This from Jeremy Westby, 2911 Media.

HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. – Joseph S. Bonsall (76) of Hendersonville, TN, passed on to Glory on July 9, 2024, from complications of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. He leaves behind his precious wife Mary Ann, daughters Jennifer and Sabrina, granddaughter Breanne, grandson Luke, two great grandsons, Chance and Grey, and a sister, Nancy. He is preceded in death by his parents, Joseph S. Bonsall Sr. and Lillie Bonsall.

As a 50-year member of the American music group The Oak Ridge Boys, Joe was a member of the Grand Ole Opry and inducted into the Philadelphia Music Hall of Fame, the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, and the prestigious Country Music Hall of Fame.

Joe was also the author of 11 books including his latest, a memoir titled I See Myself, which releases in November. Joe loved to sing. He loved to read. He loved to write. He loved to play banjo. He loved working on the farm. And he loved the Philadelphia Phillies. But Jesus and his family always came first—and we will see him again on the Promised Day.

At Joe’s request, there will be no funeral. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The ALS Association or to the Vanderbilt Medical Center ALS and Neuroscience Research Center.

The family is requesting privacy.

NOTE: The Mayo Clinic and other Websites note that  Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, aka ALS, is a progressive nervous system disease more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

NOTE:  Members of the Oak Ridge Boys and others in the national music community have made the

following comments about losing one of their own.

Just a word here from me, Mary Jane, on Kinky Friedman… Here it mentions his bid for Justice of the Peace. That was in the early 1980s and Kinky lived just outside Kerrville, Texas. Once, while he was being interviewed by a TV crew in front of the Kerrville Post Office, I stepped out of the post office and stood on the top of the steps to hear the interview. Even knowing I was in view of the TV cameras, I didn’t care. I just wanted to hear him talk. OK, all said and done, cameras down, and Kinky strolling away, I stepped down and walked to my car. There, I saw that my jeans’ zipper was and had been completely open through it all. That would have been good fodder for Kinky’s brand of humor. I could tell lots more Kinky Friedman stories, but won’t.. just that his music and humor were magic to me and countless others.

There is so much more about Kinky on Wikipedia. Click here

From Jenni Finley Promotions w/ courtesy photo

Kinky Friedman, the singular songwriter, sharp satirist, prolific novelist, gubernatorial candidate, and cigar-chewing dog rescuer, has died. He was seventy-nine. “Kinky has left the building,” longtime friend Cleve Hattersley posted on social media. “We knew it was imminent when we stopped at the ranch to play for him ten days ago. We could see he was miserable, but we could also see the guy we’ve known as a best pal for half a century was still there appreciating our schtick and shedding a tear over our rendition of his song ‘Marilyn and Joe.’”

“Adios, Kinky Friedman,” Texas-based author Joe Nick Patoski posted. “You lit up the world while managing to drop insults and make us laugh.”

Friedman’s humor was notorious. “(Being) funny will always cost you,” he said in a characteristically animated interview for the book The Messenger: The Songwriting Legacy of Ray Wylie Hubbard (TAMU Press, 2016). “As Billy Joe Shaver would say, Ray Wylie Hubbard and I are both serious souls who nobody takes seriously. (Expletive) ’em and feed ’em Froot Loops. There are some who do take us seriously, but they’re probably living at the Shalom Retirement Village right now or the Bandera Home for the Bewildered. Are you getting all this? It’s pure genius. What I’m saying is incredible. I didn’t realize I was this spiritual.”

The singer-songwriter and author released a dozen and a half albums over the past fifty years – from his debut Sold American (1973) and the provocatively titled They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore (2005) through The Loneliest Man I Ever Met (2015) and a forthcoming collection (2024) – and wrote more than two dozen books from his early mysteries Greenwich Killing Time (1986) and A Case of Lone Star (1987) through his last non-fiction books You Can Lead a Politician to Water, But You Can’t Make Him Think: Ten Commandments for Texas Politics (2007) and What Would Kinky Do? How to Unscrew a Screwed Up World (2008).

