Biography
Born on 27 December 1933 in Elaine, Arkansas, John Hughey died on 18 November 2007 in Nashville, Tennessee. A Gene Autry flat-top guitar came into his possession at age nine, yet during adolescence he turned his attention to the steel guitar instead. His earliest professional affiliation was with the Phillips County Ramblers; later he replaced the drafted steel player in Slim Rhodes And Mother’s Best Mountaineers and remained with that group for fifteen years. Childhood acquaintance Conway Twitty crossed his path again in 1968, prompting Hughey to join Twitty’s band the Lonely Blue Boys, whose steel parts appeared on the singer’s debut US country chart-topper “Next In Line.” The Lonely Blue Boys later became the Twitty Birds and, for a period, also featured Hughey’s brother Gene. The distinctive “crying” tone of his instrument graced nearly every subsequent Conway Twitty hit, but by 1980 Hughey grew discontented: Twitty had transferred souvenir merchandising rights to an outside firm, eliminating the musicians’ royalty share, while simultaneously reducing the role of steel guitar in his arrangements. After several increasingly strained seasons, Hughey departed in 1988. He spent one year with Loretta Lynn’s band and later recorded with Vince Gill. Session credits include Elvis Presley’s From Elvis In Memphis and Back In Memphis, plus projects by Joe Diffie, Alan Jackson, Reba McEntire, Dean Martin, and Dolly Parton. He also performed and toured as a member of the Nashville session collective known as the Time Jumpers.