{"id":1302509,"date":"2019-01-16T17:39:09","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T00:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1802301"},"modified":"2019-01-16T17:39:09","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T00:39:09","slug":"honky-tonk-heroes-remembered-on-the-steel-woods-old-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/music-news\/honky-tonk-heroes-remembered-on-the-steel-woods-old-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Honky-Tonk Heroes Remembered on The Steel Woods\u2019 Old News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Lauren Tingle<\/a><\/span> 22m ago<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

There is a Nashville underground honky-tonk troubadour that forever connects the Steels Woods with Brent Cobb<\/a>, Dierks Bentley<\/a>, Blake Shelton<\/a> and many others.<\/p>\n

Wayne Mills, an Alabaman who hosted Nashville\u2019s roaming songwriter round the Alabama Line, gave them all their first opportunities to perform on a local stage. The Steel Woods\u2019 Jason \u201cRowdy\u201d Cope was with Mills on the last night of his life.<\/p>\n

Backstage at the Bridgestone Arena on Nov. 23, 2013, the night of the George Jones tribute concert, was the No. 1 place to be for anyone having anything to do with country music.<\/p>\n

George Strait, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton and others performed throughout the night in what was intended to be Jones\u2019 retirement show. But Mills and Cope were backstage to take advantage of the free chicken at catering.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took us an hour to get to that catering room because he got pulled six ways from Sunday by Dierks Bentley going, \u2018Man, remember when you did this thing for me?\u2019 and Blake Shelton going, \u2018He pulled me up onstage when I first came to town,\u2019\u201d Cope recalls. \u201cHe put a lot of people onstage for the first time when they came to Nashville. If you were from Alabama, Wayne Mills was a hero to you as a musician.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cope was with Jamey Johnson on a bus to their next show in Mississippi when Mills was shot by a gunman later that evening at the downtown bar, the Pit and Barrel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all loved that man,\u201d Cope says. \u201cHe had a lot of friends here in town, and his life was tragically cut short. But his music will never die.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Steel Woods eulogize Mills by recording the Wayne Mills Band\u2019s \u201cOne of These Days<\/a>\u201d for Old News<\/em>, the band\u2019s newest album arriving Friday (Jan. 18). It\u2019s one of the album\u2019s four moving tributes remembering impactful artists who have died recently, including Tom Petty, Merle Haggard and Gregg Allman.<\/p>\n

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