Several artists saluted Friedman on the tribute album Pearls in the Snow: The Songs of Kinky Friedman twenty-five years ago including Tom Waits (“Highway Cafe”), Willie Nelson (“Ride ’Em Jewboy”), Guy Clark (“Wild Man from Borneo,” also covered by James McMurtry), Lyle Lovett (“Sold American”), Dwight Yoakam (“Rapid City, South Dakota”), Delbert McClinton (“Autograph”), Marty Stuart (“Lady Yesterday”) and Tompall Glaser (“Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed”).

Friedman, a former candidate for governor of Texas and justice of the peace in Kerrville, Texas, mapped out his wishes for the afterlife in an interview with the Toronto Star: “I got my last will and testament worked,” he said. “When I die I’m going to be cremated and the ashes are to be thrown in (former Texas governor) Rick Perry’s hair.” The longtime animal lover shared a more heartfelt wish in the epilogue to his book Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola (1993) about his cat Cuddles being put down: “Dogs have a depth of loyalty that we seem unworthy of, but the love of a cat is a blessing, a privilege in this world. They say when you die and go to heaven all the dogs and cats you’ve ever had in your life come running to meet you. Until that day, rest in peace, Cuddles.”

“Kinky always obliged me by playing the South by Southwest parties Conqueroo co-sponsored: Guitartown/Conqueroo and Rebels & Renegades with Jenni Finlay Promotions,” Friedman’s former publicist Cary Baker said. “God broke the mold once he made Kinky: singer, songwriter, author, ill-fated politician, dog rescuer, underprivileged children’s camp sponsor, craft vodka magnate, homo erectus, Chicagoan, Philadelphian, Texas Jewboy…Kinky wore many hats and lived on his own terms every step of the way.”

First published in the Texoma Farm and Home Magazine, April 2024 issue. Published by the Whitesboro News. Photos by Mary Jane Farmer unless otherwise noted.

By Mary Jane Farmer

When you sit in a Freddie Lee Spears’ audience, you quickly realize he’s as genuinely classic as the songs he sings.

Freddie Lee, or ‘Fred’ as he’s often called, has been playing guitar since he was 14. He said he tried to learn when he was younger from his dad, also a guitarist, but didn’t quite get it until his early teenage years. Now, he plays not only guitar, but also mandolin, dobro, harmonica, bass, harmonica—just to name a few—all mixed with his soft-yet-powerful voice and the songs’ caring emotions.

“I got to playing mandolin because I wanted to learn to play the fiddle. The scales are the same, but I never transferred to the fiddle,” he said. “I’ve also been enamored with dobro and slide guitar. I never really wanted to play pedal steel, and it’s a shame because two or three times in my life, I’ve had the chance to learn from experts.” He mentioned two pedal steel players of much local renown. “Luther (Thompson) was one of them, and so was Jim Richmond. But look, it’s about knee rotators, 10 strings and 12 strings.”

After a night at the Grand Ol’ Opry, when he was still a little redneck, Freddie Lee said he got to thinking, “Who gets to do that. I saw Jim Reeves, Ernest Tubb was a big star. I liked Lonzo & Oscar.” And that was a bit of an incentive to get serious on the guitar.  Serious he got and he’s been playing ever since.

“I played school dances,” Freddie Lee said. “They had dances at the community-supervised programs for the youth, and I played a lot of them.”

In 1970, Fred got drafted into the U.S. Army and, he said, he spent much of his service time at Dugway Proving Grounds in the middle of Salt Flats, Utah. When his company commander learned that Fred played the guitar, he got Fred some Salt Flats gigs, for $65 a night. “We made $90 a month in the Army, and we all tried to have a side way to make ends meet. I was a janitor, as well. Janitor was good—it was on base and after hours.”

