Class of 2020

The Latta Ramblers

House Band for the Latta Motor Jams and the Stanton Littlejohn Sessions

As read by Christy Sills, Arts in McNairy Board President
June 13, 2020

A whole new generation of McNairy County youth is familiar with the name Latta. When they hear the name, they are most likely to associate it with the property situated at the corner of West Court Avenue and North 4th Street in downtown Selmer. More precisely, they are likely to think of the cultural experiences they enjoyed at what is now affectionately referred to as “The Latta.” They say things like, “I saw an incredible band at the Latta last weekend.”

What they may not know is that the name Latta, and those words, “I saw an incredible band at the Latta last weekend,” could just as easily have been spoken in their grandparents and great-grandparents generations. Most of them probably don’t realize that more than 70 years ago the name Latta identified a prominent local family, the same property at 205 West Court Avenue, and an outstanding band, all at once.

To be fair to the younger generation, many of their elders may know the story of Earl Latta’s successful Ford dealership in downtown Selmer, and may even have heard that he hosted music events on the property, but the band that is most responsible for the success of those shows has not yet been fully acknowledged or appreciated.

That band was called the Latta Ramblers, and this is their story.

Earl Latta was an amateur musician and devoted music fan, but he was first and foremost a savvy business man. As it turns out, he was an early industry leader in what is now known as “retail-tainment.” He knew that one of the best ways to get the attention of customers was to offer quality entrainment that would draw the public into his place of business and create positive associations with his products. In midcentury McNairy County, that could only mean one thing: live music. For that, he turned to group of musicians who styled themselves the Latta Ramblers in order to further accentuate the connection between Latta’s business and the free music it offered potential buyers. But make no mistake, the Latta Ramblers were not cheap salespeople, or cheesy jingle writers—not even close. They were, in fact, one of the best assemblages of musical talent McNairy County had to offer in the 1940s and 50s.

From the very beginning, Tom McCormack, Paul Taylor, Eunice Smith, and Rob Richards were the core members of the Latta Ramblers. Other players came and went, and the band was well known to have top notch instrumentalists or vocalists sit in for a set or two at the Latta jamborees, but these four—each gifted musician in their own right—were the heart and soul of the Latta Ramblers.

Tom McCormack, like his father Granville McCormack before him, was a mechanic for Latta Motors. That gave him the inside track on Earl Latta’s weekend music jamborees and McCormack was instrumental in handling the logistical aspects of those shows. In a matter of hours, he was responsible for converting the dealership’s auto service area into a performance hall to accommodate sometimes dozens of musicians, and almost always hundreds of audience members. Of course, by Monday morning it had to be a functional garage space again, and he oversaw that too. But McCormack was far more than a stage manager. He was a talented guitarist and founding member of the Latta Ramblers who used his musical contacts to help book other acts for the jamborees and coordinate the shows’ lineups. After the untimely death of Latta Ramblers member, Rob Richards, McCormack sought to fill the void left by the loss one of the area’s most respected bassists. In a demonstration of his versatility as both mechanic and musician, he retrofitted an old Silvertone guitar as an electric bass and joined the Chickasaw Ramblers—Hall of Famer, Pap Whitten’s, legendary dance band. For almost a quarter century that version of the Chickasaw Ramblers became the best loved dance band in the region, anchoring square dances at Finger, Leapwood and Chewalla in McNairy County; Five Points in Madison County, and the Hardin County Fairgrounds in Savannah.

Eunice Littlejohn Smith, the sister of Hall of Famer, Stanton Littlejohn, was already a veteran of the regional music scene when she joined the Latta Ramblers on accordion. The exceptionally gifted Smith had adapted her own original accordion style to accompany old-time string band music to great effect. She could play it like a rhythm instrument or double the fiddle lead, note for note. Smith had honed those skills as a young woman playing radio broadcasts with Waldo Davis and the Midnight Ramblers, as well as several other popular bands in the region. She was also in demand, virtually all of her adult life, as one of region’s best pianists. Many of her brother Stanton’s audio recordings from the late 1940s and early 50s reveal that Smith was a musician with astonishing range and an ability to play nearly any genre of music on demand. Some years later, she would join fellow Latta Ramblers member, Tom McCormack, in Pap Whitten’s Chickasaw Ramblers where the piano technique she adapted for square dance music was as original and influential as her accordion style.

