newsmakers

newsmakers

3 on Willie Nelson’s band bus hurt in wreck

SULPHUR SPRINGS, Texas

Singer Willie Nelson has suspended performances until December after three of his band members were hurt when their bus plowed into a bridge pillar in East Texas during rainy conditions.

The Texas Department of Public Safety says Nelson was not aboard in the weather-related accident around 3:30 a.m. CST Saturday on Interstate 30 near Sulphur Springs, 75 miles northeast of Dallas.

Nelson spokeswoman Elaine Schock says Paul English broke his ankle, his brother Billy English suffered a bruised hip and Tom Harkin has a cracked or bruised rib.

Nelson has postponed his four remaining November tour dates: Robinsonville and Jackson, Miss.; Fayetteville, Ark.; and Lafayette, La.

1893 recording auctioned off

BIDDEFORD, Maine

A 120-year-old wax-covered cylinder containing the earliest known recording of a black vocal group in the U.S. was sold at auction Saturday.

Discovered in a private collection in Portland, the 1893 recording of “Mama’s Black Baby Boy” by the New York-based Unique Quartet was one of only two copies known to exist and sold for $1,100. The other resides in the Library of Congress.

A second Unique Quartet song, “Who Broke the Lock (on the Henhouse Door)?” from 1896, sold at the same auction for $1,900. Both pre-date vinyl records.

The recordings were so rare that auctioneers at Saco River Auction Co. had no idea how much they might fetch. An appraiser had suggested they were worth $25,000 or more each before the auction.

Associated Press