I used to watch the Porter Wagoner Show on television when I was growing up. I think his rendition of "Green, Green Grass of Home" is the best. One of my favorite songs by Porter Wagoner and his frequent duet partner Dolly Parton is "40 Miles from Poplar Bluff", which is about the idyllic life back in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. The song had particular resonance for me because I often used to go canoeing on the Eleven Point River, not far from Wagoner's hometown of West Plains, Missouri - about 40 miles over winding, narrow two-lane blacktops from Poplar Bluff.

I recently rediscovered Wagoner with his new album, Wagonmaster, and there's a couple of choice tunes on it, including "Committed to Parkview". That was a song Johnny Cash wrote and performed with the Highwaymen, but he wrote it with Wagoner in mind, for Wagoner had actually spent time in Nashville's Parkview Hospital - a mental institution.

Despite his love for the glitzier side of country music, with the sparkling Nudie suits and pompadored hair, Wagoner was always a down-to-earth kind of guy.

So I was pretty sad this morning when I read that Wagoner had died on Sunday. He was 80.