Velma Smith, one of Nashville’s first female session musicians, died Thursday (July 31) in Madison, Tenn. She was 87.
She was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame by Steve Wariner in January 2014, alongside Peter Frampton, Buddy Guy, Barbara Mandrell, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and a host of others.
According to the Musicians Hall of Fame, Smith was the first rhythm guitar player to record on albums in Nashville. In 1942, she joined Roy Acuff’s Smokey Mountain Boys as a bass player. She later played in bands for Carl Smith and Ernest Tubb.
She performed on records including Hank Locklin’s “Please Help Me, I’m Falling,” Connie Smith’s Connie In The Country, and recordings by Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Ray Price, and Porter Wagoner, among others.
In 1948, she married fiddle player Hal Smith, a fellow member of Acuff’s band and a music industry entrepreneur, who co-founded Pamper Music with Ray Price, among other ventures. Hal Smith died in 2008.
Funeral services for Velma Smith were held Saturday, Aug. 2 at Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in Goodlettsville, Tenn.

Country entertainer George Riddle died Sunday, July 20 in his home state of Indiana.
The singer, songwriter and veteran sideman had reportedly been battling throat cancer. He had surgery for the disease in May, then died of complications at a hospital in Indianapolis. He was 78 years old.
George Riddle was perhaps best known as the founding member of George Jones’s touring band, The Jones Boys. In fact, during the superstar’s early days on the road in the 1960s, Riddle was his only accompanist and harmony singer. The band was subsequently built around him.
Riddle also wrote 13 songs recorded by Jones, as well as titles recorded by Faron Young, Tammy Wynette, Margie Singleton, Del Reeves, Mickey Gilley, Ray Charles, Frankie Miller and Rose Maddox. In 1963, Melba Montgomery had top-40 hits with Riddle’s songs “Hall of Shame” and “The Greatest One of All.”
Born in Marion, Indiana, George V. Riddle began his career as a child performer in a traveling medicine show. He was then a teenage radio singer on stations in his home state, as well as in Tennessee and Florida. Following service in the army, he moved to Nashville in 1960. His first major job as a sideman was in Don Gibson’s troupe.
He initially served as a Jones Boy in 1960-63. As such, he appeared in the 1963 movie Country Music on Broadway. Riddle is also notable as the high-harmony vocalist on several Jones hit records of the 1960s.
In addition, George Riddle was a solo recording artist. He was signed to United Artists (1960-63), Starday (1963-67), MGM (1967-69) and Musicor (1970), as well as a number of smaller independent labels. His most popular single was “She’s Lonesome Again,” recorded for UA. Among his seven LP releases are Country Callin’ and Riddle N Rhyme.
He performed in package shows and headlined his own dates for many years, working alongside a who’s-who of country music, including Porter Wagoner, Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline. In 1991-2003, Riddle was a member of Bill Carlisle’s band on the Grand Ole Opry. He was formerly married to country singing star Norma Jean.
Following a long residency in Goodlettsville, George Riddle returned to his home state. Since 2005, he has hosted “Classic Country Jamboree,” a Saturday-morning weekly radio show on WCJC near his home in Gas City, Indiana. He won R.O.P.E. (Reunion of Professional Entertainers) awards in Nashville in 2011 (as a DJ) and 2012 (as a songwriter).
George Riddle is survived by daughter Suzanne Fiser, by sisters Roberta King and Lola Miller and by grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are being handled by Raven-Choate Funeral Home in Marion, Indiana.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to Marion-Grant County Humane Society (2768 W. Avon Ave., Marion, IN 46953), to Cancer Services of Grant County (305 S. Norton St., Marion, IN 46952) or to Marion VA Recreational Services (1700 E. 38th St., Marion, IN 46953).

A memorial service for late music industry leader Don Light has been scheduled for July 9 at 6:30 p.m. in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Ford Theater.
Participants in the service will include the Oak Ridge Boys, Bill Gaither, Vince Gill, the Goodman Revival, Marty Stuart, Peter Cooper and host Ray Stevens, as well as other special guests. Valet parking will be available.
Light passed away June 17, at the age of 77, leaving behind a wide-ranging legacy comprised of establishing the first Gospel music booking agency, co-founding the Gospel Music Association, and discovering Jimmy Buffett. Read more at MusicRow.com.

