Red Foley brought country music to the masses when he became the first country performer to record in Nashville on January 17 , 1945. Foley reigned over the genre for more than two decades. He sold more than 25 million records and frequently lighting up the Grand Ole Opry stage. Today we’re diving into the life and career of Red Foley, born on this day (June 17) in 1910 in Blue Lick, Kentucky.
Nicknamed “Red” for his hair, Clyde Julian Foley grew up on a 24-acre farm in Berea, Kentucky.
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Music was a vital part of his upbringing. By age nine, he had begun performing impromptu concerts at his father’s general store, playing French harp, piano, banjo, trombone, harmonica, and guitar.
Soaking up various musical styles from his father and other local musicians, Foley won first prize in a statewide talent show when he was 17.
After graduating from Berea High School, he briefly attended Georgetown College. That is, until Chicago’s WLS radio station recruited him with a salary offer of $60 a week (more than $1,300 today).
Foley joined producer John Lair’s Cumberland Ridge Runners, the house band on the popular National Barn Dance program. Growing his following on the national radio circuit, his music career took off in the early 1940s when Foley signed a lifetime contract with Decca Records.
Red Foley’s Musical Breakthrough
In 1941, Red Foley released “Old Shep”, a song he had written years earlier about his own German Shepherd, Hoover.
Four years later, a 10-year-old Elvis Presley sang “Old Shep” for his first public performance, a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. He needed a chair to reach the microphone.
Later, Presley became one of several A-list artists to record “Old Shep”. Others included Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Johnny Cash.
Dubbed “Mr. Country Music”, Foley helped establish the Grand Ole Opry as an enduring institution when he signed on to act as master of ceremonies and perform on The Prince Albert Show, the Opry segment that aired on NBC Radio.
Throughout his caree r, Foley recorded more than 25 Top 10 hits. Among them was 1951’s “Peace in the Valley”, which became one of the first gospel songs to sell a million records.
On September 19, 1968, Red Foley died of respiratory failure in his sleep in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was 58 years old.
A 19-year-old Hank Williams Jr., who was with Foley just before his death, wrote and recorded the song “I Was with Red Foley (The Night He Passed Away”).
Then he got up and these were the last words he said / I’m awful tired now Hank and I’ve got to go to bed, Williams Jr. sang. And while I laid there with Red just a few steps away / The angels came and took him into the last golden stage.
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