Garth Brooks, Connie Smith Named To Country Music Hall Of Fame

Let's give it up for Mr. Vegas!  Does this mean Garth is done touring on a large scale for good?  If I had to bet, I still think we will see Garth put the band together for an old-school, high energy tour soon rather than later.  If that happened, would you be excited to see Garth in concert?

Garth Brooks, Connie Smith and session musician Hargus "Pig" Robbins have been elected as the newest members of the Country Music Hall of Fame. The announcement was made Tuesday morning (March 6) at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.

Kix Brooks, late of Brooks & Dunn, introduced the inductees in front of an audience of reporters and music industry executives gathered in the rotunda of the Hall of Fame where the member plaques are displayed.

Robbins said he was honored to be following in the path of such other musician inductees as multi-instrumentalist Charlie McCoy, guitarist Harold Bradley and "my hero, [pianist] Floyd Cramer."

He recalled that at the outset of his career he spent $125 to join the musicians union, a move that got him a $41.25 session the same day. "I never worked again for three months," he lamented.

"This is a great honor, but I just had my eighth grandbaby" said Smith after her husband and fellow Grand Ole Opry star, Marty Stuart, escorted her to the podium.

Striking a more serious note, she continued, "Just to be in the company of the great Kitty Wells is enough." She pointed out that Wells had done so much to open up country music for women.

"It's kind of strange to me to be called a 'veteran,'" she said, referring to the category to which she was inducted. "I'm still learning."

In introducing Garth Brooks, Kix Brooks joked, "I'm convinced that half of the Brooks & Dunn albums sold were to people reaching for the other Brooks."

via CMT : News : Garth Brooks, Connie Smith Named to Country Music Hall of Fame.