By Erik Morse
Grand Ole Opry mainstay and sartorial icon Porter Wagoner, one half of the great duet Porter and Dolly team, died of lung cancer in Nashville on Oct. 28 just days before Halloween.
The country musician was the epitome of the “hard workin’ man,” whose declining health in recent years failed to sideline a career that continued to entertain young and old through 50 years at the Opry. In addition to the critically received comeback Wagonmaster (Anti), a darkly psychedelic album released this summer, Wagoner made a one-time appearance in July at Madison Square Garden opening for the White Stripes. On his death bed he was surrounded by family, musicians and friends, and his one-time singing partner Dolly Parton. According to an Associate Press article, Opry vice president and general manager Pete Fisher said of Wagoner: “His passion for the Opry and all of country music was truly immeasurable.” Wagoner’s funeral ceremony was appropriately at the Grand Ole Opry House this past week.
Much like another recent passing musician, Lee Hazlewood, whose incredible career was often reduced to a footnote in the rise of partner Nancy Sinatra, Wagoner was similarly touted as the man who discovered Parton in the late 1960s. In truth, his work in country-western extended to the post-WW II days of Louvin Brothers-style folk with a local Missouri band, the Blue Ridge Boys, and on TV’s Ozark Jubilee.
Inspired by a Hank Williams concert he witnessed at the Grand Ole Opry, Wagoner moved on to RCA Victor and Nashville in 1957 where he penned classic country hits like “Skid Row Joe," “A Satisfied Mind," and “Misery Loves Company." He also began presiding over The Porter Wagoner Show, a syndicated variety hour that would last for more than two decades and provide a template for many of the rural network programs that would soon come into vogue, including The Johnny Cash Show and Hee Haw. It was here that Wagoner would introduce America to the unknown Parton, for whom he would write and duet for more than a decade. Most famously, Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” was inspired in part by Wagoner’s guidance.
Although Wagoner would never attain the celebrity zenith of southern contemporaries Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, or Elvis Presley, his influence on Southern honky-tonk, rockabilly, and alt-country is hardly matched. In addition to his recent rediscovery by artists like Nick Cave, Alex Chilton, Tav Falco, and Jack White, Wagoner’s songs of alienation and despair blended with his unique rhinestone and pompadour fashion, inspired everyone from the great Cash (whose early single “Hey Porter” was reputedly dedicated to him) to Gram Parsons and the International Submarine Band (remember those garish jump suits Parsons dressed in on the cover of The Gilded Palace of Sin?) to San Francisco’s own Grateful Dead. In a recent interview with Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, he recalled, “We [the Dead] were getting off of that psychedelic run that we were on. We had evolved from bluegrass and old-timey bands, but what we didn’t know was country and western, or whatever it was that Dolly and Porter were doing. So a little bit of Nashville moved into the Bay Area, and it was like nothing I’d ever seen.”
Here’s a prayer for Ole Porter.
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