After the Army stint, Freddie Lee found himself in Nashville. “Mostly there, I played Moose Lodges, Elks, VFWs, and American Legions.”

Next up was a stint in Sammi Smith’s band (Help Me Make It Through The Night.) “She was so good, but past the age to be able to have a band.”

So, when he got asked again to travel, it was with David Allen Coe, he said ‘Yes.’ That experience got him into songwriting and he co-wrote with Coe on several songs that made it onto the charts, including “Under Rachel’s Wing.”  He said, and it’s confirmed on Wikipedia, that Coe basically went bankrupt and lost all the publishing rights to the songs he and Freddie Lee had co-penned. Fred said that he does still get mailbox money from BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) from airplay on the songs.

From there, Fred went on the road with Rusty Wier as a member of his Tennessee Hat Band, touring from 1975-1980.

“Rusty was a great guy, knew how to work a crowd. He wrote, ‘Don’t It Make You Wanna Dance?’”

And again, a few stints with Coe and that’s when he moved To North Texas. “I moved back to Nashville for a while, but I was down here (Dallas at that time) so much, and I liked living in Dallas.

“But,” he added, “I got tired of driving from Dallas to up here in the Texoma area. We traveled so much, from California to Colorado. We played at Lucille’s and Calhouns a lot, so I just moved up here. I bought me a little place. Sometimes it’s been a struggle to pay for it, but I’ve managed.”

For a long time, maybe a decade or more, Fred fronted the band Little Big Iron, one of the more popular ones of the area and the era. Now, he said, he and Brent Frailicks and the young area musician Sawyer Guymon are quite often seen on-stage together, not to even mention Sawyer’s dad, Greg Guymon.

“1-2 check check check” came from the stage at the James Adams Post 376 American Legion in Van Alstyne. Joining Freddie Lee were another of his constant companions, Brent Frailicks, and American Legion member Kenneth Gentry. Three guitars and three vocals in an amazing, very listenable song swap. Quite often, it would be Spears playing lead and Frailicks and Gentry on rhythm, and next time the lead would go to either of the other musicians gracing the stage. Harmonies abound.

And it was the classics, Fred’s favorite music, that all three belted out. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Bandy the Rodeo Clown,” and “Green Green Grass of Home,” plus about 3 hours more of the classics that stand today’s earbuds’ and country hearts’ test of time.

Now, at that gig, and just about any other in which Freddie Lee is involved, anyone in the crowd could come up and sing as well. He led the Wednesday night Open Mic Nights at Loose Wheels Texas in Denison until that venue closed a few years ago. And that stage was always packed, as was the listening audience.

When asked what strengths it takes to hold an open mic, Spears jumped right over the suggestions of ‘knowledge,’ ‘experience’ and ‘just what?’ He said, “The best things to be able to not leave a slightly-inexperienced singer up there looking like he’s got egg on his face.”

Having played with many of the Redneck Rock era’s leaders, i.e.: Smith and Wier, Fred has just about seen, heard, or played through it all. When asked that, if he had a chance, what current artist would he want to work with today, he hesitated a bit in thought, then said with certainty, “I would play with Buddy Guy. I’m really also a bluesman, and there are others out there, too, that I would choose.”

“For now, most all of the songs I sing are before 1975, he said. “In certain situations, you have to play what the audience wants to hear. When I play solo, it’s mostly 70s country and pop. When I play with Greg (Guymon), we go off on tangents. As a band, we’d play two fast and one slow song, with a (premade) song list. We spent very little time in between songs.

“I identify with bluegrass more than anything else, and with country ballad. I love R&B, but don’t have a growly-enough voice.”

Freddie Lee Spears can be seen and heard every Tuesday night at the North Ridge Grill in Denison (7-10 p.m.); at the American Legion Lakeside on the last Fridays of each month; and every other Thursday at the American Legion in Van Alstyne, again starting at 7 p.m. And then there’s the Ivanhoe Ale Works on a Saturday of “every other month,” he said. He posts the gigs a few days ahead of time on his Facebook page.

