• The Paperboys are an award-winning Canadian folk music band that blends Celtic folk with Bluegrass, Mexican, Eastern European, African, zydeco, soul and country influences?
• Tom Brumley's performance on "Together Again" for Buck Owens was called "one of the finest steel guitar solos in the history of country music"?
• The New York Times said Paul Hemphill's first book The Nashville Sound was "generally regarded as one of the best books on country music ever written"?
• Still Restless, a 2004 album by country band Restless Heart, was their first album of all-new material in fourteen years?
• Smokey Mayfield, a ranch supervisor in the Texas Panhandle, once played the fiddle as a warmup act for country performer Tennessee Ernie Ford?
• Ronnie Thompson, the first Republican to have served as mayor of Macon, Georgia in the 20th century, also had a career as a singer of gospel and country music?
• American country musician Cowboy Copas's private plane crashed in Tennessee in 1963, killing him and everyone onboard, including fellow country music star Patsy Cline?
• American country music singer Mindy McCready was once engaged to actor Dean Cain?
• Charlie Bowman was a major influence on the distinctive fiddle sound that helped shape and develop early country music in the 1920s and 1930s?
• Gord Bamford, a country music singer, was one of only two Canadian artists invited to perform at the Global Artist Party at the 2007 CMA Music Festival?
• a critic reviewing country music artist Ronnie Milsap's 2006 album My Life observed that Milsap's voice remained "virtually unchanged" since his debut in the early 1970s?
• after performing the theme to the 1963 film Hud, country music singer Darrell McCall decided to take up acting, appearing in three films during the 1960s?
• singer-songwriter Gillian Welch met her musical partner David Rawlings at a successful audition for the only country band at Berklee College of Music?
• the country music quartet The Oak Ridge Boys reached their highest ranking in 26 years on the Billboard 200 with the release of their 2009 album The Boys Are Back?
• the Shreveport deejay Barney Cannon was particularly knowledgeable about the history of country music, his radio station KWKH-AM, and the former Louisiana Hayride?
• with his number one single "Laura (What's He Got That I Ain't Got)", Leon Ashley became the first country music artist to write, record, release, distribute and publish his own material?
• in 1960, country music artist Claude Gray bought the song "Family Bible" from Willie Nelson for $100?
• despite a 26 minute length, the 1965 album The Return of Roger Miller won the Grammy award for best country album, and five additional Grammys for its track "King of the Road"?
• after seeing The Beverly Hillbillies and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In atop the Nielsen ratings, John Aylesworth created Hee Haw as a country variety show to combine the best of both genres?
• at least one song written by Sonny Throckmorton was on the country music charts for almost every week between 1976 and 1980?
• at the 25th CMA Music Festival in 1996, country music artist Garth Brooks signed autographs for 23 hours and 10 minutes without taking a single break?
• radio station WLWI in Montgomery, Alabama, founded in 1930 as WSFA, gave country music legend Hank Williams his start as a professional musician?
• psychedelic rock group Circus Maximus was the launching point for the career of country musician Jerry Jeff Walker?
• country music singer Buck Owens' son Buddy Alan is also a country music singer?
• country music singer David Nail's single "Turning Home" was co-written by Kenny Chesney?
• country music singer George Strait discovered his backup band, the Ace in the Hole, after responding to a flyer posted around the Southwest Texas State University campus?
• country music singer Ty Herndon's grandmother Myrtle hosted a Gospel music radio show on WPRN and WPRN-FM in Alabama for more than 40 years?
• country music singer Alan Jackson still likes bologna?
• country music performer Roger Miller included his own recordings of two songs that he had written for Jim Reeves in the 1950s, on his 1966 album Words and Music?
• Country-comedian and Hee Haw star Archie Campbell's childhood home has been preserved as a "tourism complex and museum" in Bulls Gap, Tennessee?
• country music singer-songwriter Roger Miller's third studio album, The 3rd Time Around, was the only record of his career to top the Country Album charts?
• country music artist and Dead Reckoning Records co-founder Tammy Rogers was once a backing musician for Patty Loveless and Trisha Yearwood?
• country music singer Colt Ford is a former professional golfer?
• country music singer Darrell Clanton's single "I Forgot That I Don't Live Here Anymore" was boycotted by Mothers Against Drunk Driving?
• country singer Johnny Cash (pictured) covered the song "Johnny 99" by Bruce Springsteen and made it the title song of the album it appeared on?
• country singer Philip Claypool's greatest chart success was a cover version of Bad Company's "Feel Like Makin' Love"?
• Mike Reid was a linebacker for the Cincinnati Bengals before becoming a country music singer and releasing the single "Walk on Faith"?
• Norwegian evangelical preacher Aril Edvardsen performed in a country music band in his youth?
• country musician Johnny Sea's spoken word recording "Day For Decision", a response to Barry McGuire's protest song, "Eve of Destruction", was a Top 40 hit in the U.S. and was nominated for a Grammy award?
• country music songwriter Tim Nichols once worked in a factory, manufacturing buckets for KFC?
• country music singer Easton Corbin's debut single "A Little More Country Than That" was co-written by Rory Lee Feek of Joey + Rory?
• country music singer Jeremy McComb was once a tour manager for comedian Larry the Cable Guy?
• country music songwriter Chris Waters, who has written songs for Tim McGraw, Terri Clark and Rhett Akins, is the older brother of singer Holly Dunn?
• Country-Western singer, songwriter and actor Jimmy Wakely had his own series of DC Comics comic books, billing him as "Hollywood's Sensational Cowboy Star!"?

