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      Tom T. Hall, Country Music’s ‘Storyteller,’ Is Dead at 85

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      Mr. Hall, who wrote hits like “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” helped to imbue country lyrics with newfound depth and insight in the 1960s and ’70s.Tom T. Hall, a country singer and songwriter known for wry, socially conscious hit songs like “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” died on Friday at his home in Franklin, Tenn. He was 85.His death was confirmed by a director at the Williamson Memorial Funeral Home in Franklin.Known to his fans and fellow musicians as “the Storyteller,” Mr. Hall was among a small circle of Nashville songwriters, including Kris Kristofferson, Roger Miller and others, who imbued country lyrics with newfound depth and insight in the 1960s and ’70s. As his nickname suggests, he was a skilled narrator, although he told his stories less through the unfurling of linear plots than through the presentation of one-sided conversations or interior monologues that invited listeners into the lives of his often conflicted protagonists.“Homecoming,” his 1969 Top 10 country hit, portrays a singer who has been away from home so long — and is so wrapped up in his own celebrity — that he hardly knows his own people anymore.“I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there with you all when Mama passed away/I was on the road and when they came and told me it was just too late,” Mr. Hall sings in an unadorned baritone, assuming the role of the young entertainer during an overdue visit to his widowed father. Permitting his listeners to hear only the son’s portion of the dialogue, Mr. Hall refrains from passing judgment on the man, only to have him betray his self-absorption with one halfhearted apology after another.“I didn’t make judgments,” Mr. Hall once said in an interview. “I let the listener make judgments. When I got to the end of the story, if it had a moral, I let the listener find it.”Mr. Hall and his band arriving from Nashville for a sold-out tour of Australia in 1971.Antonin Cermak/Fairfax Media via Getty Images“Harper Valley P.T.A.,” which reached No. 1 in 1968 on both the country and the pop singles charts for the singer Jeannie C. Riley, was part allegory and part small-town morality play. Written amid mounting tensions over civil rights, women’s liberation and the war in Vietnam, the song pits an indomitable young widow against the two-faced authorities at her daughter’s school, unmasking petty hypocrisy and prejudice while at the same time giving voice to the nation’s larger social unrest. (The song gained sufficient traction within the pop mainstream to inspire a movie and a TV series of the same name.)Several of Mr. Hall’s other compositions also became major hits for his fellow artists, including “(Margie’s at) The Lincoln Park Inn,” a Top 10 country single for Bobby Bare in 1969, and “Hello Vietnam,” a No. 1 country hit for Johnnie Wright in 1965. “Hello Vietnam,” which featured backing vocals from Mr. Wright’s wife, Kitty Wells, was later used as the opening theme for the movie “Full Metal Jacket.”Mk/Associated PressAs a performer, Mr. Hall placed 21 singles in the country Top 10, most of them on Mercury Records. The most successful were “I Love,” “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died” and “A Week in a Country Jail.” Each spent two weeks at No. 1 on the country chart; the sentimental “I Love,” Mr. Hall’s only crossover hit as a recording artist, also reached the pop Top 20 in 1973.Backed by lean, uncluttered arrangements typically played by first-call Nashville session musicians, Mr. Hall’s songs were both straightforward and closely observed, forcing listeners to look at the world, and their preconceived notions about it, in a new light. Concerned with everyday lives and struggles, Mr. Hall’s concise, understated tales had the impact of well-wrought short stories. (He also wrote two volumes of short fiction and two novels.)Thomas Hall — he added the middle initial T to his name when he embarked on his career as a performer — was born on May 25, 1936, near Olive Hill, Ky. His father, Virgil, worked in a brick manufacturing plant and was also a preacher. His mother, Della, died when he was an adolescent. When he was 15, Mr. Hall dropped out of school to work in a garment factory to help support the family after his father was injured in a hunting accident.One of eight children, he began playing guitar and writing songs and poetry as a young boy. Floyd Carter, a local musician and raconteur, was an early influence, as well as the man Mr. Hall later memorialized in song as the colorful Clayton Delaney.Mr. Hall, center, performing with Ralph Stanley, left and Don Rigsby in Ashland, Ky., in 2003. Mr. Hall and his wife and songwriting partner, Iris Lawrence Hall, were given a Distinguished Achievement Award by the International Bluegrass Music Association the next year.John Flavell/The Independent, via Associated PressMr. Hall formed the Kentucky Travelers, a bluegrass band that played at local