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Woodrow Wilson "Red" Sovine (July 17, 1917 — April 4, 1980) was a country music singer. He was associated with truck driving songs, particularly those recited as narratives, but set to music. The most famous example of this is his 1976 number one hit "Teddy Bear".
Born in 1917 in Charleston, West Virginia, he was taught how to play guitar by his mother. His first venture into music was with his childhood friend Johnnie Bailes, with whom he performed as "Smiley and Red, the Singing Sailors" in the country music revue Jim Pike's Carolina Tar Heels on WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia. Faced with limited success, Bailes, left to perform as part of The Bailes Brothers. Sovine got married, and continued to sing on Charleston radio, while holding down a job as a supervisor of a hosiery factory. With the encouragement of Bailes, Sovine formed The Echo Valley Boys.
After a year of performing in West Virginia, Sovine moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, where the Bailes Brothers were performing on KWKH. Sovine's own early morning show wasn't very popular, but he gained greater exposure performing on the famed KWKH radio program, "The Louisiana Hayride". One of his co-stars was Hank Williams, who steered Sovine toward a better time slot at WFSA in Montgomery, Alabama, and toward a contract with MGM Records in 1949. In that same year, Red replaced Williams on Louisiana Hayride when Williams jumped to the Grand Ole Opry. Over the next four years he recorded 28 singles, mostly following in Williams' honky tonk footsteps, that didn't make much of a dent on the charts but did establish him as a solid performer.
Another "Louisiana Hayride" co-star that helped Sovine along was country music legend Webb Pierce. Pierce convinced Sovine to lead his Wondering Boys band and helped him along toward a contract with Decca in 1954. The following year Sovine cut a duet with Goldie Hill, "Are You Mine?", which peaked in the Top 15, and in 1956 he had his first number one hit when he duetted with Pierce on a cover of George Jones' "Why Baby Why". Sovine had two other Top Five singles that year and joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry. After recording close to 50 sides with Decca by 1959, Sovine signed to Starday Records and began touring the club circuit as a solo act.
In 1965, however, Sovine at last found his niche when he recorded "Giddy-Up Go", which, like most of his other trucker hits, was co-written with Tommy Hill and Sovine himself. The song spent spent six weeks atop the country charts and even crossed over to the pop charts. Other truck-driving hits followed, including:
* "Phantom 309", a tale of a hitchhiker who hops a ride from a trucker who died years ago giving his life to save a school bus full of kids from a horrible collision with his rig.
* "Teddy Bear", the tale of a crippled little boy who lost his truck driver father in a highway accident and keeps his CB radio base as his only companion.
* "Little Joe", a tale of a blinded trucker and his devoted canine friend which became his last big hit.
Sovine was also remembered for his Christmas tear-jerkers, which included "Here it is Christmas" (a divorcee's holiday lament), "Faith in Santa" (a dialog between a poor, runaway boy and a sidewalk Santa), and "What Does Christmas Look Like?" (a little blind girl asks daddy to describe the Christmas that she cannot see).
On 4 April, 1980, Red Sovine suffered a heart attack while driving his van in the city of Nashville, Tennessee which caused him to crash. The injuries sustained from the wreck and Sovine's heart attack were fatal. For many years after his death, his Greatest Hits collection (Titled "The Best Of Red Sovine") was advertised on television; exposing his music to a new generation of fans who would not have otherwise heard of him.
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