Legendary radio host Casey Kasem died early Sunday (June 15) at age 82. He had been hospitalized in Washington state for two weeks and was suffering from progressive dementia.
“Early this Father’s Day morning, our dad Casey Kasem passed away surrounded by family and friends,” his children Kerri, Mike and Julie wrote in a statement released by Kasem’s representative, Danny Deraney. “Even though we know he is in a better place and no longer suffering, we are heartbroken … The world will miss Casey Kasem, an incredible talent and humanitarian; we will miss our Dad.”
Julie Kasem is planning a memorial celebration at her Northridge, California home on Saturday, June 21. No other funeral arrangements have been announced.
Known for the trademark line, “Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars,” Casey Kasem’s voice was part of the soundtrack to the lives of several generations of Americans.
Kemal Amin Kasem was born in Detroit in 1932. After work as a DJ on the Armed Forces Radio Network during Korea, he joined KRLA in Los Angeles in 1963.
He went on to host “American Top 40” in 1970. The syndicated show began on seven radio stations and quickly became a mainstay of thousands worldwide. “America’s Top 10” was a TV show hosted by Kasem.
In 1988 Kasem signed with Westwood One and started a show called “Casey’s Top 40.” A decade passed before he acquired the name “American Top 40” and resumed hosting the program. He passed the baton to Ryan Seacrest in 2004, though he continued with two other shows, “American Top 20” and “American Top 10,” until signing off in 2009.
Kasem was also the voice of the character of Shaggy on the cartoon Scooby-Doo.
Kasem is survived by his second wife, Jean, whom he married in 1985; and four children.

“The Bronze Buckaroo” has died at age 100.
Herb Jeffries, who had that billing, was the first African-American singing-cowboy movie star. His films included Harlem on the Prairie (1937), Two-Gun Man From Harlem (1938), The Bronze Buckaroo (1939) and Harlem Rides the Range (1939).
His singing-cowboy theme song was his self-composed “I’m a Happy Cowboy.” In later years, he recorded for Warner Bros. Records in Nashville.
Born Umberto Alexander Valentino (or Balentino) in Detroit in 1913, he began his career in Chicago singing with the Erskine Tate orchestra. He rose to fame with the Earl Hines Orchestra by singing on national radio broadcasts in 1933.
“I was working in Hines’s band [in] 1935,” Jeffries recalled. “I was in Columbus, Ohio, working at a club there.” While on a cigarette break in the alley behind the club, he encountered a black child crying after being rejected by white playmates. Jeffries asked what was wrong. “They’re playing cowboy, and they won’t let me play,” said the little boy.
“When I was down South playing with Hines, I noticed there were thousands of discriminated theaters,” Jeffries continued. “Black theaters playing white cowboy pictures. I had done some research…and I said, ‘My goodness, why isn’t somebody playing black cowboy pictures?’”
Historians estimate that one in four working cowboys in the late 1800s was non-white. In the early days of rodeos, many champions were African Americans.
“Came out to California, and the deal was done,” said Jeffries.
Among Herb Jeffries’s cowboy songs are “Pay Day Blues,” “Git Along Mule,” “The Cowpoke’s Life Is the Only Life for Me,” “Almost Time for Roundup” and “Prairie Flower.” He did all his own western-movie stunts. During his movie-making days, he was sometimes billed as “Herb Jeffrey” or “Herbert Jeffries.”
Following his stint as a singing cowboy, he joined Duke Ellington’s band in 1940. He sang the big 1941-pop hit “Flamingo” while in Ellington’s employ. His subsequent solo pop hits included 1947’s “When I Write My Song” and 1949’s “The Four Winds and the Seven Seas.”
He moved to Paris in 1951 and opened his own nightclub. He joined the folk-revival movement by becoming a Calypso artist with the LP Jamaica. He starred with Angie Dickinson in the 1957 film Calypso Joe. He returned to pop with the highly regarded 1958 LP Say It Isn’t So.
One of his five wives was exotic dancer Tempest Storm, for whom he produced and directed a cult film in 1967. He returned to western roles when he portrayed a gunslinger on a 1968 episode of The Virginian. He also appeared on such 1960s and 1970s TV series as Hawaii Five-O, The Name of the Game and I Dream of Jeannie.
Herb Jeffries was “rediscovered” and brought to Nashville to record the 1995 CD The Bronze Buckaroo (Rides Again). Produced by Jim Ed Norman, the record included collaborations with Michael Martin Murphey, Take 6, Little Texas, Cleve Francis, The Sons of the San Joaquin and Rex Allen Jr. The album included the Jeffries tunes “I’m a Happy Cowboy,” “Lonesome Rider Blues,” “Down Home Cowboy” and “Pay Day Blues.”
Jeffries was 82 at the time. “I’m not old: I’m vintage,” he said. “I don’t use the world ‘old.’ I’m not searching for any kind of superstardom. I’d like to be remembered as a guy who walked among kings and never lost the common touch.”
Jeffries was inducted into the Western Music Hall of Fame in 1997. He has a 2004 star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Also in 2004, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Herb Jeffries died of heart failure on May 25 in West Hills, Calif. He is survived by wife Savannah, three daughters, two sons and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.