gatherings and on the radio, while doing factory work as a teenager. He joined the Army in 1957; while stationed in Germany, he performed humorous material on the Armed Forces Radio Network, before returning to the United States three years later and enrolling in Roanoke College in Virginia to study literature on the G.I. Bill.He moved to Nashville in 1964 and signed a recording contract with Mercury shortly after the Cajun singer Jimmy C. Newman had a Top 10 country hit with his song “D.J. for a Day.”In Mr. Hall’s career as a recording artist, which spanned more than two decades, he placed a total of 54 singles on the country charts. He also released more than three dozen albums, including two bluegrass projects: “The Magnificent Music Machine,” a 1976 collaboration with Bill Monroe, and “The Storyteller and the Banjoman” (1982), with Earl Scruggs.Mr. Hall joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry in 1971 and won a Grammy Award for best album notes for the 1972 compilation “Tom T. Hall’s Greatest Hits.” He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1978 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008. In the early 1980s, he hosted the syndicated television series “Pop! Goes the Country.”His songs continued to be recorded by mainstream country artists well into the 1990s, most notably “Little Bitty,” which reached the top of the country chart for Alan Jackson in 1996.Mr. Hall is survived by his son, Dean; a sister, Betty Kiser; and a brother, Larry. His wife of 46 years, Iris Lawrence Hall, known to most as Miss Dixie, died in 2015.The Halls did not have children of their own (Mr. Hall’s son is from a previous marriage), but Fox Hollow, their 67-acre farm and recording studio south of Nashville, was a haven for aspiring young singers and songwriters.Bluegrass was the couple’s passion during their final years together; for their many contributions to the idiom, including the numerous songs they wrote in that style, they were honored with a Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2004.“He didn’t like taking 35 dogs to a show, and he wouldn’t play golf with me because I was good,” Ms. Hall, a dog lover and animal rights activist, told The New York Times in 2008, explaining why the couple spent much of their retirement writing songs. “But songwriting was something we could do together.” More

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      54 Albums Later, Connie Smith’s Defiant Heart Has Plenty to Say

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      The country artist, 80, is releasing her first secular recording in about a decade. Her husband, Marty Stuart, calls her “the ultimate outlaw” for doing things her way.What’s the meaning of country music?“I’ve always believed it’s the cry of the heart,” the 80-year-old singer and songwriter Connie Smith said on a recent video call from her Nashville office, decorated in the distinctive palette she wears onstage. Framed by black walls and purple tufted furniture, she explained, “It’s not necessarily that I’ve lived the song, but that I understand living it. I lived enough to know the heartache and the joy.”Since Smith’s breakthrough hit “Once a Day” topped the Billboard country chart for eight weeks in 1964, she’s navigated four marriages, five children, 53 studio albums and numerous record labels. Partly because of a period of semiretirement in the 1980s, she’s not necessarily a household name, but her contralto singing is regularly compared to Patsy Cline’s for its might and emotional resonance. Smith similarly conveys a distinct sense that vulnerability does not equate to weakness.“She might sing a sad song but she’s never sounded like a victim,” the country singer Lee Ann Womack, a longtime fan, said in an interview. “She’s always sounded like she could kick your ass.”On Friday, Smith will release album 54, “The Cry of the Heart,” her debut for the independent label Fat Possum and first secular recording in about a decade, after intermittent forays into gospel. While country music is no stranger to a comeback, since the 1990s many of the genre’s figureheads have been resuscitated by studio wizards and the enthusiasm of younger generations. But “The Cry of the Heart” takes a different path, where resurgence doesn’t mean reinvention: It’s produced by the country musician Marty Stuart, 63, whom Smith married in 1997. The album’s tender piano chords, steel guitars and lush analog quality recall Smith’s ’60s era recordings, a template known as the “Connie Smith Sound.”“Connie is the ultimate outlaw,” Stuart said in an interview. “Most people’s definition is get drunk, get crazy, act foolish. Her version is stick to your guns. Be who you are at any cost.”Smith’s breakthrough hit “Once a Day” topped the Billboard country chart for eight weeks in 1964.Andrew Putler/Redferns, via Getty ImagesSmith’s fierce individualism sprouted from a tough foundation. “I was born a fighter because I was born into an alcoholic family,” she said. Raised in Southern Ohio by her mother, Wilma Lily, and stepfather, Thomas Clark, Smith came of age among 14 siblings and stepsiblings. Her stepfather played mandolin at square dances and her three sisters sang.