Biography

Webb Pierce - A Country Boy Singing His Heart Out

Focus Tracks:

1. SlowlyWondering
2. There Stands The Glass
3. Slowly
4. Why Baby Why
5. I Ain't Never

Webb Pierce was the most popular vocalist of the 1950's. He holds the distinction of charting more number one hits than similar artists like Hank Williams, Eddy Arnold, Lefty Fizzell, and Ernest Tubb. Pierce was the quintessential honky-tonk artist known for his unique vocal styling, guitar playing as well as his signature rhinestone-encrusted, lavish, and flamboyant Nudie suits. Many of his songs would reign atop the country charts for multiple weeks, making him the most recognizable face of country music.

This one-of-a-kind album contains recordings that were never intended for commercial release and were believed to have been lost or forgotten. They are recordings that Pierce made solely for radio airplay, and stations frequently just discarded them after they were aired. Country Rewind Records founder, Thomas Gramuglia, rescued the master tapes and entrusted producer Rex Allen Jr. and engineer Aaron Dethrage with the task of bringing the audio quality up to twenty-first century standards.

"Bringing back these long-lost recordings means so much to me," said Gramuglia. "Hearing Webb's voice and guitar playing again is truly a joy."

Webb called his style "a country boy singing his heart out" and if you are a fan of the 'Honky-Tonk Country' style, you know that's an accurate description of his pure hillbilly twang with overtones of the country & western music of the era. It was a styling he was to use for most of his career.

Today, many people remember Pierce for his extravagant lifestyle, his guitar-shaped swimming pool and his 1962 Pontiac with its steer-horn hood ornament and pistols on the doors and fenders, which is now on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Perhaps the following quote best sums up Pierce's remarkable appeal: "A honky-tonk innovator, Webb Pierce was a fine singer, responsible for many of the hardest-cutting and daring recordings of honky-tonk's golden age. His revival of Jimmie Rodgers' "In the Jailhouse Now" was the bridge between country's hillbilly roots of the 1930s and the burgeoning rockabilly of the 1950s." - Alan Cackett - author, country music historian and 47th Member of the British Country Music Hall of Fame