ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Johnnie High, the North Texas country music showman who gave such performers as LeAnn Rimes and Boxcar Willie their early exposure, has died at the age of 80.
The impresario of "Johnnie High's Country Music Revue" died Wednesday at the age of 80 after battling heart disease, according to daughter Luanne Dorman.
High began his Saturday show in 1974 after converting an old movie theater in Grapevine into the Grapevine Opry. There, he gave Boxcar Willie and Rimes, then a child, some of their first stage experience.
Since 1995, High's revue has been a weekly fixture at a former Arlington movie theater that later served as a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall. The program now airs nationally in syndicated television.
