Photo: Pete Wade | By Bill Friskics-Warren, New York Times | Pete Wade, a prolific and versatile Nashville studio guitarist who played on scores of blockbuster hits — including Ray Price’s “Crazy Arms” and Sonny James’s “Young Love,” two of the most popular country records of the middle to late 1950s — died on Wednesday at his daughter’s home in Hendersonville, Tenn., near Nashville. He was 89.
His daughter, Angie Balch, said the cause was complications of hip surgery.
A member of the loose aggregation of top-flight session musicians known as the Nashville A-Team, Mr. Wade played on numerous records regarded as classics. Among the best known were Loretta Lynn’s “Fist City” (1968), Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden” (1970), Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” (1977), George Jones’s “He Stopped Loving Her Today” (1980) and John Anderson’s “Swingin’” (1983).
All five of those records were No. 1 country hits; “Brown Eyes” and “Rose Garden” also won Grammy Awards and crossed over to the pop Top 10. “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” another Grammy winner, was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2008.
“Pete Wade treated all of them the same way,” the music journalist Peter Cooper said, referring to the many artists Mr. Wade accompanied, at an event celebrating his legacy at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 2016. “He listened, he comprehended, he added what would help, and he left out anything that would distract or water down.”
An empathetic musician whose clean tone and less-is-more approach lent themselves equally to rhythm and lead playing, Mr. Wade, who also played fiddle, bass and steel guitar, had a special affinity for collaborating with steel guitarists.
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As the lead guitarist on “Young Love,” Mr. Wade played the song’s lilting melody line, helping to establish the pop-leaning approach that, as heard on recordings of similar vintage by Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline, became known as the Nashville Sound.
“Young Love” was No. 1 on the country chart for nine weeks in 1957. For one week, it also topped the pop chart.
In his decades as a studio musician, Mr. Wade worked with Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley, Billy Sherrill and every other major producer in Nashville, a testament to both his even temperament and his adaptability as a guitarist. He also backed a broad array of non-country artists, among them Julie Andrews, Joan Baez, Perry Como, Little Richard and Dinah Shore.
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Read more about Mr. Wade’s accomplishments here (this man was SO talented):
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/pete-wade-guitarist-on-countless-nashville-hits-dies-at-89/
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OTHER NOTABLE MUSICIANS’ DEATHS
Warning Signs of Suicide – National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or if you want to discuss, call the old numbers at 800-273-TALK or 800-273-8255 for English and 888-628-9454 for Spanish. Learn the signs of someone who may be contemplating suicide.
If you want to know more about any of the musicians we lost, please check them out at http://www.wikipedia.com
September 2024
4: Bora Đorđević, 71, Serbian singer-songwriter (Riblja Čorba), pneumonia.
3: Göran Fristorp, 76, Swedish singer and songwriter (Malta).
2: James Darren, 88, American singer (“Goodbye Cruel World”) and actor (Gidget, T. J. Hooker); Peter Kubik, 49, Austrian guitarist (Abigor), suicide; Pat Lewis, 76, American soul singer; Vladimir Turiyansky, 89, Russian poet and composer.
1: Mike Billard, 60, Canadian jazz drummer (Jeff Johnston Trio); Teresa Bright, 64, American guitarist and ukulele player.
August 2024
31: Jessica Mbangeni, 47, South African imbongi and singer; Phil Swern, 76, English radio producer (Sounds of the 60s, Pick of the Pops).
30: Fatman Scoop, 56, American rapper (“Be Faithful”, “Lose Control”, “It’s Like That”); Danielle Moore, 52, English musician (Crazy P).; Cunnie Williams, 61, American R&B singer.
29: Miroslav Bázlik [sk], 93, Slovak composer, pianist and mathematician; James Tyler, 72, American luthier, interstitial lung disease.
28: Lencho Salazar, 92, Costa Rican folk musician, heart failure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2024