![]() His second wife, Eva Overstake, committed suicide in 1951, after discovering that Foley was having an affair with Sally Sweet, a younger woman he was later to marry. He also worked tirelessly within the music industry and through the media to replace the word ‘hillbilly’ with the less derisory ‘country.’ His public image was of an immensely popular God-fearing family man, but behind the façade lurked a murkier side. He could never be termed a country purist, as early on he recorded with Lawrence Welk and his Orchestra, in an effort to reach the widest possible audience. ![]() One of the first country acts to record regularly in Nashville, he enjoyed regular country-pop crossover hits during the 1940s with Smoke On the Water, At Mail Call Today, Tennessee Saturday Night, Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy, Birmingham Bounce and Goodnight Irene. During a musical career that started out with the 1930s barn dances and culminated in him hosting his own long-running TV variety show, he did more than any other country performer of his time in taking country music to the mass middle-American audience. Though he grew up a Kentucky backwoods boy, Foley was much more ambitious than the average country bumpkin. ![]() ![]() The silky-voiced Red Foley brought a smooth sophistication to country music in the 1940s making the music more palatable to a much wider audience. ![]()
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