Country singer Vern Gosdin died last night at 74. Even though he enjoyed great success as a solo artist in the '70s and '80s, his real contribution came with the Gosdin Brothers in California right before the '60s country-rock explosion.
With his brother Rex, Vern recorded backing vocals for "Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers," the lost classic 1966 album recorded by Clark right after he left the Byrds. The real breakthrough came with "Sounds of Goodbye," the Gosdin Brothers' album released in 1968 that featured future Byrd Clarence White on guitar. Check out "Hangin' On" above, a song that scraped the bottom of the country chart.
Read more about Vern Gosdin at CMT. Buy "Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers" at Amazon or iTunes. Buy "Sounds of Goodbye" at Amazon.
James Barber has written about music and movies for Slate, Blender, Good and AlltheMusicNews.com. He is also a record producer, band manager, music business technology consultant and was an A&R guy at Geffen/DGC Records (back in the 90s when that meant something). He has never been a celebrity chef in Canada, even though he gets a lot of internet fan mail for that guy.
![](http://images02.military.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail_large/public/2024-04/1time%20red%20o%27neill%20platoon%201200.jpg?itok=w-2J41Bh "John C. McGinley as Sgt. O'Neill in Oliver Stone's "Platoon." (Orion Pictures)")