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JASON BOLAND
HIS WHEELS THEY ARE A ROLLIN'!

   Nashville-Just when you thought it was safe to step back out onto the open American highways.you better look both ways. Jason Boland's wheels are on the fast track with no speed limit and only one destination.upwards and onwards! We are pleased to announce that Jason Boland has just signed with Buddy Lee Attractions (Nashville) for booking. Representing agent John Folks ran the Buddy Lee office in Austin for several years and became very familiar with the rowdy foursome. "I remember the first time I heard Jason Boland and The Stragglers in a little bar in West Texas.I was hooked. The music grabs you, the band demands your attention, and the experience of JB&S live is a ride like no other. This band is clearly on the rise reaching way beyond the borders of Texas and Oklahoma. Jason Boland and the Stragglers are the future of country music. They live it, breathe it, and will forever play for the right reasons, the fans and the music." Jason also had the pleasure of meeting Joey Lee at the agency on his last trip to Nashville and the two hit it off immediately. Speaking of which, Nashville got a heaping dose of the country outlaws when he debuted at the Exit/In earlier this month. Among the peers anxious to witness the Straggler's upheaval were Dierks Bentley and Mark Chestnut. JB&S still remains very close with their former booking agency, Austin Universal Entertainment and the artists they represent. They look forward to many future shows with all of their artists.
   Yep.it is officially beer-thirty for the JB&S. Budweiser has taken serious notice of the band and recently signed them to a sponsorship deal that will cover Oklahoma and Texas for promotions. Boland will be featured at Budweiser events throughout the year. Keep checking the band's web site at www.thestragglers.com for dates and information.
   History was made at the Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Sunday, November 9 when the home of Bob Wills hosted the first annual Red Dirt Awards Show. Approximately 300 fans gathered at the event to support the music movement including The Stragglers who took home Best Live Album of the Year for "Live At Billy Bob's." Congrats guys! You deserve it!
   January of 2004 will mark the band's efforts to record their new album, which will include some unreleased studio cuts of songs from the "Live at Billy Bob's" album including "Mary", "My Baby Loves Me When I'm Stoned", and "Mexico or Crazy." Keep checking the web site for release date information.
   Skiing anyone? If so, get out to Steamboat Springs, Colorado in January for the annual college ski trip and festival featuring a slew of live top drawing acts including...you guessed it, The Stragglers!

For more information contact RPR Media:
Email: RPRMedia@comcast.net

Don Gibson
"I Can't Stop Loving You" Writer Dies

Nov 18, 8:17 AM (ET)
By JOE EDWARDS

   NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Don Gibson, an elementary school dropout who wrote and recorded country standards like "I Can't Stop Loving You," has died, his lawyer said. He was 75.
   Gibson died Monday at Baptist Hospital, said Richard Frank, who is also a longtime friend of the Grand Ole Opry star.
   Gibson's songs used plain language and riveting melodies to communicate strong emotions. He sang in a rich baritone and usually wrote about solitude and sadness involving love, earning him the nickname "the sad poet."
   "Simple is the only way I can write," he once said. Gibson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.
   Born on April 3, 1928, Gibson was a poor boy from Shelby, N.C., who dropped out of school in second grade. But he became a songwriting genius who sold millions of records.
   "The only thing I was any good at was music," he said in a 1997 interview. Between 1958 and the mid-1960s, Gibson's records and his compositions, including "Sweet Dreams" and "Oh Lonesome Me," were hits for himself and many other performers. "I Can't Stop Loving You" was recorded by more than 700 artists, but Ray Charles had the big pop version in 1962.
   Gibson and others helped create the "Nashville Sound" in the 1960s - clean, uncluttered music that remains an influence today.
   Somewhere along the way, the moody, shy kid from a sharecropping family began playing guitar. When a friend came home from Paris after World War II with records by the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, Gibson was captivated, and was experimenting with different styles by his mid-teens.
   A friend helped him land a performing job with a Knoxville radio station. But things weren't what Gibson expected: The fans wanted old-time country, not Gibson's brand of crooning.
   Gibson hung on to the radio job but struggled on $30 a week earned playing beer joints. One day after a radio show, Gibson started humming a melody and playing with words - not writing anything down at first, just seeing where the tune would lead. It was the beginning of a classic - the haunting "Sweet Dreams," made famous by Patsy Cline in 1963.
   On June 7, 1957, he wrote two of country music's greatest songs: "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "Oh Lonesome Me." Gibson was living alone in a trailer outside Knoxville. A repo man had just picked up his vacuum cleaner and television when Gibson started strumming, exploring a swirl of words and melodies. "When I wrote those two songs, I couldn't have been any closer to the
bottom," Gibson once said.
   "Oh Lonesome Me" was a hit again in 1990 by the Kentucky Headhunters. Gibson's own recording fared modestly, but the song was a solid success for Faron Young as well as Cline. Gibson quit the beer joints and took up songwriting full time.
   "Don's one of the most talented people I've known," the late Chet Atkins once said. Atkins produced Gibson's greatest hits. "I always name him when I talk about the most important people I've recorded."

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