Paul Taylor, the Latta Ramblers second guitarist, was, like McCormack, employed by Latta Motors, managing the tractor and implement division. In that role, he worked with McCormack to set up and tear down for the garage jamborees and oversee the administration of the shows. And like Smith, Taylor had cut his teeth as a performer working on road and radio gigs with Waldo Davis. Taylor’s life and amateur musical career were tragically cut short by and automobile accident in 1957, but not before he left his mark on his family, friends, and the audiences who revered his outstanding musical abilities.

Finally, Rob Richards was the bassists for the Latta Ramblers, and what a bassist he was. Richards played with virtually every important musician in Southwest Tennessee and north Mississippi over the course of an impressive 35 years in music. Appropriately, Richards is being inducted to the Hall of Fame this year as an individual artist, so we can refer you to his induction remarks for a fuller accounting of his contributions, but suffice it to say, more than 50 years after his passing, he is still regarded as McNairy County’s preeminent bass fiddle player.

Tedford Jordan sometimes joined the Latta Ramblers on banjo. Evelyn Seay regularly added her accordion skills to the mix, or sat in for Eunice Smith. James Lambert and Hall of Famer, Arnold English, often played fiddle for the Ramblers and Curtis White was another known collaborator. But the core group was always, McCormack, Smith, Taylor and Richards.

With the exception of Earl Latta himself, the Latta Ramblers were more responsible than anyone for the storied Latta Ford Motor Company jamborees. They were the manpower and musical foundation for those shows. Quite simply, without them there would have been no show. They set a pattern for community music making and their monumental achievements reverberate even now in two generations of local and regional musicians they influenced.

Maybe just as importantly, the Latta Ramblers doubled as a sessions band for the Stanton Littlejohn recordings. Their close association with Littlejohn put them in a position to play in support of some of the region’s acknowledged masters. The Latta Ramblers can be heard on a number of Littlejohn’s best sides backing venerable artists such as Arnold English, Virgil Murray, Waldo Davis, Pap Whitten, and others. Those recordings are widely regarded as cultural treasures of national significance as evidenced by investment in their preservation by: The American Folklife Center, Library of Congress; Tennessee Arts Commission Folklife Program; and The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

In a county rich with traditional music, the Latta Ramblers were truly something special. Individually and collectively, they set a standard of professionalism rarely seen among amateur musicians. In their own time, they established themselves as some of the best loved live performers in McNairy County, and through the recordings of Stanton Littlejohn, they bequeathed a legacy of unparalleled musical excellence to future generations.

To circle back to the opening remarks, In 1950, when someone said, “I saw an incredible band at the Latta last weekend,” more often than not they meant the Latta Ramblers.

It is my distinct honor to induct the Latta Ramblers into the McNairy County Music Hall of Fame in the class of 2020.

Mark Shelton

Versatile Percussionist

As read by Nancy Kennedy, McNairy County Archivist
June 13, 2020

Mark Shelton has already left an indelible and very personal stamp on the world of percussion, and he is, by no means, done yet! As an author, producer, educational consultant, and online content creator, Mark has reached and influenced countless young musicians, and who knows how many more as a recording artist? As a veteran touring and resident artist for more than 30 years, he has been involved in literally thousands of live performances that entertained, edified, and educated audience members numbering into the hundreds of thousands. He is, quite simply, one of the most prolific contemporary percussionists working today, and his musical journey begins right here in McNairy County.

