We acknowledge the sad passing of three major international artists whose music was featured on our embryonic Nu Country FM radio station and Nu Country TV shows.
Vale Dave Loggins
Dave Loggins, best known for his 1974 hit Please Come to Boston and his 1984 duet with Anne Murray – Nobody Loves Me Like You Do – died aged 77 on July 10.
The Tennessean recorded five solo albums and was inducted into Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1995.
Nu Country TV producer and host David Dawson wrote the liner notes for Loggins 2000 Raven Records 22 song compilation album The Good Side Of Tomorrow 1971-1984 that included Please Rember Me that Loggins wrote with Seekers member Bruce Woodley.
Loggins also wrote Pieces of April for Three Dog Night, a Top 20 hit in 1973 and songs for Tanya Tucker, Restless Heart, Wynonna Judd, Reba McEntire, Gary Morris, Billy Ray Cyrus, Alabama, Toby Keith, Don Williams and Crystal Gayle.
He also wrote number one hits Morning Desire for Kenny Rogers and You Make Me Want To Make You Mine for Juice Newton.
Eleven years after his biggest hit Loggins recorded Nobody Loves Me Like You Do a duet with Anne Murray what won Vocal Duo of the Year at the CMA Awards in 1985.
He was the only unsigned artist to ever win a CMA award.
Loggins also wrote the song Augusta in 1981 while visiting August National Golf Club in Augusta where the Masters golf tournament is held. The song is played each year on TV during the Masters.
Dave’s songs featured on Nu Country FM during its radio era from 1984-2001.
Mark Germino Tribute
Legendary North Carolina born singer-songwriter Mark Germino died at 73 on July 3.
Germino moved to Nashville in 1974 and was renowned for his narratives and social comment tunes on six albums including one with Tim Krekel & The Sluggers.
Artists diverse as Confederate Railroad and late Flying Burrito Brothers pedal steel player Sneaky Pete Kleinow’s outfit Burrito Deluxe recorded Germino songs.
They include his satiric gem Rex Bob Lowenstein – a regular feature on the late Peter Cresp-Gerrard’s midnight shows on Nu Country FM after Nu Country TV producer and host David Dawson interviewed Germino in Melbourne in 1986.
The song, recorded three times by Germino, is loosely based on famed, late Nashville DJ Captain Midnight, real name Roger Schutt who died at 73 on February 9, 2005, on the eve of Kevin Welch’s sixth Australian tour.
Schutt, a DJ on Nashville station WKDA in the sixties, scored international fame when he was arrested and fired from a radio station for locking himself in the studio after being ordered to shorten his play list.
The song was featured in Nick Brenner and Angela Borelli’s Nu Country documentary screened on the ABC in its Reality Bites series on September 3, 2002.
Peter Cresp-Gerrard – a Monash University graduate, former Sunshine secondary teacher and creator of an internet organ donor support group – received a heart transplant after being bashed by a female student.
He died at 5 am on July 9, 2001, just five hours after he was due to kick off the station’s 31st broadcast from new studios at Harley House at the Paris, Texas, end of Collins Street.
Kinky Friedman Comedian Crime Novelist and Singer
Texan singing crime novelist Kinky Friedman died from Parkinsons Disease at his Echo Hill Ranch in Bandera County at the age of 79 on June 27.
The Kinkster died at the same property where his family operated the summer camp for more than 70 years.
His Sydney host – veteran Daily Telegraph and The Australian feature writer-columnist Piers Akerman – visited and comforted him at his ranch shortly before his death.
The 600-acre ranch doubles as a holiday camp for disadvantaged city students, refugees and Utopia – a shelter from the storm for homeless canines.
Kinky wrote more than 30 novels, ran twice for Texas governor and toured Australia 10 times.
His tour guests included Van Dyke Parks in 2011 and late Texan Billy Joe Shaver and Texas Jewboys pianist, melodica and kazoo player and record label boss Little Jewford in 2004.
Nu Country TV host-producer David Dawson was The Kinkster’s chauffeur on some of those tours and interviewed him at his Echo Hill Ranch in 1983 and 1988.
He first heard Kinky’s music in 1977 when he and Nu Country TV treasurer Carol Taylor rode in the limousine with Australian Marijuana Party Senate candidate J.J. McRoach.
It was driven by his chauffeur Fast Bucks nee John Anderson – a Byron Bay political party leader.
Dawson, now 77, was featured in The Kinkster’s novels and wrote the liner notes for the 2023 Billy Joe Shaver-Kinky Friedman Live Down Under CD.
Kinky was also in Nick Brenner-Angela Borelli’s Nu Country FM documentary on SBS and ABC-TV.
Links for our Kinky Friedman-Billy Joe Shaver 2004 tour diaries follow.
https://www.nucountry.com.au/articles/diary/march2004/240304_billyjoe2.htm
https://www.nucountry.com.au/articles/diary/march2004/240304_billyjoe3.htm
