Maine Country Music Hall of Fame
Photo: The Hansen Family
Nashville may be known as the Country Music Capital of the World, but in 1938 a Bangor radio station was the first to broadcast a country music radio show that reached listeners from coast to coast. Hal “Lone Pine” Breau’s WABI program was broadcast nationally on the ABC network a year before the Grand Ole Opry’s first network broadcast, helping Bangor to earn the nickname “Nashville of the North.”
Country music found an enthusiastic audience in Maine, where people could relate to story-songs about hard physical work, heartbreak, economic struggle, family, and faith. And because of radio, Maine’s country music and bluegrass singers and musicians went from playing at local grange halls to national tours.
First among those were Hal “Lone Pine” Breau and Rita Cote, who used the stage name Betty Cody. The husband-and-wife duo and their band’s popularity in New England and Canada caught the eye of RCA Records. During their years with RCA, they recorded and toured with national stars such as Hank Snow and Chet Atkins, who would later say that the Breaus’ son, Lenny, whose country music roots led to a jazz career, was “the greatest guitarist who ever walked the face of the earth.”
But it was Dick Curless who became the state’s most famous country music performer. Best remembered for his 1965 hit about potato truck drivers traversing the icy and treacherous Haynesville Road (Route 2A) in Aroostook County, he toured nationally with the Buck Owens All American Show and had more than 20 songs on Billboard’s country music charts.
Curless and Rita Cote and Hal Breau and their sons Lenny and Denny are among the more than 170 Maine country and bluegrass musicians, songwriters, broadcasters, and promoters celebrated and remembered today at the Maine Country Music Hall of Fame.
Created in 1978, the Maine Country Music Hall of Fame’s first inductees were Dick Curless, Ken MacKenzie, and Hal “Lone Pine” Breau. Today at its museum in Mechanic Falls, exhibits display the original Allagash Records pressing of Curless’s “A Tombstone Every Mile” and the rhinestone stage outfits worn and sometimes even sewn by performers, but the Maine Country Music Hall of Fame isn’t just about country music memorabilia. Beginning in 2022, it launched its Maine High School Student Guitar Competition to ensure the state’s classic country music tradition is carried on. Winners receive a Martin guitar, and best of all, perform on stage alongside Hall of Fame inductees.
Author: Stephanie Bouchard
