Cowboy Copas

All Music Guide:

A honky tonk singer popular in the late '40s, Cowboy Copas made something of a comeback in the early '60s before he died in the air crash that also killed Patsy Cline and Hawkshaw Hawkins. Born Lloyd Estel Copas on July 15, 1913, he dropped out of school at the age of 14 and began playing fiddle in several string bands around his Ohio home. On a dare, Copas traveled to Cincinnati to enter a contest, and wound up performing on radio shows for Cincinnati's WLW and later WKRC. By 1940, Copas moved to WNOX-Knoxville with a band called the Gold Star Rangers.

Three years later, Cowboy Copas got his big break: He was tapped to replace Eddy Arnold as the vocalist for Pee Wee King's Golden West Cowboys on WSM-Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry. He signed with King Records in 1946, and his debut single, "Filipino Baby," hit number four on the country charts that August. Two years later, Copas was back in the Top Ten with "Signed, Sealed and Delivered" (number two), "Tennessee Waltz" (number three), and "Tennessee Moon" (number seven). He also continued to perform with Pee Wee King on the Opry, recording a hit version of "Tennessee Waltz."

After the Top 20 singles "Breeze" and "I'm Waltzing With Tears in My Eyes," Copas hit the Top Ten again in early 1949. "Candy Kisses" peaked at number five, "Hangman's Boogie" reached number 14, and "The Strange Little Girl" hit number five. His next single, 1952's "'Tis Sweet to Be Remembered," hit number eight, but it was his last chart entry for more than eight years. His King contract expired in 1955, and a brief time with the Dot label also failed.

During the late '50s, Copas bided his time on the Opry, and he finally signed to Starday in 1960. His first single for the label, "Alabam," became the biggest of his career when it captured country's pole position for three months during the last half of 1960. "Flat Top" hit the Top Ten in April 1961, and a remake of his early hit "Signed, Sealed and Delivered" also reached the Top Ten in September. A year and a half later, Copas was returning to Nashville from a benefit show in Kansas City when his private plane went down, killing him, Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and Copas' son-in-law, pilot Randy Hughes. Cowboy Copas' last single, "Goodbye Kisses," hit the Top 15 one month after his death.

Wikipedia:

Lloyd Estel Copas (July 15, 1913 – March 5, 1963), known by his stage name Cowboy Copas, was an American country music singer popular from the 1940s until his death in the 1963 plane crash that also killed country stars Patsy Cline and Hawkshaw Hawkins. He was a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

Biography

Copas was born in 1913 in Jefferson Township in Adams County, Ohio. He began performing locally at age 14, and appeared on WLW-AM and WKRC-AM in Cincinnati during the 1930s. In 1940 he moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he performed on WNOX-AM with his band, the Gold Star Rangers.

In 1943, Copas achieved national fame when he replaced Eddy Arnold as a vocalist in the Pee Wee King band and began performing on the Grand Ole Opry. His first solo single, "Filipino Baby", released by King Records in 1946, hit No. 4 on the Billboard country chart and sparked the most successful period of his career.

While continuing to appear on the Opry, Copas recorded several other hits during the late 1940s and early 1950s, including "Signed, Sealed and Delivered", "The Tennessee Waltz", "Tennessee Moon", "Breeze", "I'm Waltzing with Tears in My Eyes", "Candy Kisses", "Hangman's Boogie", and "The Strange Little Girl". Copas' 1952 single, "'Tis Sweet to Be Remembered", reached No. 8 on the Billboard country chart, but it was his final top 40 hit for eight years.

Although Copas didn't maintain his stellar popularity of the late 1940s through the next decade, he continued to perform regularly at the Grand Ole Opry and appeared on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee. After a lackluster partnership with Dot Records, Copas surged to the top of the charts again in 1960 with the biggest hit of his career, "Alabam", which remained number one for three months. Other major hits during his successful period with Starday Records in the early 1960s, including "Flat Top" and a remake of "Signed, Sealed And Delivered", held promising implications for the future of his career.

Aircraft accident

On March 3, 1963, Copas, Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins and others performed at a benefit concert at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas for the family of disc jockey Cactus Jack Call, who had died the previous December in an automobile accident.

On March 5, they left for Nashville in a Piper Comanche piloted by Copas' son-in-law (and Cline's manager), Randy Hughes. After stopping to refuel in Dyersburg, Tennessee, the craft took off at 6:07 p.m. CT. The plane flew into severe weather and crashed at 6:20 p.m. in a forest near Camden, Tennessee, 90 miles from the destination. There were no survivors. A stone marker, dedicated on July 6, 1996, marks the location of the crash.

Copas was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in Goodlettsville, Tennessee in "Music Row" with Hawkins and other country music stars.