I was reminded on December 10 that it has been 21 years since the death of Faron Young. Faron was one of the big stars of the golden age of country music, with hit such as "Sweet Dreams," "Keeping Up with the Joneses," "Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young," "She Went a Little Bit Farther," "Occasional Wife," "Tattle Tale Tears," and "Goin' Steady." And that's not to mention that he was so popular across the sea that an English group called Prefab Sprout actually had a hit in the 80s with a song called "Faron Young." A song about a singer!
Like most of us, Faron had his strengths and weaknesses. Among his strengths were his generous nature (he was known for hiring down-and-out musicians who just happened to write some brilliant songs while working as a member of Faron's Country Deputies band, Willie Nelson and Roger Miller among them) and his business sense (he owned a booking agency, book and music publishers, the "Music City News" newspaper, real estate, and a race track.)
On the debit side, he had an awful temper. He used to perform a song called "This Little Girl of Mine," and would select a little girl from the audience to sit on his knee and sing to her, until the night in 1972 in West Virginia when he spanked a child onstage. He said the girl spat on him, but I mean, really...
As the years went by and his sort of country music waned in popularity for whatever reason and people lined up to hear Keith Urban and so on, Faron Young grew despondent, and on December 9, 1996, facing career depression, emphysema and prostate cancer, he chose to end his life.
We knew a man who checked into a mental health facility for the last two weeks of every year, so awful were the holidays to his mind.
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| Here's Faron (second from left) with Billy Walker, Little Jimmy Dickens, Carl Smith and Ray Price, back in the days of country sartorial splendor. |
And we all know someone who just does not cope well with the holidays, someone who just needs a hand on their shoulder and a few words of love and encouragement. Everyone feels bad about that young man seen on video crying about how they treat him at school. I'll bet my boots that there is someone in every life whose whole life could be turned around with just a few words of encouragement, someone telling them they love them, and meaning it.
If we could just take a moment...
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