Some musicians get confessional in their lyrics, but others wait until their final interview to open up. From Charlie Daniels' sage advice about finding your passion to Keith Whitley's honest discussion about his drinking, these country stars bared their souls before passing away.
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00:00Some musicians get confessional in their lyrics, but others wait until their final interview to
00:05open up. From Charlie Daniels' sage advice about finding your passion to Keith Whitley's honest
00:10discussion about his drinking, these country stars bared their souls before passing away.
00:15Kenny Rogers died of natural causes on March 20, 2020, at age 81. While the country star was
00:21getting up there in years, there was no reason to think he was giving one of his last print
00:24interviews when he spoke to Closer. The Gambler singer, who had been married five times, spoke
00:29about his current wife in the interview, telling the outlet,
00:32I think the years with Wanda have been the most rewarding. That's no offense to any of the other
00:36people I was married to. I just think I wasn't ready before." While it's unclear if the interview
00:41with Closer was the last time Rogers spoke to a print outlet, his appearance in Biography Kenny
00:45Rogers was his final on-camera interview. There, he talked about where his love of music came from,
00:50saying,
00:51My father played fiddle, and all his brothers and sisters played instruments.
00:55They would all get in the front porch and play, and all the family would sit out in the yard.
00:59The documentary also covered his childhood living in poverty. But as Rogers told Closer,
01:04even once he was well-off and successful, he still knew what really mattered.
01:08I've had a lot of things in my life. I've made loads of money and had the biggest and best of
01:12everything. But now I'm back to looking at the small things that matter. My boys. Wanda. It's
01:17not about me anymore. It's about them. There's a fine line between today and
01:23tomorrow. And I think the trick is to enjoy today and prepare for tomorrow.
01:27There are country stars and then there's Johnny Cash.
01:30The Man in Black was one of the biggest the genre ever saw. But Cash's life was far from
01:35charmed. His brother died young, he had a complicated first marriage and he underwent
01:40several arrests for misdemeanors, among other tragedies. However, Cash's second marriage to
01:45June Carter, who was a successful musician in her own right, was always held up as a beautiful
01:49love story. After June Carter's death in May of 2003, Cash recorded a series of songs,
01:55including an incredibly moving cover of Hurt by Nine Inch Nails.
01:59In 2003, Cash spoke to MTV's Kurt Loder about the songs, in what would be his final interview.
02:04In the interview, Cash said that while he normally disliked the process of making music videos,
02:08he enjoyed working on the one for Hurt.
02:11I felt we were doing something worthwhile.
02:13Those who watch the emotional video will remember Cash at home with the ghost of his late wife,
02:18as well as pictures and videos from their time together. And when Loder asked the singer about
02:22his long and sometimes controversial music career, Cash pointed to his heart and replied,
02:26You can't let people delegate to you what you should do when it's coming from way in here,
02:30you know? I wouldn't let anybody influence me into thinking I was doing the wrong thing by
02:34singing about death, hell and drugs. While Charlie Daniels had career highlights that
02:38included playing with Bob Dylan, his name will forever be connected to just one song,
02:43The Devil Went Down to Georgia. The song is such a big hit that even the biggest country
02:47music hater probably knows all the words. Additionally, the song's success dwarfs
02:51everything else in Daniels' decades-long career. In his later years, one of the things Daniels
02:56also became known for was his unabashedly right-wing political opinions. That said,
03:01it's not surprising that his final on-camera interview ended up being on Fox Nation's
03:05The Pursuit with John Rich. It was also a fitting final sit-down since Rich is a country star
03:10himself. In the interview, Daniels talked about his philosophy on life, growing older,
03:14and seizing the day. He told Rich,
03:17If you do something you don't like, if you're doing some kind of work you don't like,
03:20stop doing it. Find something you like to do or you're always gonna wonder why you didn't
03:24join the circus when it came through town. Freedom and pursuit of happiness go hand in
03:29hand together. Daniels died on July 6, 2020. He was 83 years old.
03:34Naomi Judd was the matriarch of a performing dynasty. With her daughter Wynonna, the Judds'
03:39greatest hits album spent a whopping 97 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart. Tragically, Judd died by
03:45suicide on April 30, 2022. She was 76. Judd gave what would end up being her final interview to
03:51CBS News. However, the singer also showed Inside Edition correspondent Megan Alexander around her
03:57home in Tennessee. Since she died before the segment was broadcast, Inside Edition only showed
04:02a couple of short snippets of Judd speaking. In the piece, Judd leaned in to say to the camera,
04:07You came to see me.
04:09In the same Inside Edition segment, Judd is shown walking across a field.
04:13She then points out the location of her daughter's homes.
04:16Ashley's right over this hill right there. Wynonna's over that hill right there.
