1969 Red Foley Country Boy From Blue Lick KY Kentucky - 1-Page Music Article

Description

1969 Red Foley Country Boy From Blue Lick KY Kentucky - 1-Page Music Article
Original, vintage magazine article
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm)
Condition: Good
Red Foley’s 1963 return to Nashville was
a major’ event for the town where the
singer had scored much of his earlier
success, but it was just as much of a
notable occasion for Red himself. “Back
home,” Red sighed. “Chicago,Cincinnati,
the Ozarks, Hollywood: I’ve revisited all
of ’em lately. Not a one gives me the
feeling that I want to shuck off my travelin’
shoes and really make myself at home,
like I’ve done here in Nashville.”
If that statement seems to indicate the
34-year veteran performer anticipates
retirement, or even the “semi-” sort, it is
highly misleading. Red’s philosophy,
career-wise, has always been “why ride in
the wagon if you’re man enough to run
alongside.” The recent reuniting, in
Nashville, of Foley and his manager of
years goneby, Dub Allbritten, underlines
the country music star’s eagerness to con-
tinue the trotting pace he has maintained
ever since his first phonograph records
began attracting attention nearly three
decades ago. Allbritten, who serves as
personal manager to Brenda Lee, for whom
Red’s television show was stardom’s gate-
way, operates on the highest plane of TV
and motion picture activity and will
undoubtedly be increasingly projecting
Foley into impressive areas of showbusi-
ness in this country and abroad.
In the colony of showfolk headquartering
in Music City, U.S.A., as Nashville is
internationally famed, Red is very likely
the prestige figure of the whole star-
studded population. It is he the record-
ing industry credits as being first to build
a permanent bridge between the4 4 country’ ’
and “pop” phases of music. Until the
redhead's 1950 hit, “Chattanooga Shoe
Shine Boy,” the ceiling on sales of records
by folk-style artists was three, possibly
four, hundred thousand; the reason was
that “country songs” were bought only
by those people in New York recording
moguls categorized as “country fans.”
But Red’s “Shoe Shine Boy” - about a
“little ball of rhythm,” in business at
Chattanooga’s corner of Fourth & Grand
- popped the top right off all previous
“country” sales figures, became a million
seller several times over, and literally led
to Nashville’s present prominence in pro-
ducing “country-pop” records of universal
impact.
Portions of the Foley career have been
capably chronicled by Time, TV Guide
and Newsweek. However, the best, most...
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