A mainstay of country music radio for four decades, Billy Parker did more than promote other artists’ songs. He also recorded plenty of his own, sending more than 20 singles to the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart between 1976 and 1989. Today, we’re remembering Billy Joe Parker Sr. on what would have marked his 89th birthday. He died on January 19, 2026, at age 88 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Billy Parker Lived and Breathed Country Music
Born July 19, 1937, in Tuskegee, Oklahoma, Billy Parker “wanted to live country music and he wanted to be country music,” according to the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
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“I guess I just had it in my bones,” he said in an interview with the Voices of Oklahoma podcast. “I had the feeling for it, not knowing that I would ever be…but that’s what I wanted to be.”
Mastering the guitar by age 11, Parker began his professional singing career three years later. At 19, he joined Red Foley’s popular Ozark Jubilee program.
Eventually, he moved to Tulsa, where he continued performing and working as a disc jockey until 1968, when honky-tonk pioneer Ernest Tubb hand-selected the 29-year-old for his backing band, the Texas Troubadours.
Billy Parker toured with Tubb for three years. Having grown weary of life on the road, he parted amicably with the “Walking the Floor Over You” crooner and returned to Tulsa with his wife, Jerri, in 1971.
“The Voice of Oklahoma”
That’s where his road to radio superstardom began when he joined the radio station KVOO, known as the “Voice of Oklahoma”. There, he created Billy Parker’s Big Rigger Show, one of the first all-night truckers’ programs in the country
From 1971 to 2002, listeners tuned in every night on KVOO-AM to hear Parker play country music. In his book Oklahoma Music Guide, Hugh Foley called him “the quintessential communicator with a friendly style that makes listeners feel as if he knows them personally.”
During his tenure there, Parker collected Disc Jockey of the Year awards from both the Country Music Association (1974) and the Academy of Country Music (1975, 1977, 1978, 1984). In 1992, he was inducted into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame.
Releasing nine albums, Parker scored his highest-charting single in 1982 when “(Who’s Gonna Sing) The Last Country Song” peaked at number 41. Other songs included “Lord, If I Make It to Heaven” and “Thanks A Lot.”
While his musical career never quite reached the superstar status of his radio days, Parker truly did it for the love of the game.
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“I never did pay much attention to ratings. That’s terrible to say to be in radio,” he said. “I’d love to be #1, but if I’m #5 and I have listeners and they appreciate what I’m doing, then I like where I’m at.”
Billy Parker spent the bulk of his radio career at KVOO, retiring in 2015.
Featured image courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society