Mark’s parents, Milford and Elizabeth Shelton, weren’t musicians themselves but they very much enjoyed music, instilling an early appreciation for it in their only child. Attending large local singings with his family is among Mark’s earliest musical memories. The spirited live vocals and communal nature of those events left an impression on his young mind, which would show up later in his successful pursuit of music ministry.

Mark’s initiation into formal music training came, as it did for so many other local students, when he first encountered McNairy County Music Hall of Fame inductee, Frank Congiardo, in Selmer Elementary School’s beginning band program. It is the rare individual who can point to an experience in the 5th grade as a transformative moment, but when Congiardo administered a musical aptitude test that identified Mark Shelton’s natural inclination toward rhythmic instruments, it was life-changing. For the next eight years, Mark would receive musical training in the local band program that provided the bedrock foundation for a successful life and career in music. Let that be a lesson for anyone who might question the value of arts and music education.

What started as a fun and challenging musical diversion would eventually become Mark’s lifework as he single-mindedly pursued musical learning and excellence. By his own admission he was not the most gifted student in Congiardo’s band program, but he worked at it constantly and received versatile training and experience in marching, stage, pep, and concert bands. It paid off. His hard work and talent landed him at Northeast Mississippi Community College on a band scholarship. Upon receiving an Associate of Arts in Music Education, Mark transferred to Louisiana Tech where he earned a Bachelor’s in Music Education. After a year as a public school band director, he was on to East Carolina University where he was a graduate teaching assistant while he earned a Masters in Music with a concentration in Percussion Performance.

As he advanced through the educational ranks, Mark continued to rise to the top of each music program opening up exciting new opportunities for the young percussionist. After completing his master’s degree, he accepted a position as a resident artist at Coastal Carolina Community College that would foreshadow many aspects of his future career. His responsibilities included community outreach which moved him from the world of academia into the role of musical ambassador. He would perform in schools, community centers, churches, senior centers, and other civic venues exposing diverse audiences—many of them for the first time—to a variety of musical forms and concepts. It was also Mark’s entrée into the realm of publicly funded community arts programming—the visiting artist position was jointly sponsored by the North Carolina Arts Council and the North Carolina Department of Community Colleges. A second residency would soon follow as a visiting artist at Wayne Community College in Goldsboro, North Carolina.

In the early 1980s Mark taught one year at University of North Carolina Wilmington as he continued to perform widely. In 1984 he was a prizewinner in the Young Performers Competition in Los Angeles sponsored by the National Association of Composers USA.

Mark and his wife, Beth—a respected musician and producer in her own right—moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex where Beth would pursue graduate studies in music at the University of North Texas. The change of location would lead to a myriad of opportunities for Mark’s growing reputation as a freelance percussionist.

As part of a history of musical instruments course, Beth undertook a project to build a traditional hammered dulcimer. Intrigued by the percussive elements as well as the expanded musical vocabulary the instrument offered, Mark taught himself to play it. The experience suggested exciting new musical horizons for the couple. It was another pivotal moment in the Shelton household.

Mark was a percussionist with the Wichita Falls Orchestra for eight seasons even as his experimentation with new musical forms and a growing desire to forge his own creative future resulted in the formation of an innovative new music ensemble, TALEA. The duo, which was a fruitful collaboration with the talented harpist, Carolyn Mills, quickly became favorites with Young Audiences rosters in the Houston and Dallas areas. Anticipating a growing wave of popular interest in roots music, Mark formed the Celtic band Instant Irish which soon added traditional American music to its repertoire and changed the name to Folk Like Us. By the mid 1990s the group had mixed an eclectic and incredibly demanding range of world music and original compositions into the set list, and began performing as Tin Roof Tango. The refined ensemble and the embrace of the broader range of styles made Tin Roof Tango a highly popular world music ensemble in demand for performances in Texas and beyond. For more than 24 years the band performed in every imaginable venue from educational settings to concert halls.

