Silver Eagle

By 1980 country music was crossing over into widespread American popularity, and the producers of the King Biscuit Flower Hour were paying attention. On January 3, 1981, the Silver Eagle Cross Country radio show debuted its first live concerts on nationally-syndicated radio.

The syndicated broadcasts gave country artists, like their rock peers, free exposure to markets they’d never reach in six days on horseback. Stars like Eddie Rabbit and Merle Haggard, Mel Tillis, Bobby Bare, Lacy J. Dalton, Hank Williams Jr. and George Jones quickly came on board, and venues as prominent as L.A.’s Starwood Inn, the Exit Inn in Nashville and the Lonestar Café in New York were suddenly open to millions of new fans. Broadcast on over 400 stations nationwide, fans enjoyed the same high quality recording techniques King Biscuit had perfected earlier.

Previously found in the Country Music Vault, the Silver Eagle concerts are now available exclusively in the Concert Vault. The music is sweet, rough, raw and plaintive, and the performers are looking out into the crowd, to the very last row, where you’re waiting to be transported to the lover, time or place that only they can take you.

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