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Billy Edd Wheeler

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Birth name
  
Billy Edward Wheeler

Role
  
Songwriter

Name
  
Billy Wheeler


Years active
  
1964–2012

Instruments
  
Guitar

Genres
  
Folk music, Country

Billy Edd Wheeler wwwbillyeddwheelercombillyshedgif

Born
  
December 9, 1932 (age 91) (
1932-12-09
)

Origin
  
Whitesville, West Virginia

Occupation(s)
  
Singer-songwriter, Playwright

Albums
  
A New Bag of Songs, Paper Birds, Billy Edd USA, Country Essentials

Education
  
Berea College, Warren Wilson College

Record labels
  
Kapp Records, RCA Records, United Artists Records

Similar People
  
Roger Bowling, Loyal Jones, June Carter Cash, Jerry Leiber, Shelly Manne

Billy edd wheeler fried chicken and a country tune 1969 rare country songs


Billy Edward "Edd" Wheeler (born December 9, 1932, Boone County, West Virginia) is an American songwriter, performer, writer, and visual artist.

Contents

Billy Edd Wheeler httpsiytimgcomvi959QrJ4gYDchqdefaultjpg

His songs include "Jackson" (Grammy award winner for Johnny Cash and June Carter) "The Reverend Mr. Black", "Desert Pete", "Ann", "High Flyin' Bird", "The Coming of the Roads", "It’s Midnight", "Ode to the Little Brown Shack Out Back", "Coal Tattoo", "Winter Sky", and "Coward of the County" (which inspired a 1981 television movie of the same name) and have been performed by over 160 artists including Judy Collins, Jefferson Airplane, Bobby Darin, The Kingston Trio, Neil Young, Kenny Rogers, Hazel Dickens, Florence and the Machine, Kathy Mattea, Nancy Sinatra, and Elvis Presley. "Jackson" was also recorded by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon for the movie Walk the Line. His song "Sassafras" was covered in the folk rock era by Modern Folk Quartet and The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band.

Wheeler is the author-composer of eight plays and musicals, a folk opera (Song of the Cumberland Gap), commissioned by the National Geographic Society, and three outdoor dramas: the long-running Hatfields & McCoys at Beckley, West Virginia, Young Abe Lincoln at Lincoln City, Indiana, and Johnny Appleseed, at Mansfield, Ohio. He has authored six books of humor, four with Loyal Jones of Berea, Kentucky: Laughter in Appalachia, Hometown Humor USA, Curing the Cross-Eyed Mule, and More Laughter in Appalachia, and two as sole author: Outhouse Humor, and Real Country Humor / Jokes from Country Music Personalities. His first novel, Star of Appalachia, was published in January, 2004, and his second, co-written with Ewel Cornett, Kudzu Covers Manhattan, in 2005. Song of a Woods Colt, a book of poetry, was published in 1969. Travis and Other Poems of the Swannanoa Valley (With Some Poems and Prayers by Dr. Henry W. Jensen) was published in 1977. He was the featured author in Appalachian Heritage magazine’s 2008 winter issue, which included 16 of his original paintings. North Carolina’s Our State magazine featured him in its December, 2007 issue.

Billy edd wheeler sassafras


Biography

He was born on December 9, 1932. Wheeler graduated from Warren Wilson College in 1953, and Berea College in 1955. After service as a student pilot in the Navy, he served as Alumni Director of Berea College, and from 1961 to 1962 he attended the Yale School of Drama, majoring in playwriting. He is married to the former Mary Mitchell Bannerman. They have two adult children, Lucy and Travis, and live in Swannanoa, North Carolina.

Awards

Wheeler was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001, the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2007, and the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2011. He received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from his two alma maters: Berea College in 2004, and Warren Wilson College in 2011.

He has received 13 awards from ASCAP, the “Best Appalachian Poetry” from Morris Harvey College, and Billboard Magazine’s “Pacesetter Award for Music and Drama". In June, 2005, Country Music Television voted "Jackson" one of the Ten Greatest Love Songs of Country Music.

References

Billy Edd Wheeler Wikipedia