Also included on And the Crowd Goes Wild was a cover of Ronnie Milsap's hit "Prisoner of the Highway", recorded as a duet with Milsap.
His biggest crossover hits include "It Was Almost Like a Song", "Smoky Mountain Rain", "(There's) No Gettin' Over Me", "I Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World", "Any Day Now", and "Stranger in My House".
•
The song features Trace Adkins on vocals and 70 percent of all proceeds are donated to the fund.
•
During this time, Milsap worked as a session musician on numerous projects including two songs with Elvis Presley: "Don't Cry Daddy" in 1969 and "Kentucky Rain" in 1970.
This led to work at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio with such names as David Porter and the Soul Children, Dave Crawford and Brad Shapiro, Dee Dee Warwick, Ronnie Milsap, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, Jimmy Cliff, Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood and Marlin Greene.
Ronnie Corbett | Ronnie Scott | Ronnie Wood | Ronnie O'Sullivan | Ronnie James Dio | Ronnie Barker | Ronnie Milsap | Ronnie Lane | Ronnie Hawkins | Ronnie Spector | Ronnie Moore | Ronnie Dyson | Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club | Ronnie Ross | Ronnie Radford | Ronnie Earl | Ronnie Coleman | Ronnie Brunswijk | Ronnie Aldrich | Ronnie Rüeger | Ronnie Rogers | Ronnie L. White | Ronnie Carroll | Ronnie Biggs | Ronnie Whelan | Ronnie Self | Ronnie McDowell | Ronnie Lazaro | Ronnie Laws | Ronnie Irani |
"Buy Me a Rose" was not only his first Number One single since 1987's "Make No Mistake, She's Mine" (a duet with Ronnie Milsap), but also the only Number One for both Alison Krauss and Billy Dean, both of whom received chart credit for performing background vocals on the song.
Fontane was married to musician Roy Yeager, a notable drummer who worked with several successful recording artists, including the popular 1970s group Lobo and country superstar Ronnie Milsap.
He also wrote songs for George Strait ("The Chair" with Dean Dillon and "Ocean Front Property" with Dillon and Royce Porter), Merle Haggard ("It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad)"), "Don't You Ever Get Tired (of Hurting Me)", a No. 1 scoring record for Ronnie Milsap, and Mickey Gilley ("That's All That Matters").
"Have Thine Own Way, Lord" remains popular and has been recorded by such artists as: Mahalia Jackson, Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Eric Copeland, Cristy Lane, Jim Reeves, Eddy Arnold, John Fogerty, Ned Beatty and most, recently by, Ronnie Milsap on his 2009 gospel album, Then Sings My Soul.
In 1976 the Bicentennial Theater was added, where musical acts including the Statler Brothers , Barbara Mandrell , Billy "Crash" Craddock, Jerry Lee Lewis , Marty Robbins , Ronnie Milsap , Conway Twitty , Ernest Tubb and The Monkees appeared.