“I tried to sing with them but he’d run me out because I was messing it up when I was trying to learn harmony,” she said. The family would tune its battery-powered radio to broadcasts from the Grand Ole Opry, and Smith became enamored with the music of Kitty Wells and the Louvin Brothers.Smith made her stage debut during her senior year of high school at a local square dance, where she earned $3 for performing a cover of the pop standard “My Happiness.” A few years later, in August 1963, she entered a talent contest at Frontier Ranch, a bygone country music park near Columbus, Ohio, and won with a spirited rendition of Jean Shepard’s “I Thought of You.” She was awarded five silver dollars and a slot at the Grand Ole Opry opening for the singer and songwriter Bill Anderson. With his help, Smith landed a recording contract with Chet Atkins at RCA Victor in June the following year. She tracked her debut 45, “Once a Day” backed with “The Threshold,” both written by Anderson, on July 16 at the label’s famed Studio B.Its immediate success was dizzying. “I’d have somebody pulling me on one arm, and somebody else pulling me on the other arm,” Smith said of a D.J. convention she attended amid the sudden burst of fame. The setting was new to her and a bit stressful, but while bouncing between meetings she saw a man coming up the hall. “Before I could almost recognize who it was, he was singing” — she lowered her voice in a countrified croon — ‘Once a daaay/All day looong.’” It was George Jones. Soon, another great, Loretta Lynn, was offering her advice, woman to woman.“Connie is the ultimate outlaw,” Marty Stuart said. “Most people’s definition is get drunk, get crazy, act foolish. Her version is stick to your guns. Be who you are at any cost.”Kristine Potter for The New York Times“She told me who to trust and who not to trust, where to go and where not to go,” Smith recalled.As the years went by, Smith repaid the favor and served as a beacon for a younger generation of women in the industry. “She’s one of those artists that’s always been great,” the country singer Tanya Tucker said in an interview. “She never goes out of style.”Smith said the inspiration for “The Cry of the Heart” arrived when she and Stuart heard “I Just Don’t Believe Me Anymore,” a new song written by Smith’s longtime collaborator Dallas Frazier, famous for country hits like “Elvira” and “All I Have to Offer You (Is Me).” “It’s one of those hillbilly songs I love,” Smith said. “I told Marty, ‘I have to record this.’”Hargus Robbins, an accomplished session pianist known as Pig who played on Smith’s debut single, the new album and countless sessions in between, said Smith comes to the studio well prepared. “She knows her songs when she comes in,” he said. “She doesn’t have to fumble over the melody or how she wants to phrase them.” Having recorded with Cline, he said he understands firsthand the comparisons between the two artists. “They’re both strong-willed people,” he added. “They know what they want and they expect to get it.”The new album’s opening ballad, “A Million and One,” recalls a classic Smith torch song, with the singer detailing the number of teardrops she’s cried over an imaginary lover (“A million and one tears/A million and two”). Smith and Stuart co-wrote “Here Comes My Baby Back Again,” which blends Smith’s sensibility with her husband’s love of rock ’n’ roll, on a tour bus. The closer, Merle Haggard’s “Jesus, Take a Hold,” is a song Smith first recorded in the early ’70s. This time, it’s stripped back to spotlight Smith’s impassioned voice.“It’s just as relevant today as it was back then, if not more so,” she said.The album’s pending release is energizing for Smith, but she almost didn’t live to see it. On a Sunday night in February, Stuart rushed her to the emergency room near their home in Hendersonville, Tenn., and Smith was diagnosed with Covid-19. She had sepsis, and pneumonia in each lung. The couple was terrified, but Smith’s fighting instinct kicked in.“The doctor stuck his head in the door and said, ‘If your heart stops, do you want to be resuscitated?’” Smith said. “I said, ‘Absolutely. I will not be a Covid statistic. That’s not the way I want to go out.’”To illustrate her doggedness, she recalled one of her first jobs: working in her high school’s office. She said her peers wanted her to bend the rules, but she wasn’t amenable. “It’s just the way I’ve always felt in my life,” she said. “I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but I also tried to do my best to do what’s right.” More

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      Garth Brooks Cancels Five Stadium Concerts as Covid-19 Cases Rise