Facts on topics related to Country music

Blues

• 1950s blues musician Little Sammy Davis left the music scene for decades before being rediscovered in 1990?
• Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens created the album Flamenco A Go-Go after seeing flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía play live, and that the album spans many genres including dance, flamenco, blues and rock?
• blues musician Henry Gray is credited as helping to create the distinctive sound of the Chicago blues piano?
• blues scholars seem undecided if the American blues singer, guitarist and songwriter Ramblin' Thomas's nickname referred to his style of playing, or itinerant nature?
• blues singer Jesse Fortune, better known as the "Fortune Tellin' Man," passed on performing in Europe because he did not want to disappoint customers at his Chicago barbershop?
• Arthur Adams, the singer of "You've Got the Floor", was a bandleader at B. B. King's blues club in Los Angeles?
• blues-harp, rather than a type of harp, is a style of playing an ordinary diatonic harmonica that originated in the blues in which the in-drawn notes are made primary and the blown notes secondary?
• Matthew T. Dickerson is a computational geometer, scholar of J. R. R. Tolkien and the Inklings, novelist, blues musician, fly fisherman, maple sugar farmer, and beekeeper?
• Sugar Blue, the American Grammy Award winning blues harmonicist, took his stage name from Sidney Bechet's track, "Sugar Blues"?
• Will Dockery, by building Dockery Plantation (pictured), home of legendary bluesman Robert Johnson, was fundamental to the development of the blues?

Jazz

• African-American composer Wendell Logan described jazz as "our classical music", saying it "belongs here just as much as Americans belong on this soil"?
• Czech jazz double-bassist Luděk Hulan co-founded Studio 5, one of the most important modern jazz ensembles in Czechoslovakia?
• Dave Brubeck's The Real Ambassadors was largely based on the goodwill tours of Louis Armstrong and other jazz musicians on behalf of the U.S. State Department during the Cold War?
• Dave Burrell's operatic live jazz album Windward Passages was his response to land development in Hawaii during the late 1970's?
• English jazz musician Eddie Freeman's custom four-string guitar was adopted for manufacture by Selmer?
• hard bop jazz drummer Roy Brooks, who played with Horace Silver and Max Roach, was sentenced to four years in prison for assault at age 62?
• jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding became one of the youngest faculty members in the history of Berklee College of Music almost immediately after her graduation?
• jazz saxophonist John Coltrane's song "Ogunde" is based on the Afro-Brazilian folk song "Ogunde Varere", which translates to "Prayer of the Gods"?
• jazz trombonist Kai Winding's song "Time Is on My Side" became a U.S. top ten hit for The Rolling Stones in 1964, and has been covered by Michael Bolton, Wilson Pickett, Paul Revere & the Raiders and Vanessa Carlton, among others as recently as 2005?
• jazz pianist and vocalist Dena DeRose only considered singing professionally after carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis forced her to give up playing the piano?

Rock and roll

• Excello Records did not release south Louisiana black Creole musician King Karl's 1958 rock and roll ballad "This Should Go On Forever" until it had already become a national hit for Karl's hometown friend, Cajun swamp pop musician Rod Bernard?
• Louisville, Kentucky's first rock and roll venue, in Lake Dreamland, may have been burned down by an angry resident?
• rock and roll pioneer Chan Romero wrote the 1959 hit, "Hippy Hippy Shake" which was covered by The Beatles?
• Cornbread Harris, who performed on Minnesota's first rock and roll record, is the father of record producer Jimmy Jam?
• San Francisco Chronicle pop music critic Joel Selvin was an early member of the rock and roll band Rock Bottom Remainders, made up of authors and journalists?
• bandleader Joe Lutcher abandoned his secular music career because of his religious beliefs, and influenced rock and roll star Little Richard to do the same?
• seventeen-year-old rock guitarist Desireé Bassett has been called "the future of rock and roll"?
• the career of pianist Lincoln Mayorga has ranged from hit rock and roll instrumentals to Gershwin recitals in Moscow, by way of Lumpy Gravy and Pete's Dragon?