Willis David Hoover was born in Jackson County, Missouri and raised in Lamoni, Iowa and Shenandoah, Iowa. After starting out as a coffee house folk singer as a teenager, Hoover moved to Nashville in the 1960s and became a songwriter. His songs were recorded by Tina Turner, Eddy Arnold and country music outlaws Tompall Glaser and Waylon Jennings. He won an ASCAP Award for music written for the motion picture, "...tick...tick...tick..." After losing or forgetting his first and middle names, Hoover became a recording artist for Monument Records, Epic Records, and Elektra Records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His recordings for Elektra were released in 2003 by Kinky Friedman's Sphincter Records label.
After retiring from the music industry, Hoover became a writer.[1] Picks!, his history of guitar picks, was published in 1995[2] and followed by "North Shore" in 2005.
LP discography
edit- "Hoover" (1970)
- "The Lost Outlaw Album" (2003)
References
edit- ^ Chun, Gary C.W. (29 August 2010). "Return of the outlaw". Honolulu Star Advertiser. Archived from the original on 19 June 2024. Retrieved 19 June 2024.
While most folks here know his work as a journalist for The Honolulu Advertiser, few are aware that Hoover, 64, is a noted country songwriter.
- ^ Shoaf, Eric C. (May 1999). "What's So Special About Guitar Picks". Vintage Guitars. Archived from the original on 24 February 2024. Retrieved 19 June 2024.
Picks finally got some respect back in 1995, with the Miller Freeman publication of the book Picks!, by Will Hoover.