80s with Ricky Skaggs (with whom he worked with Stanley and did two duet albums), Randy Travis, and Dwight Yoakam, Whitley’s list of hits included “I’m No Stranger to the Rain,” “I’m Over You,” and “When You Say Nothing At All.”  

On May 9, 1989, Whitley was found dead in his Nashville home.  The autopsy showed that he had a blood alcohol level of .47.  He was only 33 years old.  Rumors persisted — and still do — about the reasons why, but the sad reality is that we were robbed of decades of a remarkable talent.

At least his plaque will now hang in Nashville as a testimony to what he did give us.

The Hall of Fame also inducted an executive, but I’ll rant about that later.  This is the time to celebrate the remarkable achievements of two great legends.