Tag Archives: keith-whitley

By mid-1984, Texas honky-tonk heartthrob George Strait was on a hot streak at country radio. Since his first Number One hit, “Fool Hearted Memory,” in 1982, he’d had four more chart-toppers, all of them in a row. Thirty-five years ago today, on June 25th, 1984, he was at Nashville’s Sound …

Despite a tragically short career, Keith Whitley left an indelible footprint on country music before his death from alcohol poisoning in 1989 at age 33. As a teenage bluegrass picker, he was good enough to join no less than Ralph Stanley’s band. As an interpreter of songs, he was keen …