Country Music

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Country Music

BLACKHAWK WAS BUILT AROUND THREE VOICES. THEN CANCER TOOK ONE OF THEM — AND HIS LAST REQUEST WAS NOT TO LET THE BAND DIE WITH HIM. Before BlackHawk became one of the most recognizable harmony groups of 1990s country, its three members had already lived separate musical lives. Henry Paul had come out of the Southern rock band the Outlaws. Dave Robbins and Van Stephenson had spent years writing songs in Nashville, including material connected to Restless Heart. Stephenson had even made his own run at pop success, reaching the Top 30 in 1984 with “Modern Day Delilah.” By the early 1990s, Paul, Robbins, and Stephenson began writing and recording demos together. What separated them was not one dominant voice. It was the way all three voices locked together—Henry in front, Dave underneath, and Van carrying the high tenor that made the choruses sound larger than the three men standing at the microphones. Arista Nashville signed them in 1993. Their first single, “Goodbye Says It All,” reached the country Top 20. “Every Once in a While,” “I Sure Can Smell the Rain,” “That’s Just About Right,” and “There You Have It” followed. Their self-titled debut album eventually went double platinum. For several years, BlackHawk looked like one of the strongest new bands Nashville had built. Then, in early 1999, Van Stephenson was diagnosed with melanoma. He underwent treatment and surgery while the band’s future became increasingly uncertain. By February 2000, Stephenson stepped away from BlackHawk so he could continue fighting the disease and spend more time with his wife and three children. The loss was not simply a vacant position onstage. Van’s tenor had been part of the architecture of every BlackHawk harmony. Henry Paul and Dave Robbins could hire another musician, but they could not recreate the years of writing, recording, and learning how three particular voices breathed together. Stephenson understood that. He also understood what his absence might do to the two men left behind. Before his death, he asked Paul and Robbins to continue. His message was simple: there was still more music left in BlackHawk. Van Stephenson died at his Nashville home on April 8, 2001. He was 47. BlackHawk’s Greatest Hits album was dedicated to him and included “Ships of Heaven,” a final song connected to the man whose high harmony had helped define the band. Paul and Robbins then carried BlackHawk forward, not by pretending nothing had changed, but by accepting that it had changed permanently. They also established the Van Stephenson Memorial Cancer Research Fund, directing money toward cancer research at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Over the years, the band and its fans raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars in his name. BlackHawk continued touring. New voices entered the lineup. Henry Paul and Dave Robbins kept singing the old songs. But whenever those original recordings reach the chorus, Van Stephenson is still there—in the highest part of the harmony, holding a place no replacement was ever truly asked to erase.

Country Music

CRAIG MORGAN WROTE A SONG ABOUT HIS DEAD SON AND DID NOT PLAN TO RELEASE IT. THEN RICKY SKAGGS HEARD IT AT THE OPRY AND TOLD HIM THE WORLD NEEDED TO HEAR IT. Jerry Greer was nineteen when the lake took him. On July 10, 2016, Craig Morgan’s son was tubing with friends on Kentucky Lake in Tennessee when the accident happened. He was wearing a life jacket. Search crews found his body the next day. Craig and his wife, Karen, buried their son on their Tennessee property near the family chapel. For three years, Craig carried it mostly inside the house. He had been a soldier before country music. He had sung “Almost Home,” “That’s What I Love About Sunday,” and “International Harvester.” His songs had always sounded like faith, work, family, and the kind of people who keep going because stopping is not an option. But losing Jerry was not a song he was trying to sell. Then “The Father, My Son, and the Holy Ghost” came out of him. Craig wrote it and sang it at the Grand Ole Opry. He thought it might stay there — one night, one room, one way to say something he could not say any other way. Ricky Skaggs heard it differently. He told Craig people needed to hear the song. So Craig recorded it. In 2019, the song was released without a big radio machine behind it. Then Blake Shelton heard it and started pushing people to buy it. Others followed. The song went to No. 1 on the iTunes all-genre chart. Craig Morgan did not turn Jerry into a single. He carried a song out of the Opry because another country singer told him not to leave it there.

Country Music

KEITH WHITLEY HAD BEEN DEAD FOR MORE THAN A YEAR WHEN LORRIE MORGAN WALKED INTO THE STUDIO TO SING WITH HIM ONE LAST TIME. The tape had been sitting there since 1987. Keith had recorded “’Til a Tear Becomes a Rose” as a demo. Ricky Skaggs was on the harmony part. At that point, Keith and Lorrie were still building a life together in Nashville. They married that November. Their son Jesse Keith was born the next year. Then the hits got bigger. “Don’t Close Your Eyes.” “When You Say Nothing at All.” “I’m No Stranger to the Rain.” On May 9, 1989, Keith Whitley died at his home in Goodlettsville. He was thirty-three. Afterward, RCA began putting together Greatest Hits. The old demo was still there. Keith’s lead vocal was still there. Ricky Skaggs’s harmony was still there. Lorrie replaced it with her own. She went into the studio and sang beside a voice that had already been gone for more than a year. The record came out in July 1990. Country radio took it to No. 13. That fall, “’Til a Tear Becomes a Rose” won CMA Vocal Event of the Year. The award had both their names on it. Keith Whitley was not there to accept it. Lorrie Morgan was.

Country Music

KEITH WHITLEY TOOK A BUS BACK TO NASHVILLE AFTER ANOTHER DRINKING BINGE. BY THE TIME HE GOT THERE, LORRIE MORGAN HAD LEFT THE HOUSE WITH THEIR BABY. Keith Whitley had already spent years making country music sound older than he was. He came out of bluegrass with Ricky Skaggs. He had sung through the Ralph Stanley years, the Kentucky bars, the long drives, and the kind of drinking that kept following him even after Nashville started paying attention. By 1988, “Don’t Close Your Eyes” and “When You Say Nothing at All” had made him one of the biggest voices in country music. He was married to Lorrie Morgan. They had a baby son, Jesse Keith. The records were working. The house was supposed to be the safe part. But the drinking kept coming back. Lorrie tried to manage it. Friends tried to manage it. Keith went through treatment. He stopped for stretches. Then the road, the pressure, and the bottles found their way back into the room. One time, after another run of drinking, Keith came home and found the house empty. Lorrie had taken Jesse and left. There was no headline. No television interview. Just a country singer at the top of the charts walking through his own house and realizing his wife had taken their son somewhere he could not reach. Keith kept recording. In 1989, “I’m No Stranger to the Rain” became another No. 1. The song was about a man who knew storms were coming and kept moving anyway. On May 9, 1989, Keith Whitley was found dead at his home in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. He was thirty-three. By then, the house had filled back up with people. But the bottles were still there.