All the while, Mark was putting his talents to use in music ministry. He was the principal percussionist at Calvary Church in Irving, Texas for 22 years, and later joined the worship team at Gateway Church, one of the largest churches in the United States. He was percussionist with the Daystar Singers and Band which were featured on the Marcus and Joni Show for Daystar Television.

More than gifted musicians, Mark and Beth have acted as co-producers on numerous projects including two Folk Like Us albums for the North Star Music record label, and Tin Roof Tango’s eponymous album. The couple created their own production company, Mark Shelton Productions, through which they produce music and music education videos. Mark’s engaging YouTube performances and his “Percussion Tip Tuesday” on his social media platforms, have become favorites for young percussionists nationwide. Mark has released two solo percussion albums and his original compositions are available through prestigious publishers of percussion music. He has authored six books for elementary music education and his instructional writing has appeared prominently in both online and print periodicals.

Mark is an endorsing artist for and a member of REMO Percussion’s educational team. For those unfamiliar with the company, REMO is one of the world’s best known percussion brands. Mark has been a featured artist at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, and North Carolina and West Texas Days of Percussion. He has been a respected and popular member of the Texas Commission on the Arts Touring Artist Roster for many years.

By now, you will get the point that the list of Mark Shelton’s accolades, accomplishments, and awards could go on and on. Suffice it to say that the depth, variety, influence, and longevity of his career easily establish him as one of the best percussionists McNairy County—or Tennessee for that matter—has ever produced. His creativity and mastery of the percussive arts are deeply respected by his peers and audiences alike. It is only fitting that he is the first artist ever recommended for induction to the McNairy County Music Hall of Fame as an individual percussionist.

As impressive as all of this may be, one of the most compelling arguments for his induction into the Hall of Fame is Mark’s extraordinary ability to communicate his love of music to others. The letter of nomination spoke of his infectious energy as a performer, and his exemplary record of service as a mentor to aspiring young musicians. It made the case that his towering talent is a clear reflection of his work ethic, but the better measure of Mark Shelton’s significance as an artist is his tremendous heart—a heart that overflows with the joy of music.

It is my great honor to induct Mark Shelton into the McNairy County Music Hall of Fame in the class of 2020.

Rob Richards

Legendary Bassists

As read by Robert Lee, Arts in McNairy Cultural Heritage Committee
June 14, 2020

It is sometimes said, that bass players get not respect. We aim to correct that here and now. In the days before drummers were common in local music making, bass fiddle players were a one man rhythm section. Bassists were the cornerstone and foundation for the music and, all joking aside, they were indispensable. They still are.

In McNairy County, only one name is synonymous with the double bass: Rob Richards.

No one will dispute that Rob Richards was the preeminent bassist of his generation. He was handy with a guitar and mandolin but trust us when we say there wasn’t a close second when it came to the upright bass—and we are not just talking about one town or even McNairy County. Richards’ reputation as the region’s go-to bassists was well earned. He was simply the best, and everyone knew it.

To put that claim in some perspective, for a thirty-five year span in the mid twentieth century, it’s likely that Rob Richards collaborated with more musicians in the region than any other instrumentalist—of any kind. That might be hard to prove definitively, but it is a fact that he was one of the most sought after musicians of his generation, playing with hundreds of other pickers around the area. At one time or another, he was the primary bassist for a number of McNairy County’s most revered old-time, bluegrass and dance bands including Waldo Davis and the Midnight Ramblers, Arnold English and the Dixie Hayriders, and Pap Whitten and the Chickasaw Ramblers. It shouldn’t escape anyone’s notice that every one of those bandleaders are distinguished members of the McNairy County Music Hall of Fame. They are arguably the triumvirate of twentieth century fiddle virtuosity and they all wanted Rob Richards in their band. One might argue that the legendary Elvis Black belongs in that company, and Richards often played bass for him too.

