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Red Sovine was born
Woodrow Wilson Sovine, July 17, 1918 in Charleston, West
Virginia. He died on April 4, 1980 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Sovine was taught the guitar
by his mother and was working professionally by the time he
was 17 on WCHS Charleston with Johnny Bailes, and then as part
of Jim Pike And His Carolina Tarheels. In 1948 Sovine formed
his own band, The Echo Valley Boys, and became a regular on
Louisiana Hayride.
Sovine acquired the nickname
of “The Old Syrup Sopper” following the sponsorship by Johnny
Fair Syrup of some radio shows, and the title is apt for such
narrations as “Daddy's Girl.”
Sovine recorded for Decca
Records and first made the country charts with “Are You
Mine?,” a duet with Goldie Hill. Later that year, a further
duet, this time with Pierce, Webb, “Why Baby Why,” made number
1 on the US country charts. They followed this with the
tear-jerking narration “Little Rosa,” which became a mainstay
of Sovine’s act.
From 1954 Sovine was a regular
at the Grand Ole Opry and, in all, he had 31 US country chart
entries. He was particularly successful with maudlin
narrations about truck-drivers and his hits include “Giddyup
Go” (a US country number 1 about a truck-driver being reunited
with his son), “Phantom 309” (a truck-driving ghost story!)
and his million-selling saga of a crippled boy and his CB
radio, “Teddy Bear” (1976). Sequels and parodies of “Teddy
Bear” abound; Sovine refused to record “Teddy Bear’s Last
Ride,” which became a US country hit for Diana Williams. He
retaliated with “Little Joe” to indicate that Teddy Bear was
not dead after all.
Among his own compositions are
“I Didn't Jump The Fence” and “Missing You,” which was a UK
hit for Jim Reeves. Sovine recorded “The Hero” as a tribute to
John Wayne, and his son, Roger Wayne Sovine, was named in his
honor. The young Sovine was briefly a country singer, making
the lower end of the US country charts with “Culman, Alabam”
and “Little Bitty Nitty Gritty Dirt Town.”
In 1980 Sovine died of a heart
attack at the wheel of his car in Nashville. The following
year, as CB radio finally hit the UK, a reissue of “Teddy
Bear” reached number 5, his first UK chart entry. Sovine inked
the deal with Chart in late 1971 and 4 years later, in
December 1975 re-signed with his long time former label,
Starday.
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