Live fast, love hard

As one of the best-known honky-tonkers to appear in the wake of Hank Williams's death, Faron Young was a popular presence on Nashville's music scene for more than four decades. The Singing Sheriff produced a string of Top Ten hits, placed more than eighty songs on the country music charts, and founded the long-running country music periodical Music City News in 1963. Flamboyant, impulsive and generous, he helped and encouraged a new generation of talented songwriter-performers that included Willie Nelson and Bill Anderson.