The impressive list of bands and musicians to which Richards lent his services doesn’t stop there. You would be hard pressed to name someone from the region he didn’t play with during his heyday. The Richards home was often the site of music making, hosting dozens of local pickers and Rob frequented the area’s community dances, clubs and other home musicals where he earned his reputation playing with his friends and neighbors. But he also stayed busy making concert and radio appearances throughout north Mississippi, West and Middle Tennessee, backing some of the region’s top musical talent.

In the late 1920s and early 30s Richards began playing with Waldo Davis and the Midnight Ramblers. Davis’s band was one of the most entertaining and sought after groups of the era. By the early 40s The Midnight Ramblers had a popular show on WCMA in Corinth Mississippi. The versatile band played old-time standards, hot western swing numbers, and even a few novelty tunes with Waldo on the harmonica. The legendary Elvis Black was a frequent guest on the program.

With Arnold English and the Dixie Hayriders, Richards frequently performed on Jackson, Tennessee’s WTJS Farm and Home Hour where he often crossed paths with an up and coming young guitarist named Perkins. A Richards family member was once asked if Rob Richards ever played with Carl Perkins. The reply was, “No, Carl Perkins played with Rob Richards.” That’s more than just bluster. During the time period in question, Carl Perkins was an aspiring young artist while the Dixie Hayriders were seasoned pickers with a strong regional following and Rob Richards was one of the band’s most respected musicians. It would have been an honor for the teenaged Carl Perkins to sit in with them, which he often did. The Hayriders also anchored a long-running dance at the American Legion Hall in Corinth, Mississippi, and were in so much demand that they were known to make as many as 4 or 5 appearances a week.

Th Chickasaw Ramblers, with Ernest “Pap” Whitten at the helm, were unquestionably the region’s most popular dance band, and like Davis and English, Pap Whitten wanted the best bass player he could get, and quickly found it in Rob Richards. The band played a popular dance at Chickasaw State Park, for which they were named, another at Five Points in the Big Springs Community, and yet another at the Bolivar VFW. The Chickasaw Ramblers were also regulars on Hayloft Frolic and the Hank Huggins Show broadcast from Jackson’s WDXI-TV. For many years, they were one of the hardest working bands in West Tennessee.

You might say that double honor is bestowed on Rob Richards this year. Along with the talented Tom McCormack, Eunice Smith and Paul Taylor, Richards formed the heart of the locally revered Latta Ramblers, who are also being inducted to the Hall of Fame in the class of 2020. The Latta Ramblers were the house band for Earl Latta’s famous garage jamborees. The band anchored those events and were instrumental in carrying out the logistics of staging and promoting regular live music shows at Latta’s Ford dealership for a decade or more. The Ramblers also doubled as sessions players for Stanton Littlejohn who recorded some of the area’s top artists in his Eastview, Tennessee home. They appear on dozens of those discs and are responsible for some of the best sides Littlejohn ever recorded. In these two roles, Rob Richards and the Latta Ramblers backed some of the best musicians of that era in live performances in Selmer, and recording sessions at Eastview that exposed literally thousands of people to the incredible depths of McNairy County’s music traditions—quite a legacy.

The stellar musicianship would have been enough to induct Rob Richards into the Hall of Fame, but it was not his only contribution to local music culture. Richards was a jeweler by trade, and Richards Jewelry in downtown Selmer was the closest thing to a music store the area had for many years. While jewelry was obviously his primary business, Richards also carried an impressive assortment of musical instruments including Gibson and Martin lines and a wide array of musical accessories. Just as the Latta Ford building became a weekend performance venue, Richards Jewelry became a weekday one-stop for local musicians, acting as instrument dealer, repair shop, and clearinghouse for musical information. Customers could pick up an anniversary gift, a new watchband, a set of guitar strings, and learn which bands were playing where all at the same time. Richards was known to open the store after hours if a musician needed a set of strings or a quick repair—you got to have priorities—and it was not unheard of for a little pickin’ to break out at Richards Jewelry.

