Randy Howard

After working in local clubs, outlaw country singer Randy Howard made his name on Bobby Lord's television series, after which he had his own show. He wrote "God Don't Live in Nashville, Tennessee" and "She's a Lover," both of which appeared on his first LP, 1976's Now and Then. His breakthrough came in 1983 with the scandalous "All-American Redneck," an ode to the country lifestyle so racy it was banned from country radio. Eschewing radio altogether, his label marketed the single to jukeboxes, where it became a honky tonk staple and a sort of Southern cultural phenomenon, spawning a legacy of bumper stickers bearing the song's title. In 1988, he switched to Atlantic Records and scored a smaller hit with a revival of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" from his self-titled LP. His next album, Macon Music, was a mixture of Southern rock and country with titles typical of the era -- "The Last Rebel Yell" and "Heaven, Hell or Macon." The album included some quick-fire fiddling from the fiddle player also named Randy Howard (and also from Georgia). He continued to tour throughout the '90s and 2000s largely on the merits of "All-American Redneck," which remained his best-known song. In an unusual scene befitting his outlaw country lifestyle, Howard was killed in a gunfight with a bounty hunter on June 9, 2015 at his cabin outside of Lynchburg, Tennessee.
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