Wayne Raney (August 17, 1921[1] – January 23, 1993)[2] was an American country singer and harmonica player.
Biography
Raney was born on a farm near Wolf Bayou, Cleburne County, Arkansas, United States,[1] the youngest of five children of William Franklin (Frank) Raney and Bonnie Davis Raney. Born with a foot deformity, he could not do heavy labor.[3] After learning to play harmonica at an early age, he moved to Piedras Negras, Mexico at age 13, where he played on radio station XEPN.[1] He met Lonnie Glosson, his long-time musical associate, in 1936, and together they found work on radio in Little Rock in 1938.[1] Later the pair worked for WCKY out of Cincinnati and played on syndicated radio.[1] They also established a harmonica mail order business which ended up being enormously successful; they sold millions of harmonicas and played a major role in turning the harmonica into a popular instrument.[1]
After returning to Arkansas, he recorded a gospel album called Don't Try to Be What You Ain't.[2] Eventually he went into semi-retirement, running his own chicken farm and performing only occasionally in the late 1960s and 1970s.[2] While he appeared sporadically on Hee Haw in the 1970s, he lost his voice in the 1980s and ceased performing; in 1990 he published an autobiography entitled Life Has Not Been a Bed of Roses.[2] He died of cancer in 1993.[2]
Raney was honored posthumously with the Arkansas Country Music Award for "Lifetime Achievement" on June 3, 2018, at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock.