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      The country star said he hoped to resume his tour by the end of the year, if he could do so safely.The country superstar Garth Brooks has canceled his next five stadium tour dates, the latest and biggest concerts to be pulled as the touring industry scrambles in response to rising coronavirus infection rates.“In July, I sincerely thought the pandemic was falling behind us,” Brooks said in a statement on Wednesday, four days after performing for about 90,000 fans in Lincoln, Neb. “Now, watching this new wave, I realize we are still in the fight and I must do my part.”The tour, which had already played five cities over the last month, is canceling dates in Cincinnati, which had been scheduled for Sept. 18; Charlotte, N.C., on Sept. 25; Baltimore, on Oct. 2; Foxborough, Mass., on Oct. 9; and one makeup date for a rained-out show in Nashville that had not been scheduled yet. Tickets will be refunded automatically, according to the statement.Brooks’s announcement came after a slew of cancellations by artists including Stevie Nicks, Limp Bizkit, Korn and Lynyrd Skynyrd; the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, planned for October, was also shut down. The Detroit Jazz Festival, planned as an in-person event from Sept. 3 to 6, announced this week that it would “pivot to a virtual format” of livestreams.For now, much of the concert industry is keeping its touring plans intact, and setting a variety of safety protocols for attendees as well as for the workers who run concert venues and manage touring productions. Live Nation and AEG Presents, the two corporations that dominate most of the touring and festival business, have each announced that their venues will require proof of vaccination or a negative test for attendees and staff, although that still leaves uncertainty about much of the business beyond their control.Los Angeles County will require masks at large outdoor concerts and sporting events that attract more than 10,000 people starting Thursday.Among the big American festivals still planned for the coming weeks are Bonnaroo, in Manchester, Tenn. (Sept. 2-5); Jay-Z’s Made in America, in Philadelphia (Sept. 4-5); Governors Ball, in New York (Sept. 24-26); Austin City Limits, in Austin, Texas (Oct. 1-3 and 8-10); and Outside Lands, in San Francisco (Oct. 29-31).In his announcement, Brooks told his fans that he hoped to resume his tour by the end of the year, as long as he can make sure that “the environment these people are trading their time and money to put themselves into is not only the best experience ever, but also the safest one we can provide.” More

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      Nanci Griffith, Singer Who Mixed Folk and Country, Dies at 68

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      In a career that began in Texas and spanned five decades, she was praised by critics for the thoughtful storytelling of her lyrics.Nanci Griffith, the Texas-born singer and songwriter known for thoughtful narrative songs like “Love at the Five and Dime” and “Trouble in the Fields,” has died. She was 68.Her death was announced by her management company, Gold Mountain Entertainment. The company’s statement provided no further information and said only, “It was Nanci’s wish that no further formal statement or press release happen for a week following her passing.”Ms. Griffith won the 1994 Grammy Award for best contemporary folk album for “Other Voices, Other Rooms.” Over a recording career that spanned five decades and about 20 albums, she was praised by critics for straddling the worlds of folk and country and for writing lyrics that were both vivid and literary.She began her career on the thriving Austin, Texas, scene of the mid-1970s. After moving to Nashville, she established herself as a writer when artists like Suzy Bogguss and Kathy Mattea recorded her songs — although she had her first hit not with one of her own compositions but with Julie Gold’s “From a Distance,” later an even bigger hit for Bette Midler. Early in her career Ms. Griffith was seen as a country artist. But, she told The New York Times in 1988, “Though the term folk tends to be perceived as a bad word in the music industry today, I’m proud of my folk background.” She added: “When I was young I listened to Odetta records for hours and hours. Then when I started high school, Loretta Lynn came along. Before that, country music hadn’t had a guitar-playing woman who wrote her own songs.” The daughter of parents who were both interested in the arts (although she once recalled them as “very, very irresponsible”), Ms. Griffith began performing when she was 14 and continued performing while at the University of Texas. She won a songwriting award at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas in 1977, which led to a deal with a local label. She made her major-label debut with the MCA Records album “Lone Star State of Mind” in 1987.A complete obituary will follow. More

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      Paul Cotton, Mainstay of the Country-Rock Band Poco, Dies at 78

