The New Years Day Country Music Curse

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What is it about January 1 and why does it hate country music singers so??? I keep a blog that has birthdays and death days in country music history. Today I had to add the seventh person to the list of those who've died on New Year's Day. The most famous obituary in country music from New Year's Day, of course, is Hank Williams. He passed somewhere on the road between Knoxville, Tennessee and Oak Hill, West Virginia in 1953. He was en route to a performance in Canton, Ohio when his driver noticed he was not talking. Checking, he noticed Williams' body was cold and unresponsive. Hank was 29. Other deaths in country music that started the new year off wrong include the great Townes Van Zandt, who died on New Year's Day 1997 at the age of 52 from cardiac arrhythmia; Aubrey "Moon" Mullican, who also succumbed to a heart attack in 1967 at the age of 57; and, Del Reeves, who lost a long battle with emphysema in 2007 at the age of 74. Today the list grew by one: Misty Morgan. That's a name that most people don't know or remember, until you start singing that "big hit": Oh, remember me, my darlin', when spring is in the air And the bald-headed birds are whispering everywhere When you see them walking southward in their dirty underwear That's the Tennessee bird walk. One of those interesting coincidences in life is that Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan were both born in the same hospital in Buffalo, New York (he in 1942, she in 1945), but never met until 1963 in Florida. They married in 1967 and set about on a long career that was mostly obscured by their biggest hit, the 1970 novelty hit "Tennessee Bird Walk." Yes, they did serious songs as well (the B-side of "Tennessee Bird Walk" was a "Telltale Heart" sort of song about not getting away with murder called "The Clock of St. James"), but their two biggest hits were novelty songs (they were also responsible for "Humphrey the Camel"). They were married for 53 years. Jack Blanchard posted on Facebook on Christmas that Misty wasn't feeling well enough to celebrate Christmas. Later she was taken to the emergency room in Leesburg, Florida (where they lived). In the succeeding days she had surgery, was told that she had terminal cancer and maybe five months to live, and went from being submitted to hospice to told she needed too specific and advanced care for hospice to perform. Then, this evening (1/1/2021), Blanchard wrote that his dear wife was sleeping in the hospital, "and she died." She was 75. "Tennessee Bird Walk":