Freddie Hart

Country music is full of rags-to-riches stories, but few took longer to unfold than Freddie Hart's -- his chart-topping hit "Easy Loving" arrived nearly 20 years into his recording career. Hart was born Fred Segrest on December 21, 1926, in Loachapoka, Alabama. He was one of 15 children from a poor sharecropper's family that struggled to provide enough food for its members, but shared a love of music and the Grand Ole Opry. Hart began playing guitar at the age of five, and joined the Civilian Conservation Corps at 12. He falsified his age to enlist in the Marines at the age ...