Porter Wagoner
Classic Country
Porter Wagoner was one of the defining showmen of postwar country music—a rhinestone-suited singer, bandleader, and television pioneer whose syndicated program carried the Grand Ole Opry sound into millions of American homes. Known as “Mr. Grand Ole Opry,” he charted 81 singles across three decades, and his partnership with Dolly Parton became one of the most storied collaborations in the genre. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2002.
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- Porter Wayne Wagoner was born August 12, 1927, in West Plains, Missouri, the youngest of five children of a farming family. He worked in a local butcher shop, where his first group, the Blue Ridge Boys, performed over KWPM-AM in the early 1950s.
- In 1951 he was hired by promoter Si Siman to sing on KWTO in Springfield, Missouri, a break that led to a contract with RCA Victor. He would remain an RCA artist for most of his recording life.
- His breakthrough came with “A Satisfied Mind,” which topped the country chart in 1955 and became his signature song; the earlier “Company’s Comin’” (1954) had already reached the Top Ten. He also appeared nationally on ABC-TV’s Ozark Jubilee beginning in 1955.
- Wagoner moved to Nashville in 1957 and joined the Grand Ole Opry, an association he sustained for half a century; the Opry honored his fifty years of membership in the spring of 2007.
- The Porter Wagoner Show, his syndicated television program, ran from 1960 to 1981, spanning 686 episodes and, at its peak, more than 100 markets and an audience above three million. His flamboyant tailored suits, cornpone humor, and the show’s parade of guests made it a fixture of country broadcasting.
- His backing band, the Wagonmasters, featured players with deep string-band roots, including Don Warden on steel guitar, Buck Trent on banjo, and fiddler Mack Magaha—giving the act a bright, driving instrumental edge alongside the honky-tonk material.
- Singer Norma Jean was the show’s featured “girl singer” through the mid-1960s. When she left, Wagoner introduced a young Dolly Parton to his cast and audience in 1967—the decision that reshaped both careers.
- The Wagoner–Parton duo charted more than a dozen Top Ten duets, among them “The Last Thing on My Mind” (1967), the number-one “Please Don’t Stop Loving Me” (1974), and “Making Plans,” which reached number two as late as 1980. Wagoner produced Parton’s early RCA solo work as well.
- Parton’s decision to leave the act in 1974 inspired her to write “I Will Always Love You” as a farewell to Wagoner—a song that would become one of the most successful compositions in popular music.
- His solo catalog included the chart-topping “Misery Loves Company” (1962), “Green, Green Grass of Home” (number four, 1965), and the grim narrative “The Carroll County Accident” (number two, 1968), one of his most acclaimed recordings.
- A committed gospel performer, Wagoner won three Grammy Awards for sacred recordings made with the Blackwood Brothers Quartet, in 1966, 1967, and 1969.
- Dolly Parton inducted Wagoner into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2002, a public reconciliation that closed years of estrangement following their professional split and lawsuits in the 1970s.
- He returned to the spotlight late in life with Wagonmaster, released in June 2007 and produced by Marty Stuart for the Anti- label. That summer he opened for the White Stripes at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
- Wagoner died of lung cancer in Nashville on October 28, 2007. His funeral was held at the Grand Ole Opry House, with Parton among those at his side, and he was buried at Woodlawn Memorial Park.
