Roy Clark, Barbara Mandrell and legendary session musician Charlie McCoy are the newest inductees into the Country Music Hall of Fame, as announced this morning in a press conference at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.
Roy Clark, one of country music’s greatest ambassadors, served as the co-host of the popular syndicated show, Hee Haw and regularly appeared on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show and numerous other television programs. The 1973 CMA Entertainer of the Year and a 1987 Grand Ole Opry inductee, Clark’s hits include “I Never Picked Cotton,” “Tips of My Fingers” and “Yesterday When I Was Young.” In 1983, he opened the first theatre in Branson, Mo., firmly establishing the Midwest town as an entertainment mecca.
Barbara Mandrell also starred on the small screen with her early-80s variety show Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, a showcase for her glitzy, glamorous performing style. A two-time CMA female vocalist of the year, Mandrell was only the third female artist to win the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year award (1980). Her hits include “Sleeping Single in a Double Bed,” “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool” and “(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want To Be Right.”
A member of Nashville’s “A Team” of studio musicians, Grammy-winning Charlie McCoy is Music City’s most-recorded harmonica player, with credits including Tom T. Hall’s “Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and Mandrell’s “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.” He served as a musical producer on Hee Haw and a studio musician for Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.
I’ve never appreciated Barbara Mandrell, but I’m not at all surprised that she’s being inducted. Roy Clark seems like an obvious/good choice.
Roy Clark and Charlie McCoy are solid and deserving choices for the honor.
Barbara Mandrell … not so much. She’s an extremely nice and classy person with considerable talent; and she has her place in Country Music history. But she was always more “Pop” than “Country” (which made rich irony when she recorded “When Country Wasn’t Cool”). Plus she had a rather brief “reign” as a top-of-the-charts performer, etc.
Happy for her and her family — but not sure she was an appropriate choice.
I’m mostly shocked that the Hall has inducted a woman for two years in a row, after eight consecutive years without any of them.
Clark and Mandrell both played a major role in exposing country music through their television shows. Great ambassadors for the format.
But collectively, this is an underwhelming year. It almost feels like there’s no marquee act this time around.
Congrats to all three…would have been great to see Dottie get in, but I’m sure she will in time. Barbara really is a class act. I remember reading that after her Sept. 11th (!) 1984 car accident that she received more mail than any other private individual in Nashville – the get well cards poured in by the truckload – she was (and is) loved by millions thanks to her NBC show. Back then, with only 3 networks, a huge amount of people would tune in to see her and her sisters – along with some big-name guests. I remember forcing my baby-sitter to watch it when she wanted to watch Lawrence Welk instead!! heh heh…
Mandrell is thoroughly deserving of the honor, though I would have loved to see Jean Shepard and Connie Smith in ahead of her. She’s a world-class entertainer and, as many forget, she’s a terrific instrumentalist as well. Her music isn’t thoroughly traditional, but her catalog is considerable enough, and she brought country music to a wider audience. Classy all the way.
Mandrell’s music isn’t thoroughly traditional, but if you scratch beneath the surface of her catalog, there is a lot of solid country material there — “The Midnight Oil”, “Standing Room Only”, “Midnight Angel”, “Tonight My Baby’s Coming Home”, her entire 1988 album “I’ll Be Your Jukebox Tonight”.
I can understand that her music might not be to everybody’s taste, but I’m a little surprised that anyone would say that she’s undeserving of inclusion in the Hall of Fame. I agree with Blake; she is throughly deserving.
I used to watch Barbara Mandrell’s TV show in amazement, as I witnessed her incredible instrumental versatility and virtuosity.
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I’m rather surprised, too, to see people say Barbara isn’t quite deserving as others to get into the Hall of Fame. She was an international superstar in the early 80s, thanks to her tv show. She was about the only female touring that was selling out 10,000 seat arenas. She had an extended period of huge chart hits from 1978 to 1984 where she notched 6 Billboard #1s and 11 Cashbox #1s. Just about everything MCA released was a guaranteed top 5 hit during that time. She reached tens of millions in their homes with her tv show each week. And, as someone mentioned already, she had many traditional country hits, not just the pop-leaning sound of some of her biggest songs (which was standard for most artists of the era). Barbara is clearly deserving of being inducted and I’m surprised she had to wait as long as she did, considering she had a peforming career that lasted nearly 40 years.