PoliticalGraveyard.com

Music and Dance Politicians in Tennessee

Roy Claxton Acuff (1903-1992) — also known as Roy Acuff; "The King of Country Music" — of Clarksville, Montgomery County, Tenn. Born in Maynardville, Union County, Tenn., September 15, 1903. Republican. Country musician; co-founder of Acuff-Rose Publication Company, the first country music publishing house; appeared in seven Hollywood movies in the 1940s; owner and operator of Dunbar Cave Hotel near Nashville; candidate for Governor of Tennessee, 1948; delegate to Republican National Convention from Tennessee, 1960. Elected to Country Music Hall of Fame, 1962. Died, of congestive heart failure, in Nashville, Davidson County, Tenn., November 23, 1992 (age 89 years, 69 days). Interment at Spring Hill Cemetery, Nashville, Tenn.   Relatives: Son of Simon E. Neill Acuff and Ida (Carr) Acuff; grandson of Coram Acuff; second cousin once removed of Juddson Thomas Acuff.   Political family: Acuff family of Maynardville, Tennessee.   See also Wikipedia article — NNDB dossier — Internet Movie Database profile — Find-A-Grave memorial   Books about Roy Acuff: Elizabeth Schlappi, Roy Acuff: The Smoky Mountain Boy   Francis Lester Bowron — also known as Les Bowron — of Wyoming; Nashville, Davidson County, Tenn. Republican. Lawyer; country music songwriter; member of Wyoming state house of representatives, 1990. Still living as of 2004.   Relatives: Son of Francis Lloyd Bowron; nephew of Sara Bowron.   Political family: Bowron family of Casper, Wyoming.   Michael Curb (b. 1944) — also known as Mike Curb — of California; Nashville, Davidson County, Tenn. Born in Savannah, Chatham County, Ga., December 24, 1944. Republican. Musician; record company executive; race car owner; member of Republican National Committee from California, 1977; Lieutenant Governor of California, 1979-83; defeated, 1986; candidate for Governor of California, 1982. In 2003, he was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Still living as of 2014.   Relatives: Married to Linda Dunphy.   The Curb Event Center arena, at Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee, is named for him.   See also Wikipedia article — NNDB dossier — Internet Movie Database profile   Aretha Louise Franklin (1942-2018) — also known as Aretha Franklin; "Queen of Soul" — of Detroit, Wayne County, Mich. Born in Memphis, Shelby County, Tenn., March 25, 1942. Democrat. Singer; performed, Democratic National Convention, 1968 ; inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1987; received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. Female. Died, from pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, in Detroit, Wayne County, Mich., August 16, 2018 (age 76 years, 144 days). Entombed in mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery, Detroit, Mich.   Relatives: Daughter of Rev. Clarence LeVaughn Franklin and Barbara Vernice (Siggers) Franklin; married 1961 to Ted White; married, April 11, 1978, to Glynn Turman.   See also Wikipedia article — Find-A-Grave memorial   Willie Gathrel Hefner (1930-2009) — also known as W. G. 'Bill' Hefner — of Concord, Cabarrus County, N.C. Born in Elora, Lincoln County, Tenn., April 11, 1930. Democrat. Owner and president, radio station WRKB, Kannapolis, N.C.; Gospel music singer with Harvester's Quartet, 1954-67; television performer; U.S. Representative from North Carolina 8th District, 1975-99; delegate to Democratic National Convention from North Carolina, 1996. Baptist. Died September 2, 2009 (age 79 years, 144 days). Burial location unknown.   See also congressional biography — Govtrack.us page — NNDB dossier

"Enjoy the hospitable entertainment of a political graveyard." Henry L. Clinton, Apollo Hall, New York City, February 3, 1872

The Political Graveyard is a web site about U.S. political history and cemeteries. Founded in 1996, it is the Internet's most comprehensive free source for American political biography, listing 320,919 politicians, living and dead.
	The coverage of this site includes (1) the President, Vice President, members of Congress, elected state and territorial officeholders in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories; and the chief elected official, typically the mayor, of qualifying municipalities; (2) candidates at election, including primaries, for any of the above; (3) all federal judges and all state appellate judges; (4) certain federal officials, including the federal cabinet, diplomatic chiefs of mission, consuls, U.S. district attorneys, collectors of customs and internal revenue, members of major federal commissions; and political appointee (pre-1969) postmasters of qualifying communities; (5) state and national political party officials, including delegates, alternate delegates, and other participants in national party nominating conventions; (6) Americans who served as "honorary" consuls for other nations before 1950. Note: municipalities or communities "qualify", for Political Graveyard purposes, if they have at least half a million person-years of history, inclusive of predecessor, successor, and merged entities.
	The listings are incomplete; development of the database is a continually ongoing project.
	Information on this page — and on all other pages of this site — is believed to be accurate, but is not guaranteed. Users are advised to check with other sources before relying on any information here.
	The official URL for this page is: https://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/TN/music.html.
	Links to this or any other Political Graveyard page are welcome, but specific page addresses may sometimes change as the site develops.
	If you are searching for a specific named individual, try the alphabetical index of politicians.
Copyright notices: (1) Facts are not subject to copyright; see Feist v. Rural Telephone. (2) Politician portraits displayed on this site are 70-pixel-wide monochrome thumbnail images, which I believe to constitute fair use under applicable copyright law. Where possible, each image is linked to its online source. However, requests from owners of copyrighted images to delete them from this site are honored. (3) Original material, programming, selection and arrangement are © 1996-2023 Lawrence Kestenbaum. (4) This work is also licensed for free non-commercial re-use, with attribution, under a Creative Commons License.
Site information: The Political Graveyard is created and maintained by Lawrence Kestenbaum, who is solely responsible for its structure and content. — The mailing address is The Political Graveyard, P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106. — This site is hosted by HDL. — The Political Graveyard opened on July 1, 1996; the last full revision was done on March 8, 2023.