04:20Other than some undistinguishable comments run underneath a voiceover by Alexander,
04:24that's all that was released of Judd's final interview. Instead, it was up to Alexander to
04:28fill the world in on everything else they had talked about, from Judd's many awards to her
04:32close relationship with her daughters. For such a major star, George Jones' final interview was
04:37surprisingly intimate. In 2013, a reporter from Country Weekly came with Jones to an event at his
04:43grandchild's school. It was there that Jones took questions from teenagers who were unknowingly the
04:48final people to interview the country legend. Jones covered topics as wide-ranging as his
04:53sobriety, aging, and the car crash that almost killed him in 1999. The most relevant information
04:58for the students was probably when Jones spoke about his history with music. He explained how
05:03he'd found a love for it as a child, telling the students, I'd take my guitar and hide it
05:07in the woods, and before I'd make it to the schoolhouse, I'd go back and get my guitar and
05:11sit by one of the trees and pick. The sort of music he loved then was still his favorite, even
05:16if the style had moved on. Jones added, These kids nowadays, they're liking this halfway pop rock
05:22stuff. I don't blame them. Everything changes every few years. But I'll always love the traditional
05:27country music. Jones also spoke about plans for a major concert that year with a huge lineup of
05:32guest stars. However, six months before the planned event, he was hospitalized. Jones died
05:37in April 2013 at the age of 81. As one of the few successful black country music stars in the 1960s,
05:44Charlie Pryde racked up numerous hit singles, scored huge record sales, and earned multiple
05:49Grammy Awards. In 2020, Pryde received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Country Music Awards.
05:55Backstage, he took questions from reporters in what would be his final interview.
05:59Pryde spoke about how the musician Chet Atkins saw his potential early on, saying,
06:03I learned so much from him. I'd only been in the studio about three times in my whole life when I
06:07met Atkins. He said, Charlie, these songs we're recording right now, you're going to be able to
06:11play them in 50 years, and they'll love them just as much as now. I said, 50 years? And when asked
06:17about which of his many songs was his favorite, Pryde replied, I'll tell you, and this is the
06:22truth, the one I'm singing in the moment. Tragically, exactly one month and one day after receiving that
06:28great honor from the CMAs, Pryde became one of the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. He died on
06:33December 12, 2020, at the age of 86. The new country movement in the 1980s had a rising star
06:40in Keith Whitley. While he was very successful for almost two decades before his death in 1989,
06:45the 34-year-old never got the chance to be as big as he could have. His cause of death
06:50was alcohol poisoning, which made the topics he covered in his final interview even more
06:54heartbreaking. Whitley told Country Music International about the dangers of finding
06:58success as a teenager, saying, I was just 15 years old and I was being treated like a star.
07:03The demands of touring contributed to his addiction issues. Whitley added,
07:07The road work was real tough. We had to stay in cheap motels, four or five to a room,
07:12and often we'd travel for 500 or 600 miles between dates. I guess that was when I started to drink.
07:17We all did, but when I hit that bottle, I didn't stop until it was all gone.
07:22The musician said his drinking kept his career from moving to the next stage more than once.
07:26He admitted to the outlet, Every time I'd get close to something happening, I'd get drunk.
07:30It took me a long time to realize that my drinking had become a problem.
07:34Ray Price was very aware his time was coming to a close when he gave his final interview
07:38to Rolling Stone in December 2013. He'd been fighting cancer for years, but had decided
07:44to enter hospice care. In a farewell message to his fans, Price said he was at peace with dying.
07:49However, that didn't mean the process was easy. He told the outlet,
07:52It's been pretty tough. I haven't been able to work all year.
07:55Just laying in bed that long makes everybody weak, no matter how old or young you are.
08:00Price looked back on his career, where he'd learned from the likes of Hank Williams.
08:04He also had several men in his own band who went on to become big stars, like Willie Nelson.
08:08Price reflected, I've been lucky, in a way. All of my boys were great players.
08:13You can't be a great player if you don't have a great heart. If you ain't doing it for the people,
08:17you're doing it for something else. Talking about his long relationship with Nelson,
08:21Price said, We're sort of like brothers in a way. We always help each other out when we can.
08:26But while others heaped praise on him, Price was humble about his success,
08:30telling Rolling Stone, I don't really think of it that way. I just like what I've done
08:33and how it's worked out. It's been great. I haven't lost my voice. Thank God for that.
08:38Ray Price died on December 16, 2013. He was 87.
08:43While many people who are familiar with Leslie Jordan probably know him as a scene-stealing
08:47character actor from shows like Will & Grace and American Horror Story, he also found success
08:51later in life as a country star. This will be the first time that I have sung in front of people
08:55since I was 10 years old. Jordan gave what would be his final TV interview to CBS Mornings.
09:00In the interview, he explained how this shocking turn of events came about.
09:04Social media combined with people in lockdown during the pandemic. Jordan said,
09:08I had a Sunday Instagram hymn singing, where we would just sing these old hymns that I grew up
09:13with. And people started tuning in. And so somehow from that, we decided to make an album.
09:17When asked if he ever saw something like this happening, Jordan said no. He then added,
09:22So unexpected just to happen, you know, in my 60s. But he was clearly enjoying himself.
09:28Jordan also appreciated how he wasn't being pigeonholed into a certain role in music,
09:32which had long been his experience in Hollywood. He told CBS Mornings,
09:36I'm a country music singer now. I love Nashville and the way that Nashville embraced me and to be
09:40taken kind of serious. And to have made an album with Dolly Parton, Chris Stapleton,
09:44Randy Carlyle, you know, that's something. Tragically, Jordan died in a car accident
09:48on October 24, 2022. He was 67. If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues,
09:55help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website
10:00or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP. That's 1-800-662-4357.
10:10you