This Sunday the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville will correct a grievous oversight when it inducts the late Jack Clement, who wrote an early hit for Johnny Cash ("Ballad of a Teenage Queen"), effectively desegregated country music by adopting Charley Pride as a protege, and produced artists as stylistically far-flung as George Jones, Waylon Jennings, Crystal Gayle and U2. "Cowboy Jack" passed away in August at age 82, one of country music's most prolific and beloved figures. "To me Jack will always be the embodiment of the Nashville songwriter's love of the song, regardless of who the writer was," his friend Kris Kristofferson said.
Happily, the Hall will also induct Houston's own Kenny Rogers -- known to fans of Seinfeld and succulent slow-cooked poultry as the Roaster -- who is currently enjoying a late-career bump with new album You Can't Make Old Friends and freshly published first novel, What Are the Chances. "Detroit City" and "Tequila Sheila" singer Bobby Bare Sr. rounds out the Hall's Class of 2013, three men who... well, probably should have been in there a long time ago.