Rob Richards was a musicians musician. He didn’t play bass as a last resort or an afterthought, he made it his primary instrument, and elevated it to an art form. His dedication to mastery of the bass fiddle is still remembered by those knew him personally, and his influence still resonates in local music making, more than fifty years after he played his last note in public. Just as importantly, he is remembered as a generous friend and business owner who always had time for anyone who walked through his door. Richards provided the rhythmic foundation for some of the best music ever made within the borders of McNairy County, and he earned the respect and admiration of musicians and music fans across the region. Fittingly, he is the first individual musician ever inducted to the McNairy County Music Hall primarily as a bassist. There is no one more deserving of that distinction.

It is my great honor to induct Rob Richards into the McNairy County Music Hall of Fame in the class of 2020.

Eddie Bond

Rockabilly and Country Pioneer

As read by Shawn Pitts, Arts in McNairy Cultural Heritage Chair
June 14, 2020

He was a successful musician, singer/songwriter, bandleader, recording artist, radio deejay and station manager, promoter, nightclub owner, and TV personality. He enjoyed a long and incredibly varied career in the entertainment industry and they called him “The Tennessee Legend Maker.” But Eddie Bond was a legend of Tennessee music in his own right. In the mid 1950s he was among the earliest practitioners of a brash new musical form called rockabilly, turning out hits and cult classics for Mercury and Sun Records. But Bond is probably best known for his country ballads about the life and exploits of sheriff Buford Pusser which first put the lawman in the public eye, eventually leading to the Walking Tall movie franchise and an avalanche of media attention for sheriff Pusser and by extension, McNairy County, Tennessee.

Born in Memphis in 1933, Eddie Bond bought his first guitar as a young teenager, and by 1948 was already recording country tracks with the small Hollywood based, Ekko Records. Rockabilly legend, Eddie Cochran, was an Ekko stablemate and friend. Those early tracks didn’t produce the hits Bond was hoping for, but they got him noticed by more prestigious national labels.

By 1955 the rock ’n’ roll revolution was well underway and Bond’s first single for Mercury, Rockin’ Daddy, was a national hit. Subsequent singles for Mercury also performed well, and Sam Phillips offered Bond a contract at Sun Records. Though none of the Sun sides were released, Bond’s Sun catalog—as well as the early Mercury singles—became cult classics and are regarded by many American and European roots music enthusiasts as some of the purest rockabilly recordings ever made.

In the mid-1950s Bond toured with the stable of Sun recording artists including Presley, Perkins, Cash, Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis among others, as the rockabilly craze was at its zenith. In addition to those legendary concert performances Bond appeared on nationally popular radio broadcasts such as the Louisiana Hayride, The Big D Jamboree, and the Grand Ole Opry. Perhaps the best known story from that era involves Bond rejecting a young Elvis Presley when he auditioned for his band, The Stompers. Bond apparently found the raucous young Presley a little too outlandish for the Stompers and reportedly advised him not do give up his day job. Of course, this was just months before Presley turned the world on its ear with his first Sun single. Undoubtedly that tale has grown with the telling, but there were no hard feelings. The two men would spend many hours on the road together and remain lifelong friends.

After his early success as a rockabilly artist, Bond continued to exert considerable influence in the realm of commercial music. On leaving Sun Records, he returned to his country music roots, recording a number of good sides for various labels, while concentrating most of his efforts on his emerging radio and TV careers. He was simultaneously working on his own material, developing his TAB record label, and cultivating important industry contacts.

Through the early and mid 1960s his reputation and connections in the music industry landed him at Memphis radio station KWAM where he quickly became one of the station’s most popular deejays. He was labeled “Mr. Country Music,” and Billboard Magazine presented Bond with a special award recognizing him for achieving the largest listenership in the competitive mid-southern country music radio market.