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      He joined the band for its third album and expanded its emotional and stylistic palette with his sinewy, blues-inflected guitar work and brooding baritone vocals.Paul Cotton, the lead guitarist and frequent lead singer and songwriter for the country-rock band Poco, died on July 31 near his summer home in Eugene, Ore. He was 78.His wife, Caroline Ford Cotton, said he died unexpectedly but she did not cite a cause. His death came less than four months after that of Rusty Young, Poco’s longtime steel guitarist.Mr. Cotton joined Poco, replacing the founding member Jim Messina in 1970, just in time to appear on the group’s third studio album, “From the Inside” (1971). Produced by Steve Cropper, the guitarist with the Memphis R&B combo Booker T. & the MGs, the project signaled a new artistic direction for the band, maybe nowhere so much as on the three songs written by Mr. Cotton.Rooted more in rock and soul than in the country and bluegrass that had hitherto been the group’s primary influences, Mr. Cotton’s sinewy, blues-inflected guitar work and brooding baritone vocals on songs like the ballad “Bad Weather” greatly expanded Poco’s emotional and stylistic palette.“There was no doubt that he was the guy to replace Jimmy,” Richie Furay, who founded the band with Mr. Messina and was its principal lead singer, said about Mr. Cotton’s impact on the band in a 2000 interview with soundwaves.com. “We knew that he was bringing a little bit of an edge to our sound, and we wanted to be a little more rock ’n’ roll sounding.”Mr. Young said in the same soundwaves piece, referring to Mr. Furay and Poco’s longtime drummer, George Grantham: “You have to remember, we had some very high singing voices at the time. Paul had a much deeper voice, and he had that rock sound.”Poco became a major influence on West Coast country-rock acts like Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles and, a generation later, on alternative-country bands like the Jayhawks and Wilco.Poco in 1972. Seated, from left: Mr. Cotton, Timothy B. Schmit and Rusty Young. Standing: George Grantham, left, and Richie Furay. Ian Showell/Keystone, via Getty ImagesFormed in Los Angeles in 1968, the group originally consisted of Mr. Messina and Mr. Furay, both of them formerly with the influential rock band Buffalo Springfield, along with Mr. Young, Mr. Grantham and the bassist Randy Meisner, a future member of the Eagles. (Timothy B. Schmit, another future Eagle, replaced Mr. Meisner when he left the band in 1969.)Mr. Furay departed in 1973, disillusioned over the group’s lack of success compared with that of his ex-bandmates in Crosby, Stills & Nash and the Eagles, especially after the release of critically acclaimed but commercially disappointing Poco albums like “A Good Feeling to Know” (1972) and “Crazy Eyes” (1973).Poco’s remaining members carried on without Mr. Furay, with Mr. Cotton doing much of the singing and songwriting, until the group went on hiatus in 1977 and he and Mr. Young went into the studio to record as the Cotton-Young Band.In 1978, ABC, the duo’s label, released the recordings, made with British musicians who had accompanied pop hitmakers like Leo Sayer and Al Stewart, but insisted on crediting the band as Poco.“Legend,” the album that resulted, yielded an unanticipated pair of hits, the band’s first and only Top 40 singles: the glittering “Crazy Love,” written and sung by Mr. Young, which reached No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart, and the similarly burnished “Heart of the Night,” written and sung by Mr. Cotton. The album was certified platinum for sales of one million copies.Poco continued to tour and release recordings into the 2000s, with Mr. Cotton, Mr. Young and Mr. Grantham anchoring the lineup.Mr. Cotton performing at a festival in Indio, Calif., in 2009. He spent three decades on and off with Poco and also released a handful of solo albums between 1990 and 2014.Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesNorman Paul Cotton, the oldest of five children, was born on Feb. 26, 1943, in Fort Rucker, Ala., in the southeast part of the state. His father, Norman, owned a line of grocery stores. His mother, Edna, kept the books for the family business. Young Norm, as he was known as the time, began playing guitar at 13.When he was 16, the Cottons moved to Chicago, where he attended Thornton Township High School. While there he started a band, eventually known as the Rovin’ Kind, that released several singles and appeared on “American Bandstand.”In 1968, after seeing them perform at a club in Chicago, the producer James William Guercio, best known for his work with the jazz-rock band Chicago, signed the group to Epic Records. Mr. Guercio advised them to change their name and relocate to Los Angeles, where they renamed themselves Illinois Speed Press. Mr. Cotton began billing himself as Paul rather than Norm.Illinois Speed Press, with Mr. Cotton and Kal David as twin lead guitarists, released a pair of roots-rock albums for Epic, to little commercial effect. Mr. Cotton was invited to join Poco in 1970, shortly after the release of the band’s second and last album, “Duet.”Besides his wife of 16 years, Mr. Cotton is survived by his sons, Chris and James; two brothers, David and Robert; two sisters, Carol and Colleen; and a grandson.Mr. Cotton spent three decades on and off with Poco and also released a handful of solo albums between 1990 and 2014. An avid fisherman and sailor, he moved to Key West, Fla., in 2005.Poco went through numerous lineup changes during its more than 40 years in existence, but one of the constants, from Mr. Cotton’s arrival in 1970 until his retirement in 2010, was his partnership with Mr. Young.“There’s always been something there,” Mr. Cotton said of his relationship with Mr. Young in 2000.Mr. Young added: “He’s never lost that voice, or that great guitar playing. I can count on him. I wouldn’t want to do this without him.” More

