Peers of country music legend, Porter Wagoner, began receiving word of his death at the Country Music Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony on Sunday night for the Hall’s three newest members, Vince Gill, Mel Tillis, and Ralph Emery. Porter Wagoner died at a Nashville Hospice Sunday at 8:25 p.m.
Wagoner was an artist who could communicate with a song and look spectacular doing so. His signature stage wear came from a flamboyant Russian tailor named Nudie Cohen, Cohen told Wagoner he wanted to make him a suit that would be different, something with rhinestones, something that would make people say “Wow” when he walked on stage.
Wagoner: “It was the prettiest peach colored suit I’d ever seen. I’d never seen anything even in the same ballpark of what it was. It was just unbelievable. Big covered wagons on each side, covered with rhinestones. It had a shirt and a pair of boots that matched up with the outfit. And my sister said I tried it on eleven times that day.”
The suits became Wagoner’s visual trademark. In 1961 he got his own television show. Produced for syndication out of Nashville, it ran for 20 years, and it made Wagoner a star-maker as well as a star. His most famous guest would become his duet partner and then a superstar in her own right.
Wagoner’s career ended on a high note. His final album, “Wagonmaster,” produced with Marty Stuart, was released in June and earned Wagoner some of the best reviews of his career.
Country singer and fellow Opry member Dierks Bentley visited Wagoner in the hospice over the weekend and said Wagoner led them in prayer, thanking God for his friends, his family and the Grand Ole Opry.
Visitation and funeral arrangements are pending. He is survived by three children, son, Richard, and daughters, Denise and Debra.
Craig Havighurst contributed (greatly) to this report.
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