Heartland Public Radio

It’s hard to believe it has been 2 years already! Heartland Public Radio is proud to announce the 2nd anniversary (on June 6th) of becoming the broadcast home of Ken Hippler’s Good ‘N Country. If you haven’t had the chance to check out Ken’s show yet, you really should give it a listen. You can find Ken’s show page by clicking here.

On this page you can find the broadcast schedule for the current episode of Good ‘N Country, and you can also listen to archives of his shows dating back to June 2020 – when Good ‘N Country first moved to HPR. Warning: These archives are addictive; budget your time wisely! 

Thank you, Ken Hippler, for your program and for bringing your knowledge of and your love for this music to HPR. We appreciate you, and we look forward to many more years of Good ‘N Country here on Heartland Public Radio.

Want to listen to HPR via your Amazon/Alexa device??? HPR now has its own FREE “skills” for Amazon/Alexa devices!

Visit our Smart Speakers page for details on how to enable our “skills” and start listening to HPR on your Amazon/Alexa device directly and without TuneIn Radio (and the commercials they like to play before our music starts).

As you probably know, HPR had a very successful 2022 Spring Fundraiser. We sincerely thank each and every one of you for supporting Heartland Public Radio. Without you, we could not continue these broadcasts.

Country music performers, musicians, and songwriters we said goodbye to in 2021:

January 1 – Misty Morgan (age 75)
(of Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan)

January 7 – Jamie O’Hara (age 70)
(singer/songwriter)

January 8 – Ed Bruce (age 81)
(actor/singer/songwriter)

January 14 – Larry Willoughby (age 73)
(singer/songwriter)

January 18 – Jimmie F. Rodgers (age 87)
(singer)

January 21 – Randy Parton (age 67)
(singer/songwriter-younger brother of Dolly Parton)

February 3 – Jim Weatherly (age 77)
(songwriter)

February 9 – Richie Albright (age 81)
(drummer for Waylon Jennings)

February 10 – Lee Sexton (age 92)
(banjo player)

April 14 – Rusty Young (age 75)
(singer/songwriter/guitarist/co-founder of country-rock group Poco)

May 19 – Johnny Ashcroft (age 94)
(Australian country singer)

May 22 – Glenn Douglas Tubb (age 85
(singer/songwriter/nephew of Ernest Tubb)

May 23 – DeWayne Blackwell (age 84)
(songwriter)

May 29 – B.J. Thomas (age 78)
(pop and country singer)

July 4 – Sanford Clark (age 85)
(rockabilly and country singer)

July 10 – Byron Berline (age 77)
(fiddler)

August 4 – Razzy Bailey (age 82
(singer/songwriter)

August 13 – Nanci Griffith (age 68
(singer/songwriter)

August 20 – Tom T. Hall (age 85
(singer/songwriter)

August 21 – Don Everly (age 84)
(of the Everly Brothers)

August 26 – Kenny Malone (age 83)
(drummer)

September 12 – Don Maddox (age 98)
(of the Maddox Brothers & Rose)

September 22 – Bob Moore (age 88)
(session bass player and bandleader)

September 23 – Sue Thompson (age 96)
(pop and country singer)

September 26 – George Frayne IV (age 77)
(singer & keyboard player of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen)

October 14 – Phil Leadbetter (age 59)
(resonator guitarist)

October 24 – Sonny Osborne (age 83)
(singer/banjo player of the Osborne Brothers)

October 26th – Rose Lee Maphis (age 98)
(singer/Bakersfield sound pioneer with husband Joe Maphis)

December 2 – Neil Flanz (age 83)
(steel guitarist)

December 4 – Stonewall Jackson (age 89)
(singer/Grand Ole Opry member)

December 10 – Michael Nesmith (age 78)
(rock & country-rock singer/songwriter)

December 23 – Ray “Chubby” Howard (age 95
(steel guitarist)

December 23 – Red Jenkins (Bjorn Raita) (age 74
(singer/songwriter)

December 24 – J.D. Crowe (age 84)
(bluegrass artist/banjo player)

special thanks to Ken Hippler for compiling this list

Join Good ‘N Country host Ken Hippler on Saturday, July 17, 2021, at 3 p.m. Central [2000 UTC] for a special presentation of Leon McAuliffe and the Texas Playboys. This presentation will feature a performance recorded live at the Longhorn in 1980 and originally carried on KRLD radio in Dallas, Texas. The performance was MC’d by the one and only Larry Scott.
When the legendary Longhorn Ballroom first opened in Dallas in 1950, it was originally called Bob Wills’ Ranch House, and Bob was the host of the sprawling 1900 capacity venue. In 1958, Dewey Groom took over and renamed it the Longhorn.

This special episode of Good ‘N Country will premiere on Saturday, July 17, 2021, at 3 p.m. Central [2000 UTC] on HPR1: Traditional Classic Country. It will then be rebroadcast on HPR 1 as follows:

Monday, July 19, 2021, at 10 p.m. Central [0300 UTC Tuesday]

Tuesday, July 20, 2021, at 7 p.m. Central [0000 UTC Wednesday]

Thursday, July 22, 2021, at 5 a.m. Central [1000 UTC]

This episode will also be made available on-demand on the Good ‘N Country show page. Please visit https//hpr.org.com/shows/goodncountry for more information.