“And I have, or am in, a pretty good church band, too,” he said. That Leap of Faith Church has recorded a 6-song Christian CD of its musicians, and this includes three tunes which Fred wrote.

When asked if anyone had told Freddie Lee that he has influenced them and their music, his answer was modest.

“Miles (Penhall) has said so and so has Sawyer (Guymon). That’s encouraging.” Both of the young men were, like Freddie Lee, about 14 years of age at their serious starting part. “Size matters,” Freddie Lee said. “That’s when you get to the size that you can really play the guitar, where your arms can correctly make the chords… and that’s encouraging. It’s kind of a thread that runs up and down through music. Younger people learn from older people.

“Maybe we’re (old-timers) just passing along information, but sharing the passion, too.”

 

 

Story and Photos By Mary Jane Farmer — This article first appeared in a 2014 issue of Buddy Magazine

I’ve often been intrigued by words, and curious about their origins. I often read the script as I watch a Shakespeare play, marking and noting all the many words and phrases we hear often, that The Bard coined himself, such as “hobnob” and “all that glitters is not gold.” Then, one day on good ol’ Facebook, I saw one of the words in the list below for the first time, and it was defined, and that made me more curious about others. So, here’s a little bit I found out.

Gig —Slang for a musical engagement. Originally coined in the 1920s by jazz musicians, the term, short for the word “engagement,” now refers to any aspect of performing such as assisting with performance and attending musical performance.

Gurm — A term created in Nashville, used to describe an irritating, over-zealous fan, one who won’t stop at simply being a fan of the music. A gurm (begins with a hard g, as in ‘gig’ above) tries to find a way to be involved in the musician’s life somehow. A fan who talks his way backstage, who bothers the artist or band in a restaurant while they eat, or in a store while they shop. A gurm oversteps normal boundaries.

The first time I met Randy Travis, unexpectedly, I just sat in my chair, tucked my head down, and chanted silently, “Don’t go gurmy, don’t go gurmy, don’t go gurmy,” and the chant worked. But then, when I got to meet Reba face to face, I’ll admit to being a tad-bit gurmy with her. Sorry, Reba.

Busk — “He got his musical start by busking the streets of Berkeley.” To busk means to play music on the streets for donations, aka tips. This term started in the mid-17^th century, a spin-off of the French word busquer, or the Italian buscare, or the Spanish buscar.  The term later meant to ‘go around selling,’ then by the mid-19^th century, ‘go around performing.’

Askhole – Someone who asks the musician a question in the middle of his song.

Cover — A song performed or recorded later on by another artist. The origin clearly seems to be in terms of “covering” the market in a business sense. The music industry before radio was much more regional and the term, if it were around then, could simply have had a geographical sense. Several sites say it dates back to the turn-of-the-century Tin Pan Alley days and likely that the business practice was entrenched and only slightly modified during the period of R&B covers by white rock and roll artists.  It is now morphed to describe the performance of old songs and previously-recorded material. Don McLean, of “American Pie” fame, disagreed on the Website Metafilter.com, but said that “Madonna did not cover ‘American Pie,’ she just sang an old song, and made an old songwriter mighty happy.”

Karaoke — The word itself comes from combining two Japanese words. “Kara” comes from karappo, meaning ‘empty,’ and “oke” is a shortened version of the word okestura, meaning ‘orchestra.’ So, the word Karaoke literally means empty orchestra. One source said it began several decades ago in Kobe, Japan, and others attribute its origin to the 1950s cartoons and television shows where people sang along to words on the screen, with the tempo kept by a ball bouncing in time over the words.

OK, Shakespeare didn’t invent these words, but a Google search will show hundreds of words and phrases he did make up, from Alligator to Zany.

Thanks to Merriam-Webster, Wikipedia, Ask MetaFilter, and KaraokeKanta Websites for much of this information.