Vern Gosdin Visit the Photo Place

Singer of solace

Vern Gosdin, R.I.P.

Date published: 5/4/2009

LOVE DIES. Spouses cheat. Tears fall. There is a reason for these things: They all make a beer taste better. And a beer seldom tastes better than in a honky-tonk with a soulful country song on the jukebox. Hardly anyone was better at singing such songs than Vern Gosdin, known in country-music circles as "The Voice," dead at 74.

Frank Sinatra called country crooner George Jones the second-best singer in popular (i.e., non-operatic) music. The late Tammy Wynette, who was married to Mr. Jones, called Mr. Gosdin "the only singer that can hold a candle to George Jones." Mr. Gosdin had the stuff.

But it was a fight to make the big leagues. As a kid he chopped cotton in his native Alabama, sang gospel, moved in the '60s to California, and, with his brother, had a couple of songs that broke into the charts. A decade later he was in Atlanta running a glass company when Emmylou Harris asked him to cut a record with her. That restarted his career, and in 1984 he released his first No. 1 single, "I Can Tell by the Way You Dance (You're Gonna Love Me Tonight)."

Then in 1989 came his classic. "Chiseled in Stone" is one of those songs that can grab you by the collar, give you a good shake, and turn you around with your head properly threaded onto your body. The ballad tells of a young married guy who's had a big fight with his wife and repaired to a bar to salve his wounds. An old fellow sits down beside him and puts things in perspective:

You don't know about sadness

The younger man decides right quick it's time to buy some flowers and patch things up.

The next time you drink a beer that tastes especially good, it may just be that an angel's tears have fallen into it--an angel listening to a country song sung by "The Voice."

Follow us on

Read more stories about Fredericksburg
Date published: 5/4/2009