Raw Bytes

Computer News

 

KPBX FM 91.1

 

Spokane Public

Radio

 

National Public

Radio Network

 

Frank Delaney

Producer

 

Broadcast on

Wednesday Morning

7:35 AM During

Morning Edition

 

Support

Public Radio !

 

The Theater

Of the Mind

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In computer news this week 10/31 /2007

 

We’ll miss the man with a satisfied mind – Porter Wagoner passes away, “The thin man from West Plains, Missouri ...”

 

In the old days, meaning before the WWW, you’d read someone’s obituary in the paper or a news article, and for a moment you’d recall your memories of that person. Then you’d turn the page and they’d be gone. But today, with the WWW and instant access to all types of information about people, you can immediately see a person’s life in full color and sound.

 

 If I google Porter Wagoner, I get thousands of hits, the most recent talking about how he had been  hospitalized with lung cancer, and how many of his old friends had come to pay their last respects. The most notable was his singing partner, Dolly Parton, who Porter discovered and helped launch her career back in the 1950’s. Although Dolly left his show after a few years and went on to become a country music superstar and songwriter, she wrote the song “I will always love you” for Porter, which has since become a classic cross-over hit love song for many artists, including Whitney Houston.

 

If I wiki Porter Wagoner, I immediately see that his tv show ran from 1960-1981, and I see the regulars cast, including the comedian Speck Rhodes, and Porter’s band – The Wagonmasters, with Buck Trent on guitar and banjo.  Here I see that Porter had 81 charted records.

 

If I go to Youtube there’s dozens of Porter Wagoner videos online, from the start of his career to recent years; clips of the early performers on his show like his first what they called “girl singers” in those days, Norma Jean, through his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982, up through his admission into the hospital this month for terminal lung cancer.

 

And if I search for Porter Wagoner MP3 music, I can go out to mp3.com and listen to and then buy any of Porter’s major hits.

 

Porter was one of the last of the older genuine country music stars; the guys who played music just as a way of life, and played in school gymnasiums and honky tonks, as opposed to the Garth Brooks college educated entrepreneurs who have changed modern country music into a sub genre of glam-rock.

 

Porter wrote his song A Satisfied Mind  after hearing a country friend talking about how material riches meant nothing in life, and how it was family, friends and loved ones that would give you a satisfied mind.

 

(music – Frank Plays Satisfied Mind instrumental on guitar )

 

I’ll always be a Porter Wagoner fan.

 

For Raw Bytes

This is Frank Delaney

(C) 2007 MTA Micro Technology Associates

http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html

PO Box 31522  Spokane, Wa 99223-1522

(509)624-7230

mailto:frank@mtamicro.com