Cowboy Copas

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, Cow...