We hope you will tune in and enjoy this special presentation. OH, and don’t forget your dancing shoes!

With thanks to one of our listeners, HPR has been made aware of some changes made by Google and our smart speaker streaming partner TuneIn. These changes affect the wording needed to make HPR’s channels play on all Google Smart Speakers. If you have any Google Smart Speakers, please visit our “Smart Speakers” page at hpr.org/smartspeakers and give the new commands a try.

At this time, all existing Amazon Alexa commands appear to be functioning properly.

Update: If you missed the broadcasts of this show, you can listen to it on-demand here: https://archive.org/details/good-n-country-2-27-2021

Felice and Bouleaux Bryant composed over 6,000 songs. Over 1,500 have been recorded in the pop, rock & roll, and country music fields. They were the first full-time songwriters in Nashville, and they changed music forever. “Good ‘N Country” with Ken Hippler celebrates their music on Saturday, February 27th at 3 PM central time [2100 UTC], including a 1983 interview by Archie Campbell. The program rebroadcasts Mondays at 10 PM, Tuesdays at 7 PM, and Thursdays at 5 AM on HPR1: Traditional Classic Country. We hope you will join us!

(Update 1/9/21): Join Ken Hippler for a tribute to the music of Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan on the Saturday, January 9, 2021 edition of “Good ‘N Country”. You can find broadcast times and days on the HPR Schedule page, and you can find out how to listen on-demand on the “Good ‘N Country” show page.

(Original Post): As many of you know by now, Misty Morgan passed away on January 1st from cancer at age 75. She and her husband Jack Blanchard were living a quiet, modest life in a mobile home and were of modest means for the last couple of decades.

Jack is coping with her loss the best he can under the circumstances.  A Go Fund Me page has been set up to help Jack with the funeral expenses. Please consider helping him out.

https://gofund.me/180e1d37

My humble thanks,

Ken Hippler – host of “Good ‘N Country“

Country music performers, musicians and songwriters we said goodbye to in 2020:

Chris Darrow – January 15th (age 75)
Paul English – February 12th (age 87)
Lindsay Lagestee – February 17th (age 25)
Jim Owen – March 7th (age 78)
Kenny Rogers – March 20th (age 81)
Eric Weissberg – March 22nd (age 80)
Jan Howard – March 28th (age 91)
Joe Diffie – March 29th (age 61)
John Prine – April 7th (age 73)
Gary McSpadden – April 15th (age 77)
Harold Reid – April 24th (age 80)
John Lancaster – May 1st (age 43)
Benny Garcia – May 9th (age 64)
Fuzzy Owen – May 11th (age 91)
Jimmy Capps – June 2nd (age 81)
James Hand – June 8th (age 67)
Charlie Daniels – July 6th (age 83)
Kenny Ingram – July 26th (age 67)
Randy Barlow – July 30th (age 77)
Bill Mack – July 31st (age 91)
Steve Gulley – August 18th (age 57)
Lucille Starr – September 4th (age 82)
Roy Head – September 21st (age 79)
W.S. Holland – September 23rd (age 85)
Mac Davis – September 29th (age 78)
Ray Pennington – October 7th (age 86)
Johnny Bush – October 17th (age 85)
Margie Bowes – October 22nd (age 79)
Jerry Jeff Walker – October 23rd (age 78)
Billy Joe Shaver – October 28th (age 81)
Doug Supernaw – November 13th (age 60)
Hal Ketchum – November 23rd (age 67)
Jimmy Rabbitt – November 25th (age 79)
Aaron Wilburn – November 27th (age 70)
Charley Pride – December 12th (age 86)
Jimmy Snyder – December 12th (age 86)
Carl Mann – December 16th (age 78)
K. T. Oslin – December 21st (age 78)
Tony Rice – December 25th (age 69)

(special thanks to Ken Hippler for compiling this list)

Updated: 12/26/2020

Heartland Public Radio has been struggling with difficulties with our internet connection during the past week. The problem was very bad this afternoon, Saturday, December 26th. Amazingly, the problem did not occur on Christmas Day, but it did occur during the day several times earlier this week.

Our internet service provider (who we will not name at this time) has been the subject of several complaints to the FCC, the Better Business Bureau, and the Missouri Attorney General by many different customers. One such complaint even made the local TV news in our area in October. This internet provider claims this recent problem is not something they can detect on their end. However, a glance at websites such as “Down Detector” and “Is the Service Down” clearly shows other customers are experiencing problems too.

Please rest assured that we here at HPR are doing everything in our power to come up with a sound solution to this problem should this internet provider not be able to solve this problem soon. Right now, there really is not a viable alternative for landline-based internet available to us. For now, we are stuck with this company.

In the meantime, we thank you for your patience and understanding.