hitchcockcountry.com - View From The Front Porch-Stan Hitchcock

I arrived at the Funeral Home in Nashville, that October day in 2007, with my wife Denise, to pay our respects to Porter’s family, two days after his passing. Visiting with all the friends, entertainers and musicians that had gathered there, I was thankful that I had so many good memories of time spent with Porter. About six months earlier, I had spent a good bit of time with Porter in his Opry dressing room and that is how I will always remember him, with his wide open grin and long arms wrapped around me in a brotherly hug. That was the Porter I had loved as a friend and mentor ever since I was a boy growing up on a farm just outside Springfield, Missouri. Porter landed a radio show on KWTO in Springfield when I was fourteen years old. Porter had just moved to Springfield from West Plains and already had a legion of fans in my hometown. The first time I met him was on a field trip that our Pleasant Hope High School FFA team took to the radio station and when our Ag teacher, Mr. Hood, told Porter that he had a boy that sung by the name of Stan Hitchcock, Porter put me on his show. So, the first time I was ever in a radio station I got to meet Porter and sing on the radio. Big time influence on how I was to spend the rest of my life.

Through the years Porter and I stayed close, especially after he moved to Nashville from the Ozarks, and I followed a few years later. Both of us moved into television with our music and by the1960’s there was a Saturday afternoon country music block on local television stations all across the country. Porter was always the first show, followed by The Buck Owens Show, Bill Anderson Show, That Good Ole Nashville Music, Del Reeves Country Carnival and somewhere in that lineup would be the Stan Hitchcock Show. Porter learned his television craft from Red Foley and The Ozark Jubilee that was broadcast from Springfield, MO every Saturday night in the 50’s. Porter was always just a natural on television and he took country music into the homes of so many families in those years. Both Red Foley and Porter were my role models for television and I have always been grateful to both of them.

Porter always took time to encourage me in my career, both as a friend and a great entertainer and his contribution to country music was beyond measure. I have always tried to follow the example of these entertainment pioneers and never be too busy to take time for the fans and supporters of our music and new artists just starting up. And, on Saturday nights, when I get a chance to listen to the Opry and I hear Little Jimmy Dickens tell the same old jokes that I have heard him tell so many times before…..I still chuckle at the punch line, and then silently thank God for the music legends of my youth. And I will always remember the last thing that Porter said to me as I was leaving his Opry dressing room, “Stan, I want you to know that I’m proud of what you’ve done in music and I love you.” Made my eyes mist up then, and it still does.

Porter.....thank you my friend.

Stan

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