Don Helms, steel guitarist for Hank Williams Sr, passed away this date, 2008. Born February 27, 1927

April 19, 1928 – August 7, 1972.

Boyd’s  father played the harmonica. He was also skilled in many areas. He could knock a humming bird out of the air with his sling shot at 50 yards or so.
Troyce made a motor bike for Boyd that ran on gasoline using a one and a half horse power motor. Troyce also built one of the largest tree houses ever seen in the Selfs and Honey Grove Area. It had lights, butane and a trap door that was accessible by the remains of an old slide. Boyd had been known to climb up in the tree to get away from his mother. Troyce worked for Crittenden Butane in Bonham Texas. He carried a wench in his truck and piped many houses in the area.Boyd would often ride to Bonham with Troyce and get donuts at a store in Bonham. Troyce sucummed to lung cancer, probably from the butane gasses and the “roll your own cigaretts. He spent time in a hospitle in Temple Texas and eventually died in the V.A Hospitle in Bonham Texas. His funeral services  were held at Allens Point Baptist Church. Troyce loved to ride motorcycles and had an Indian Scoutt and and Indian Chief. He and Laverta would ride Motorcycles to every place they went. Now you know why Boyd wanted to ride Indian Motorcycles!

Gary Moreland will be appearing at the Lake Bonham Hoedown on August 25 for the Country Music Show. Other Guest are Jimmy Rhodes from Celina TX. and By Faith Alone from Wolfe City.

Died on this Date, 1995. Though he resided in Benton, Arkansas, most of his life, Rich was born in Colt, Arkansas to rural cotton farmers. His professional musical career began while he was in the U.S. Air Force in the early1950’s. His first musical group, the Velvetones, played jazz and blues and featured his fiancée, Margaret Ann, on lead vocals. Rich left the military in 1955 and tried to farm five acres in Tennessee. He also began performing in clubs around the Memphis area, playing both jazz and R&B. It was during these hard times that he began writing his own material.

Buddy Emmons
Background information
Birth name	Buddy Gene Emmons
Born	January 27, 1937 Mishawaka, Indiana, U.S.
Died	July 21, 2015 (aged 78) Nashville, Tennessee
Genres	Country, jazz
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Pedal steel guitar, lap steel guitar
Years active	1952–2015
Labels	Mercury, Flying Fish
Associated acts	Little Jimmy Dickens, Ray Price, Ernest Tubb, John Hartford, The Everly Brothers

Buddy Gene Emmons (January 27, 1937 – July 21, 2015) was an American musician who is widely regarded as the world’s foremost pedal steel guitarist of his day. He was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1981.^[ Affectionately known by the nickname “Big E”, Emmons’ primary genre was American country music, but he also performed jazz and Western swing. He recorded with Linda Ronstadt, Gram Parsons, The Everly Brothers, The Carpenters, Roger Miller, Ernest Tubb, John Hartford, Little Jimmy Dickens, Ray Price, Judy Collins, George Strait, John Sebastian, and Ray Charles and was a widely sought session musician in Nashvilleand Los Angeles.

Emmons made significant innovations to the steel guitar, adding two additional strings and an additional pedal, changes which have been adopted as standard in the modern-day instrument. His name is on a US patent for a mechanism to raise and lower the pitch of a string on a steel guitar and return to the original pitch without going out of tune.^[ He won the Academy of Country Music’s “Best Steel Guitarist” nine times, beginning in 1969.

In 2013, two years before his death, he was honored by the Country Music Hall of Fame in a tribute called “The Big E: Salute to Buddy Emmons” featuring testimonials and performances by eminent musicians and hall of fame members.

Born this day, 1954. Ricky Skaggs was born in Cordell, Kentucky. He started playing music at age 5 after he was given a mandolin by his father, Hobert. At age 6, he played mandolin on stage with Bill Monroe. At age 7, he appeared on television’s Martha White country music variety show, playing with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. He also wanted to audition for the Grand Ole Opry at that time, but was told he was too young.

In his mid-teens, Skaggs met a fellow teen prodigy, guitarist Keith Whitley, and the two started playing together with Whitley’s banjoist brother Dwight on radio shows. By 1970, they had earned a spot opening for Ralph Stanley and Skaggs and Keith Whitley were thereafter invited to join Stanley’s band, the Clinch Mountain Boys

Skaggs later joined J. D. Crowe’s New South. For a few years, Skaggs was a member of Emmylou Harris’s Hot Band. He wrote the arrangements for Harris’s 1980 bluegrass-roots album, Roses in the Snow. In addition to arranging for Harris, Skaggs sang harmony and played mandolin and fiddle in the Hot Band.