Posted 11:48 pm Saturday, December 31, 2011
East Texas Lone Stars Burning Bright In 2011
By STEWART SMITH
Entertainment Editor
East Texas isn't immediately known for its celebrities and music stars, but 2011 was an impressive year by any standard for the entertainers who still proudly lay claim to their regional roots around these parts.
Entertainment Editor
East Texas isn't immediately known for its celebrities and music stars, but 2011 was an impressive year by any standard for the entertainers who still proudly lay claim to their regional roots around these parts.
Curtis Grimes
It wasn't so long ago (only four years to be precise) that Gilmer native Curtis Grimes was a college baseball pitcher. Now he's touring the state and region as a singer/songwriter after being a longstanding contestant on NBC's “The Voice.” Grimes recently released his first EP, “Doin' My Time.” Grimes also was one of the performers at this year's Festival on the Square in downtown Tyler.
Carl Gardner
As lead singer of The Coasters, Tyler native Carl Gardner provided the vocal energy behind fun-filled, toe-tapping hits including “Down in Mexico,” “Young Blood,” “Along Came Jones,” “Charlie Brown” and “Yakety Yak.”
He died at age 83 on June 12 in Florida.
Gardner was born in Tyler on April 29, 1928. He wrote in his autobiography, “Yakety Yak, I Fought Back,” that his father, Robert, was a hotel bellman and he gained his talent for singing from his mother, Rebecca.
Gardner would go on to found The Coasters, which in its heyday, included Billy Guy, Will Jones, Cornell Gunter and Adolph Jacobs
In later years, Gardner fought against copycat bands that claimed to be The Coasters but had no ties with the original group or legal rights to use the name.
He died at age 83 on June 12 in Florida.
Gardner was born in Tyler on April 29, 1928. He wrote in his autobiography, “Yakety Yak, I Fought Back,” that his father, Robert, was a hotel bellman and he gained his talent for singing from his mother, Rebecca.
Gardner would go on to found The Coasters, which in its heyday, included Billy Guy, Will Jones, Cornell Gunter and Adolph Jacobs
In later years, Gardner fought against copycat bands that claimed to be The Coasters but had no ties with the original group or legal rights to use the name.
Hoss Huggins
Lanny Hoss Huggins made history this year when he was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. For several decades, Huggins has delighted country music fans as a performer around East Texas, but he got his start as a radio disc jockey when he was a teenager. He began his radio career in Paris with a show that aired on Saturday mornings. He would go on to work for multiple radio stations around Tyler in a career that would have him crossing paths with some of the biggest names in country music, including Porter Waggoner, Dolly Parton and the Oak Ridge Boys. Other inductees into the Texas Radio Hall of fame have included Willie Nelson, Walter Cronkite and George Carlin.
Miranda Lambert
2011 proved to be one of the best years of Lindale native Miranda Lambert's life, as she released a Billboard chart-topping record with “Four the Record,” released another Billboard chart-topping record with her side project Pistol Annies (alongside Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley) and got married to fellow country singer Blake Shelton. In addition, she would also receive a plethora of award nominations, many of which were for her hit song “The House That Built Me,” which recalls her time growing up in Lindale.
Lambert would win many of them, with her crowning achievement being the acquisition of her first-ever Grammy Award for “Best Female Vocal Performance.”
Lambert would win many of them, with her crowning achievement being the acquisition of her first-ever Grammy Award for “Best Female Vocal Performance.”
Margo Martindale
Jacksonville native Margo Martindale has quietly been making a name for herself as one of the most reliable character actors working in Hollywood. She's had roles in films by Alexander Payne and Clint Eastwood and has even received a Tony Award nomination during her Broadway debut in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” But it wasn't until she took on the role of Mags Bennett in the FX series “Justified” that she made critics and audiences sit up and take wide-eyed notice of her. As the matriarch of a backwoods mafia, the role of Mags Bennett required Martindale to bare her teeth, so to speak, in a way she'd never done before.
The result was a career-defining performance that ultimately earned her an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.”
The result was a career-defining performance that ultimately earned her an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.”