In 1966 Eddie Bond and the Stompers were tapped to host a weekend country variety show on WHBQ, Memphis. In less than two years, the show had become so popular it was moved to the coveted weekday morning drive-time slot where it remained a mainstay of Memphis TV programming for ten years. Bond’s old buddy, Elvis Presley, was reportedly one of the show's biggest fans, and the enduring popularity of the program is best illustrated by a successful revival that aired for five more years in the 1990s.

As a nightclub owner, record label exec, promoter, and media personality, Bond helped develop and showcase the talents of numerous other artists including celebrated sessions guitarist Reggie Young who recorded with Elvis Presley, B.J. Thomas, Willie Nelson, John Prine, Merle Haggard, and George Strait, among others. He was instrumental in launching the career of Domingo “Sam” Samudio and his Memphis based band, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, who had Billboard’s Number One Record of 1965 with the smash hit, Wooly Bully. He was an early promoter and important collaborator with FAME Studios legendary guitarist and recording artist, Travis Wammack and furthered the career of McNairy County Music Hall of Fame member Bo Jack Killingsworth, who was a close friend and bandmate for almost half a century.

Even as his influence and popularity as a media personality grew, Bond continued to write and record his own music. In 1968, intrigued by the larger than life stories of McNairy County’s sheriff, Bond wrote and recorded The Legend of Buford Pusser, and began promoting it across his radio and TV platforms. Originally released on his own TAB label, the single took off and was quickly picked up by Memphis based Stax Records for release on their subsidiary country label, Enterprise. The success of the side led to national media attention for Pusser which culminated in the popular series of Walking Tall movies—fictionalized accounts of the life and legend of the McNairy County sheriff. Just prior to the movie’s release, Bond signed with Stax to record a Pusser-themed album, brining even more exposure to the lawman’s exploits. Bond’s music was used liberally on the soundtracks of Walking Tall movies catapulting the songwriter and his subject to celebrity status.

Pusser and Bond naturally became fast friends. In something of a role reversal, Pusser, the now famous lawman, recorded a few tracks for Stax, while Bond, the seasoned entertainer, was named chief of police for Finger, Tennessee. It was mostly just for fun. Pusser wasn’t much of a singer, and Finger—not coincidentally Pusser’s place of birth—was a peaceful little town of less than 500 residents. Bond’s law enforcement role was largely ceremonial, but he used his new position and his old industry contacts to enrich McNairy County’s musical entertainment options, enticing country legends such as Roy Acuff, and up-and-comers like Tim McGraw to perform at the historic Finger Barbecue and other area events.

Bond spent the last years of his life in semiretirement in Hardeman County. He remained active in music playing, hosting, and promoting regional music events and making public appearances until his health began to fail. Because of his close association with Pusser, and his love for the county’s history and music heritage, Bond considered McNairy County a second home, and he was always welcomed here as warmly as a native son.

Eddie Bond’s fascinating life and musical career deserve recognition on their own merits. Indeed, he has rightfully been inducted into the Rockabilly and International Rockabilly Hall’s of Fame and his music has been reissued by a number of prestigious European labels where his popularity remains strong today. But he is recognized, on this occasion, by the McNairy County Music Hall of Fame for shaping the world’s understanding and appreciation of our culture with the power of his music. Eddie Bond drew on his deepest creative resources to write, perform, and promote a series of country ballads that memorialized and glorified the Legend of Buford Pusser, elevating the sheriff to the status of American folk hero. Bond’s Pusser ballads are responsible for drawing international attention to that facet of our history, and they offer us a lasting sense of local identity. Both have been paying McNairy County dividends for more than 50 years now. It is no exaggeration to say that millions of people, the world over, know McNairy County as Buford Pusser’s home, and the setting of his greatest triumphs and tragedies in law enforcement because of Eddie Bond. His musical and storytelling abilities, and the immense media attention they garnered, have ensured that the Pusser narrative will forever be woven into fabric of American culture.

It is my great honor to induct Eddie Bond into the McNairy County Music Hall of Fame in the class of 2020.