On a quiet Nashville spring day a 74 year old man who had survived two strokes and a heart bypass knelt in his driveway working on his tour bus. His name was Vern Gosdin but the country music world knew him by a different title The Voice. Three weeks later he was gone but the bus had never moved. The only thing that had moved was Vern Gosdin himself into history.
Born August 5 1934 in Woodland Alabama Gosdin first chased the music dream before walking away. In the 1970s he quit performing and moved to Georgia selling glass for a living. People assumed the story had ended but a guitar stayed in his truck and a man with a guitar in his truck is never truly finished.
The comeback was stunning. He scored 19 top 10 hits including three number ones. His song Chiseled in Stone won the CMA Song of the Year award in 1989. Nashville bestowed on him the nickname The Voice because they could not find a bigger word.
Tammy Wynette said simply he is the only singer who can hold a candle to George Jones.
But the music industry shifted in the 1990s and Gosdin found himself on the outside. A stroke in 1998 weakened his body but not his resolve. He kept writing and recording. At age 73 he released a massive 101 song box set. Then he started rebuilding his tour bus for one final summer on the road.
The final stroke came on April 28 2009. The bus never left the driveway. The summer shows never happened. But Vern Gosdin had already proven something more important. He had proven that greatness is not measured by the final exit but by the refusal to stop believing in one more song.
He never entered the Hall of Fame but The Voice did not need a building to echo in. It needed only a song and Vern Gosdin always believed there was one more.