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      Byron Berline, Master of the Bluegrass Fiddle, Dies at 77

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      His updated version of an old-timey approach enhanced recordings by everyone from Bill Monroe to the Rolling Stones.Byron Berline, the acclaimed bluegrass fiddle player who expanded the vocabulary of his instrument while also establishing it as an integral voice in country-rock on recordings by Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and others, died on Saturday in Oklahoma City. He was 77.His death, in a rehabilitation hospital after a series of strokes, was confirmed by his nephew Barry Patton.Mr. Berline first distinguished himself as a recording artist when he was 21 on “Pickin’ and Fiddlin’,” an album of old-time fiddle tunes set to contemporary bluegrass arrangements by the innovative acoustic quartet the Dillards. The album features Mr. Berline’s heavily syncopated playing, along with long bow strokes that incorporate more than one note at the same time.Later in the decade, Mr. Berline’s lyrical phrasing was heard on pioneering recordings by country-rock luminaries like the Flying Burrito Brothers and the duo Dillard & Clark, featuring the Dillards banjoist Doug Dillard and the singer-songwriter Gene Clark, late of the Byrds. He also recorded with Elton John, Rod Stewart and Lucinda Williams, among many others.Weaving elements of pop, jazz, blues and rock into an old-timey approach to his instrument, Mr. Berline contributed instrumental selections to Bob Dylan’s soundtrack to Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 anti-western, “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.” He also overdubbed Nova Scotia-style fiddle on the Band’s 1976 single “Acadian Driftwood” and played on the albums “GP” (1973) and “Grievous Angel” (1974) by Gram Parsons, the country-rock progenitor and founding member of the Burrito Brothers.Mr. Parsons recommended Mr. Berline for what would become undoubtedly his most famous session appearance: the freewheeling fiddle part he added to “Country Honk,” the Rolling Stones’ down-home take on their 1969 pop smash “Honky Tonk Women.” Recorded in Los Angeles, the song was included on “Let It Bleed,” the group’s landmark album released that December.“I went in and listened to the track and started playing to it,” Mr. Berline said of his experience with the Stones in a 1991 interview with The Los Angeles Times.When he was summoned to the control booth, he recalled, he feared the band was unhappy with his work. Instead, they invited him to recreate his performance on the sidewalk along Sunset Boulevard, where the Elektra studio, where they were recording the track, was located. Hence the car horns and other ambient street sounds captured on the session.“There was a bulldozer out there moving dirt,” Mr. Berline said. “Mick Jagger went out himself and stopped the guy.”But Mr. Berline was not merely renowned for his work accompanying other artists; he was considered a musical visionary in his own right, providing leadership to, among others, the progressive bluegrass band Country Gazette.Mr. Berline was just 21 when he drew notice for his work on an album of old-time fiddle tunes by the innovative acoustic quartet the Dillards.In 1965, after hearing his playing on “Pickin’ and Fiddlin’,” the folklorist Ralph Rinzler invited Mr. Berline and his father, a fiddler himself, to appear as a duo at the Newport Folk Festival.While at Newport, Byron also had a chance to jam with the singer and mandolinist Bill Monroe, widely regarded as the father of bluegrass, who invited him to become a member of his band, the Blue Grass Boys. Then a student at the University of Oklahoma, Mr. Berline demurred; after completing his degree, he joined the Blue Grass Boys two years later.Mr. Berline spent only a few months with Monroe before being drafted into the Army, but bluegrass aficionados regard two of the three songs he recorded with him, “The Gold Rush,” written with Monroe, and “Sally Goodin,” as matchless performances.Mr. Berline was the winner of three national fiddle competitions and a member of the National Fiddler Hall of Fame.Byron Douglas Berline, the youngest of five children of Lue and Elizabeth (Jackson) Berline, was born on July 6, 1944, in Caldwell, Kan., near the Oklahoma border. His father worked a farm and played banjo and fiddle at barn dances and other events. His mother, a homemaker, played piano.Young Byron started playing a three-quarter-sized fiddle when he was 5; he won his first public competition at 10, outplaying his father. Among his