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Monday, May 18, 2009

Roy Clark, Barbara Mandrell and Charlie McCoy inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame


By Cindy Watts • and Peter Cooper • May 18, 2009
Again and again on Sunday evening, country music's heaviest hands clapped for the three entertainers and musicians who entered the rarest of country clubs.
As Charlie McCoy, Roy Clark and Barbara Mandrell received their official inductions into the Country Music Hall of Fame, fellow Hall members including Phil Everly, Emmylou Harris, George Jones and Earl Scruggs rose to cheer their ascent. The occasion was the Country Music Association-sponsored Medallion Ceremony, the annual event in which the Hall's new inductees become the Hall's new members.
"This is pretty special — only two other musicians (Harold Bradley and Floyd Cramer) are in here," Charlie McCoy said Sunday, referring to musicians inducted primarily on the strength of their instrumental skills. Humbly pulling his harmonica out of his jacket pocket, he added, "It's great company to be in."
The Hall's official induction used to take place in a few minutes of television programming, during the CMA Awards. But those minutes grew short enough as to seem inappropriate given the import of the honor, and now the Hall's private, star-studded Medallion Ceremony serves as the rite of esteemed passage.
Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, George Jones, Jimmy Dickens, Duane Eddy and numerous others either performed songs popularized by the inductees or sp oke about the influence of these three multi-instrumentalists.
McCoy is known for his reinvention of harmonica as well as for his ability to shift approaches and instruments at will. Clark and Mandrell are country hit makers who expanded the music's audience through television appearances and innovative recording approaches.
"He's my friend and I love him...," Mandrell said of Clark. "He's just sincerely a good person. And from my perspective, he's a showman who knows how to entertain an audience."
McCoy is 'complete'
As a session musician, McCoy worked with Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall, Joan Baez, Elvis Presley, Simon &Garfunkel and hundreds of others. He plays guitar, sax, bass, keyboards, tuba, trumpet and about anything else he decides to play, but McCoy's signature instrument is the harmonica.
"When I think of Charlie McCoy, I don't just think of him as only a harmonica player … I think of him as a complete musician," said Hall of Famer Harold Bradley, who presented McCoy with the award.
After performances from Rodney Crowell, Jim Hoke, Jelly Roll Johnson, Wayne Moss and others, McCoy performed "Shenandoah" on his harmonica.
Clark 'sparkles'
Clark, raised in Virginia and in Washington, D.C., began performing with his father, Hester Clark, when he was a teenager. Clark reached adulthood in the early 1950s, when television was beginning to assert itself as a star-maki ng vehicle, and Clark was as comfortable on camera as off of it. In 1960, he joined rockabilly singer Wanda Jackson's band, and his association with Jackson brought him to the attention of Capitol Records country division chief Ken Nelson. Nelson signed him to a deal, and a 1961 appearance on The Tonight Show helped Clark gain popular attention. With Capitol and with Dot Records, he scored numerous hits, and he extended his popularity when he accepted a position as co-host of syndicated show Hee Haw (a show on which Charlie McCoy served as musical director).
"He's honest," said Bradley, who often served as Clark's session leader. "Whether he's playing guitar or singing, he's honest. Whatever he does, he sparkles."
On Sunday, Hall of Famer Jimmy Dickens formally inducted Clark into the Hall, and Clark performed an emotional "Yesterday, When I Was Young."
Mandrell was country …
Like McCoy's and Clark's, Mandrell's interest in music began in childhood. At age 11, she was playing the Showboat Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, billed as "Sweetheart of the Steel." At 13, she toured with Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Don Gibson and others. But upon her marriage to Navy pilot Ken Dudney in 1967, she planned to retire from show business.
"After Ken shipped out to the Mediterranean, Barbara changed her mind about retirement," Hall Director Kyle Young said at the ceremony. "She spoke to her father and asked him to manag e her. 'I'd bet my last penny on you,' Irby Mandrell assured her. 'I'll just sell the house and we'll go for it.'"
The family moved to Nashville, and Mandrell was soon signed to a recording contract. Her early hits included "After Closing Time" and "The Midnight Oil."
Mandrell's move from Columbia to ABC/Dot was a positive one, and she began scoring top-charting songs, including "Sleeping Single in a Double Bed," which sister Louise sang at the ceremony. Michael McDonald sang Mandrell's second No. 1 song, "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right."
In 1980 and '81, Mandrell was CMA Entertainer of the Year, and it was during this time that she starred weekly on NBC's Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters show. That program showcased her skills on numerous instruments, and also her relationship with sisters Louise and Irlene.
"I'm very excited — I just really think it's deserved," Irlene Mandrell said Sunday of her sister's induction. "She's done so much for country music. She has the heart and the talent and she loves to perform."
McEntire appeared Sunday evening to sing one of Mandrell's signature hits, "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool," with assistance from George Jones and the newly inducted McCoy. McEntire's stage turn was fitting, given that Mandrell helped establish a model for female country artists as multimedia performers and entrepreneurs.
Hall of Famer Ralph Emery prese nted Mandrell with her commemorative medallion, and she then delivered personal remarks.
"I'm so overwhelmed and so grateful," she said earlier in the evening. "I'm just on top of the world."

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