The Nashville based Country Music Hall of Fame will be hosting a yearlong exhibit about Maine country singer and billboard hitmaker Dick Curless.
According to the Portland Press Herald, the exhibit, named “Dick Curless: Hard Traveling Man from Maine” opens Friday and closes February 7th, 2024. Country Music Hall of Fame member and musician Marty Stuart said: “There are a lot of kids out there who gravitate towards musicians who are authentic, and those are the kids who are going to discover Dick and love what he has to offer. He was from Maine, but his voice could take you out West or down South. He had a bluesy, soulful quality”.
Born in Fort Fairfield in 1932, Curless was a country singer who performed with the likes of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. His biggest commercial period was in the 60’s and 70’s with a lot of his songs hitting the Billboard Country Charts, but even after his commercial peak was over, he continued to make music until his death in 1995 from stomach cancer. His Maine upbringing was always tied to his music, with his biggest hit, “A Tombstone Every Mile”, being about a stretch of icy road in Aroostook County where truckers often crashed and went missing:
Down that stretch of road in Maine they call the Hangsville Woods
He’ll tell you that dying and going down below
Won’t be half as bad as driving on that road of ice and snow
That’s never, ever, ever seen a smile
If they buried all the truckers lost in them woods
There’d be a tombstone every mile.”
Curless’s family is also planning on donating around 1,000 pieces of memorabilia from Curless’s career, including books, guitars, posters, and are planning on releasing previously unheard music from a collection called “The Basement Tapes”.
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To read more about the exhibit itself, click here.