early influences was Eck Robertson, the first old-time fiddler to appear on record.A gifted athlete, Mr. Berline earned a football scholarship to the University of Oklahoma, where he enrolled in 1963, only to fracture his hand that fall. The injury caused him to focus on music, although he maintained his athletic scholarship by joining the track team as a javelin thrower.Mr. Berline attracted the attention of the Dillards while playing in a campus folk group at Oklahoma. They invited him to play on “Pickin’ and Fiddlin’.” After graduating from college in 1967 and completing his military service in 1969, Mr. Berline moved to Los Angeles with his wife, Bette (Ringrose) Berline, at the urging of Doug Dillard, who recruited him to record with Dillard & Clark.After three years of session work in California, along with time in the Flying Burrito Brothers, Mr. Berline formed his own group, Country Gazette, and signed with United Artists Records. The band’s bluegrass blend proved influential, and it recorded for almost two decades, but Country Gazette never achieved mainstream success.Another project, Byron Berline & Sundance, likewise secured a deal with MCA Records. But the group’s three founding members, guitarist Dan Crary, banjo player John Hickman and Mr. Berline — later billing themselves as Berline, Crary & Hickman — fared best in a traditional bluegrass market, releasing records on independent labels like Rounder and Sugar Hill into the 1990s.Over the years Mr. Berline also provided music for television shows like “Northern Exposure” and movies like “Basic Instinct.” He also had a minor role as a musician in the Bette Midler movie “The Rose” (1979) and appeared, as part of a string quartet, in an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”Mr. Berline in 2004 at the Double Stop Fiddle Shop in Guthrie, Okla., which he and his wife, Bette, owned. The shop burned down in 2019; several months later, he opened another shop on the same street.Paul Hellstern for The New York TimesIn the mid-’90s, Mr. Berline and his wife moved to Guthrie, Okla., and opened the Double Stop Fiddle Shop, its name taken from the fiddle technique of playing two strings at the same time. The shop burned down in 2019, consuming its inventory of antique instruments. Several months later, Mr. Berline opened another shop on the same street.Mr. Berline is survived by his wife; a daughter, Becca O’Connor; a sister, Janice Byford; and four grandchildren.Although uncredited, Mr. Berline remarked in interviews that he did more than play the fiddle on Mr. Dylan’s soundtrack to “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.”“He said, ‘Can you sing?,’” Mr. Berline recalled, referring to Mr. Dylan in his 1991 interview.“I said, ‘Sure.’ So I got up and helped sing background vocals on ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.’” More

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      DMX’s Posthumous All-Star Track, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Griff, Kidd G, Masayoshi Fujita and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.DMX featuring Jay-Z and Nas, ‘Bath Salts’This song from “Exodus,” the first posthumous DMX album, features a 1990s rap supergroup that could have been. DMX sounds limber and loose, and Jay-Z and Nas are having far more fun here than they did on the grown-and-grumpy “Sorry Not Sorry,” from the latest DJ Khaled album. The union of the three titans is consequential, but they treat it like a friendly cipher, the mark of stars confident in their legacy. JON CARAMANICASofi Tukker and Amadou & Mariam, ‘Mon Cheri’The nonprofit Red Hot Organization supports its efforts to fight AIDS with albums full of unexpected collaborators. The preview of its dance-oriented “Red Hot + Free” collection, due July 2, is “Mon Cheri,” which brings together the Florida dance-pop duo Sofi Tukker with the Malian singers Amadou & Mariam. Sophie Hawley-Weld of Sofi Tukker coos the verses in Portuguese, philosophizing about time and rhythm over a twangy guitar line that hints at Malian modes; when Amadou & Mariam arrive for the choruses, calling for togetherness in love, a 4/4 thump kicks in, steering the song directly to the dance floor. Before it’s over, a synthesizer starts cheerfully sputtering like a high-tech kazoo. JON PARELESMelvin Gibbs featuring Kokayi, ‘Message From the Streets’Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer, and the culmination of a heady year of Black Lives Matter organizing. It was also the bassist Melvin Gibbs’s birthday. Over the past 12 months, Gibbs paid a number of visits to the site of Floyd’s death, and he was moved by the complicated but nearly serene energy about the place, which has become a kind of pilgrimage site and memorial. On Tuesday, Gibbs released an EP, “4 + 1 Equals 5 for May 25,” that balances coiled frustration with catalytic release. The idea, he wrote in the notes accompanying the EP, was “to manifest peace while facing up to cataclysm.” Working with the Washington, D.C.