Marty, Hank & Emmylou: Hall of Famers in the News

Marty Robbins photo courtesy of countrymusichalloffame.com

April 10, 2008 - Visitors to the CMA Music Festival in June will have one last opportunity to pay tribute to Marty Robbins as an exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame winds to a close. It's just one of several Hall of Fame-related developments on the current country landscape.

Marty Robbins: Among My Souvenirs, Presented by Great American Country Television Network opened last August, featuring a visual and aural overview of one of country's greatest entertainers. The exhibit showcases his stage wear, his interest in auto racing and his many TV and movie entries, and a variety of his on-screen moments will be featured during the final weeks of the presentation. His son, Ronny Robbins, will perform in a tribute concert May 10 at the Hall of Fame's Ford Theater, and CMA Fest attendees can see the presentation June 5-8 before its official closure June 9.

In the meantime, the Hall of Fame ranks expand April 27 with the induction of the Statler Brothers, Tom T. Hall, Ernest (Pop) Stoneman and Emmylou Harris, whose new album is set for release June 10.

And a late Hall of Famer is being well-remembered in a book, My Side of Life: The Hank Thompson Biography, authored by Warren Kice. Hank got to see the original draft just before he died last year, and he gave Warren a thumbs-up on the project, which evolved over three years.

"He loved to tell a story as much as he loved to tell a song," says Warren, who was friends with Hank for more than 20 years. "He was a great storyteller, and he had 60 years of performing on the road. You can understand there were some funny things that came up, and he would tell these stories and we would all just die laughing ... So it was really easy for me to [write] it. He just laid it in my lap."