Roy D. Mercer

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Halfway to Hazard was an American country music duo composed of singer-songwriters David Tolliver and Chad Warrix. Though Tolliver and Warrix grew up in different towns in southeastern Kentucky, their band's origins are in Hazard, Kentucky, which was halfway between their hometowns.

Their debut single, "Daisy", was a Top 40 hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs charts in 2007. The song was also featured as iTunes' single of the week on August 6, 2007. In addition, they toured as Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's opening act on their Soul2Soul 2007 Tour. McGraw helped to produce the album.[1]

On October 14, 2007, the duo performed the national anthem prior to the Green Bay Packers' home game against the Washington Redskins.[2] Later that season they performed again at Lambeau Field for the Packers NFC Championship game against the New York Giants.[1]

In May 2008, they were nominated by the Academy of Country music for their "Duo of the Year," award. Halfway to Hazard toured again on the Live Your Voice tour with Tim McGraw and Jason Aldean.

A single from their second album, "I Know Where Heaven Is," was released on July 20, 2009. The album, Come on Time, was released on October 19, 2009. Neither charted.

On January 20, 2010, Tolliver announced he was taking an indefinite leave of absence from the duo via their website. All future tour dates were indefinitely postponed. The future of the act is unknown.

Roy D. Mercer is a fictional character created by disc jockeys Brent Douglas and Phil Stone on radio station KMOD-FM in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States. Douglas, who performs Mercer's voice, uses the character as a vehicle for comedy sketches in which he performs prank calls. Seventeen Roy D. Mercer albums have been released, all on Capitol Records Nashville or Virgin Records Nashville.

History

Brent Douglas and Phil Stone, disc jockeys on KMOD-FM, a rock radio station, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, created the Roy D. Mercer character in 1993.[1] Initially, they used the character on comedy sketches for the radio station. Originally, the prank call sketches were a part of KMOD's morning show. By 1997, Capitol Records Nashville began issuing the sketches on compact disc.[2] Sixteen Roy D. Mercer compilations have been released on the Capitol and Virgin Records labels. A Virgin Records Nashville executive noted that Mercer's early albums managed to sell between 250,000 and 300,000 copies, primarily due to word of mouth, without any promotion to consumers or radio airplay of the album tracks.[3]

In most of the sketches, Mercer will demand that the recipient of a call pay him money for some incident, and if the recipient refuses, he will threaten them with violence (usually an "ass-whoopin'"). Mercer has been described as speaking with "a mushy-mouthed Southern drawl" and his style of comedy has been described as "not exactly obscene ... [but] border[ing] on offensive".[4] Many of the recipients of the calls are suggested by their friends who supply Mercer with information about the potential recipients.[4]

John Bean's "Leroy Mercer" character of the 1980s

Many claim that the character "Roy D. Mercer" is based on a character in prank calls virally circulated by hand-to-hand tape exchange throughout the early eighties and beyond. In the early 1980s, the character "Leroy Mercer" was created in Tennessee by John Bean, who also called individuals and businesses threatening an "ass-whoopin".[5] There are many parallels and similarities to the calls, with "Roy D. Mercer" using many of "Leroy Mercer's" lines. [6] [7][8][9][10] John Bean died in 1984; Stone and Douglas say they invented their Roy D. Mercer in 1990. [11] In a video documentary on Bean's life, comedian Jeff Foxworthy praised Bean's work and noted he quoted Bean's Leroy Mercer character every day.[12]