Roy Drusky

Roy Drusky, the country performer frequently likened to Perry Como, carved out a string of successes across the 1960s within the polished Nashville sound framework. Born on June 22, 1930, in Atlanta, Georgia, he grew up under the musical guidance of his mother, a church organist who spent years urging him toward music; even so, athletic pursuits absorbed nearly all of his boyhood attention. Only while completing a two-year enlistment in the U.S. Navy did he purchase his first guitar, after which he promptly began entertaining fellow sailors.

Following his discharge, Drusky resumed college studies and made an unsuccessful attempt to join baseball’s Cleveland Indians. In 1951 he assembled his initial group, the Southern Ranch Boys, whose victory on a Decatur, Georgia, radio talent contest secured him a DJ position that quickly built a loyal audience. He kept performing in area venues once the band disbanded, and the 1953 release “Such a Fool” earned him a Columbia Records contract in 1955.

Relocating to Minneapolis to pursue radio work, Drusky soon headlined at the Twin Cities’ renowned Flame Club, where reports of his ability reached Nashville. Consequently Faron Young cut Drusky’s composition “Alone With You” in 1958, producing Young’s career-topping single that held the summit for thirteen weeks. Drusky himself then settled in Nashville, where 1960 brought consecutive Top Five singles in the honky-tonk ballads “Another” and “Anymore,” prompting an invitation to the Grand Ole Opry; that same year he scored a hit duet with Kitty Wells titled “I Can’t Tell My Heart That.”

The year 1961 yielded the two-sided success “I’d Rather Loan You Out”/“Three Hearts in a Tangle” and his debut album, Anymore With Roy Drusky. In 1962 he returned to the Top Ten with “Second Hand Rose,” featured on the album It’s My Way. Chart entries continued through the first half of the decade, culminating in 1965 with his solitary number-one single, “Yes, Mr. Peters.” Two further LPs appeared in 1964: Songs of the Cities and Yesterday’s Gone. Drusky made his screen debut that year in White Lightnin’ Express and performed its title song; he later appeared in The Golden Guitar and Forty Acre Feud. Midway through the decade he also began duet sessions with singer Priscilla Mitchell, resulting in the 1965 album Love’s Eternal Triangle and Together Again in 1966. Concurrently he took on production duties for artists including Pete Sayers and Brenda Byers.

Drusky’s recording momentum diminished after 1965; of the eleven chart singles issued between 1966 and 1969, merely “Where the Blue and Lonely Go” and “Such a Fool” reached the Top Ten. A brief resurgence arrived early the following decade when 1970’s “Long Long Texas Road,” drawn from All My Hard Times, became his first Top Five entry in six years—and his final one. As evolving tastes eclipsed his style of country, subsequent releases found diminishing returns; after issuing the 1976 albums This Life of Mine and Night Flying, he concentrated on songwriting and production. A decade of recording silence followed until the early 1990s, when he reemerged as a country-inflected gospel balladeer. Roy Drusky died on September 23, 2004.