-based rapper Kokayi, Gibbs assembled a collection of pieces (condensed here into a final composite track, “Message From the Streets”) that writhe and heave but fix a steady gaze on the world. The act of bearing witness becomes a means of unmaking, and maybe building anew. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOUpper Wilds, ‘Love Song #5’Dan Friel has been making noisy rock — frenetic guitar abetted by over-the-top electronics — since he founded the band Parts & Labor in the early 2000s. He’s still at it in his current band, Upper Wilds, and “Love Song #5,” from an album due in July titled “Venus,” comes on as a whirlwind. As he sings about how love changes nothing and everything at once, a stereo blitz of distorted strumming, whizzing arpeggios and screaming sustained tones insists how much it matters. PARELESGriff, ‘One Foot in Front of the Other’Griff, an English pop singer, songwriter and producer who won this year’s Brit award as rising new star, sounds optimistic despite herself with “One Foot in Front of the Other,” which will be the title song of her mixtape due June 18. Sure, her first steps are tentative as she recovers from a breakup — “Things just take longer to heal these days” — but her perky keyboard tones and a chord progression that descends but soon bounces back all insist that she’ll thrive, and soon. PARELESKidd G, ‘Break Up Song’Recently, the emo-rap-influenced country singer Kidd G announced a partnership with the Valory Music Co., a division of the country powerhouse Big Machine Label Group. It was a seeming acknowledgment that his most viable path forward would run through Nashville — or at least near it. And indeed, he is slowly homing in on a version of his hip-hop that’s structured more like contemporary country music. On “Break Up Song,” the guitars are fuller, and his rapping has less residue of Juice WRLD than his earlier songs. The laments are pure country, too: “I wiped your footprints off the window of my truck.” CARAMANICAFoy Vance, ‘Sapling’A songwriter from Northern Ireland who’s fond of vintage American soul music, Foy Vance has collaborated with Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys and Kacey Musgraves. On his own, he harks back to Van Morrison’s better days, grainy and impassioned. Many of his previous songs have been folky and rootsy, but “Sapling” deploys electronic illusions as well. He strives to draw benevolence out of his own imperfections and regrets — “Am I strong enough?” he wonders — as patient piano chords open into vast reverberations. PARELESOhGeesy featuring DaBaby, ‘Get Fly’A union of one of hip-hop’s most stoic rappers and one of its most excitable. In this partnership, OhGeesy (formerly of Shoreline Mafia) pulls DaBaby into his patient tempo, a surprise victory. CARAMANICAMasayoshi Fujita, ‘Morocco’“Morocco” is from the new album, “Bird Ambience,” by Masayoshi Fujita, a Japanese vibraphonist and composer who constructs meditative pieces with a Minimalistic pulse — layers of vibraphone lines with fleeting apparitions of percussion and sustained brass tones. Every layer is melodic; follow any one closely, and it turns out to be far less repetitive than it seems at first. PARELESDave Holland, ‘Gentle Warrior’On his new album, “Another Land,” the eminent bassist Dave Holland teams up with the guitarist (and former “Tonight Show” musical director) Kevin Eubanks, a longtime Holland confidante, and the drummer Obed Calvaire, a newer collaborator. Holland is a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master and former Miles Davis accompanist whose career has skipped around from jazz-rock fusion to the avant-garde, often lingering in the spaces in between. On “Gentle Warrior,” the one track on “Another Land” penned by Calvaire, the drummer works across the full range of his kit, getting his cymbals to speak to one another; Holland takes a bass solo that’s endowed with lyrical flair, and pries at the piece’s complex five-beat rhythm. RUSSONELLO More

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      Where Is Country Music Making Room for Women?

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      For the last several years, the obstacles female performers face in country music have been widely documented and discussed, yet conditions haven’t improved much. The genre favors a handful of big stars, and offers few opportunities for growth to younger ones.That said, recently some rising singers — Gabby Barrett, Carly Pearce, Ingrid Andress, Lainey Wilson — have found success on the historically inhospitable country radio airwaves. And TikTok has provided an avenue to getting heard that elides Nashville infrastructure altogether, allowing performers like Priscilla Block a side door to a wide fan base, and then a record deal.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the myriad ongoing barriers faced by women in the country music business, and the ways they are manifested in the music itself.Guests:Marissa Moss, co-author of the Don’t Rock the Inbox newsletter and author of a forthcoming book on women in country music, “Where Have All the Cowgirls Gone?”Natalie Weiner, co-author of the Don’t Rock the Inbox newsletter and writer about music for Billboard and others More