Died On This Date (November 17, 2011) Joe Gracey / Austin Radio Legend
themusicsover Joe Gracey
DOB Unknown – November 17, 2011
Joe Gracey was an Austin, Texas radio disc jockey who, since the early ’70s, championed what was then called progressive country on KOKE-FM. Also referred to as alt country, Americana, outlaw country, redneck rock, or simply Texas music, this hybrid of country, blues, rock, and folk found its home outside the mainstream. And it was Gracey who helped make many of its practitioners – like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kinky Friedman, Townes Van Zandt, Asleep at the Wheel, and Jerry Jeff Walker, household names throughout Texas and beyond. After being named “Radio Trendsetter of the Year” by Billboard magazine in 1974, Gracey helped launch the popular music program Austin City Limits and was the show’s first talent coordinator. He later opened his own recording studio where he recorded Stevie Ray Vaughan. In 1978, he married fellow Texas musician, Kimmie Rhodes for whom he also played and recorded. Other artists with which he collaborated were Willie Nelson, Ray Price, and Calvin Russell, to name a few. Joe Gracey died of cancer on November 17, 2011. He was 61.
Thanks to Harold Lepidus for the assist.
Bill Johnson was a longtime art director who helped shape the image of country music packaging during the ’80s and ’90s. He spent the better part of two decades working at CBS Records where he created artwork for such albums as Willie Nelson’s Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Rodney Crowell’s Diamonds & Dirt, the Dixie Chicks’ Wide Open Spaces, Roseanne Cash’s King’s Record Shop, and the O’Kanes’ Tired Of The Runnin’. The Cash and O’Kanes packages each earned him Grammys. Bill Johnson was 68 when he died of lung cancer on June 15, 2011.
Nick Hunter was a respected music industry veteran who worked in radio promotion and sales. Over the course of a career that spanned some 40 years, he worked for Giant, Atlantic, and Warner Bros. Records, among others. In 1999, he founded his own label, Audium Records. Over the years, Hunter was directly involved with the successes of such artists as Willie Nelson, Randy Travis, and Johnny Paycheck who he is credited for reviving his career and probably his life in the early ’70s. In later years, Hunter was perhaps better known as “Nick the Stick” for his two decades as a popular radio sports commentator in Nashville. Nick Hunter, 67, passed away on December 15, 2010 after a long struggle with cancer.