July 6th: On this day

1940
Born on this day in Titusville, Pennsylvania, was Jeannie Seely. country music singer and Grand Ole Opry star. She is best known for her 1966 Grammy award-winning Country hit, "Don't Touch Me", which peaked at #2 on the country charts. Seely was a member of and performer on the Grand Ole Opry, having appeared more times on the program than any other performer (5,397 appearances dating back to May 1966 and including 57 years as member of the Grand Ole Opry). She died of an intestinal infection on 1 August 2025 at the age of 85.

1944
Born on this day was American fiddle player Byron Berline. He played with such acts as Bill Monroe and The Dillards and Emmylou Harris. He joined The Flying Burrito Brothers in 1971, worked with Stephen Stills‘s band Manassas and played on “Country Honk” on the Rolling Stones‘ album Let It Bleed. He also worked with many other artists including: Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, John Denver, The Eagles and The Band. He died on 10 July 2021 at the age of 77 of complications of a stroke.

1953
Born on this day in Seguin, Texas, was Nanci Griffith, American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. Griffith has recorded duets with many artists, among them Emmylou Harris, Don McLean, Jimmy Buffett, Dolores Keane, Willie Nelson, and Darius Rucker.

1976
Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash recorded “There Ain’t No Good Chain Gang” and “I Wish I Was Crazy Again” at the House of Cash Studios in Hendersonville, TN.

1978
Tammy Wynette married songwriter George Richey at her home in Jupiter Beach, Florida. This was the singers fifth marrage and saw Richey becoming her manager throughout much of the 1980s.

1984
Columbia Records released Ray Charles’ Friendship album, featuring collaborations with Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr., George Jones, B.J. Thomas, Mickey Gilley, Janie Fricke, The Oak Ridge Boys, Ricky Skaggs, Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard.

1996
A monument was placed on the site near Camden, TN, where Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas and Randy Hughes lost their lives in a plane crash on March 5th, 1963 after the plane took off from Fairfax Municipal Airport in Kansas City.

1998
Roy Rogers, singer and cowboy actor died of congestive heart failure in Apple Valley, California. One of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain. He and his wife Dale Evans, his golden palomino, Trigger, and his German Shepherd dog, Bullet, were featured in more than 100 movies and The Roy Rogers Show. The show ran on radio for nine years before moving to television from 1951 through 1957.

2003
The Dixie Chicks performed a concert at Dallas' American Airlines Center despite an anonymous threat that group member Natalie Maines would be shot on stage, (after the controversy regading her comments about President George W. Bush, and the Iraq war). Maines had a police escort to and from the show and then directly to the airport.

2006
Waylon Jennings was inducted to Hollywood's Rock Wall in Hollywood, California. Between 1966 and 1995, 54 Jennings albums charted, with 11 reaching #1. Jennings was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.

2009
Charles Kelley from Lady Antebellum's married Nashville publicist Cassie McConnell in the Bahamas.

2020
American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Charlie Daniels died age 83 of a hemorrhagic stroke. He is best known for his contributions to Southern rock, country, and bluegrass music and scored the 1979 number-one country hit “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”. He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2008, the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2009 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.