Country Music Legend Eddy Arnold Dies at 89

[Zoneboy]

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He was the affable "Tennessee Plowboy" who brought elegance, sophistication and millions of fans to country music. Eddy Arnold, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, died around 4:40 a.m. today at NHC Place in Cool Springs at the age of 89.


Mr. Arnold's contributions to the history of American popular music are manifold, and integral. He sold more than 85 million records, with 37 singles charting on the pop charts and many more impacting the country charts. He ranks as Billboard magazine's single most popular country artist of all time. He was a star of stage and screen, and he was also a public face of Nashville music for decades.

All of his Number 1 Billboard Country Music singles are listed here.Hits such as "Make The World Go Away," "I Want To Go With You," "Turn The World Around," "I Really Don't Want To Know" and "You Don't Know Me" charmed a nation and moved country toward the popular mainstream.

"Eddy Arnold has become virtually an institution in American life, with an identity that is only peripherally related to country music," wrote Bill Malone in his definitive history, Country Music, USA. Malone went on to describe the "almost unparalleled impact that the Tennessee Plowboy has had on the country field."

Though his music was seldom embraced by traditionalists, Mr. Arnold was one of the titans of Nashville music. His voice was an unpressured, engaging croon that sometimes recalled a clarinet played in the lower register, and though he favored strings and uptown instrumentation, he delivered his songs with few affectations.

Mr. Arnold utilized genre-blurring arrangements, but he was at base a storyteller of the highest order.

"In many ways the stories of Eddy Arnold and country music run parallel, both starting out poor and a bit backward but, in the end, reaching from Tennessee to the ends of the earth," wrote Don Cusic, in Eddy Arnold: I'll Hold You In My Heart, one of two biographies written about the legend.

Mr. Arnold was a multi-millionaire who cherished eating with pals at a simple meat-and-three along 8th Avenue South. He was a real estate magnate who loved green spaces and fresh air. He was a proud country boy who struggled to extend southern music's reach and scope into America's urban centers. He was a star, and a force, and a charmer.

"Eddy Arnold gave dignity and respect to country music at a time when it was referred to as 'hillbilly music,'" said Cusic, a friend of Arnold's, this week. "The story of country music is, in many ways, the story of a fight for respect. Eddy Arnold gave it respect; he made you proud to be a country fan."


A start in hard times


Richard Edward Arnold was born May 15, 1918, on a farm in Chester County, Tennessee, about 20 miles south of Jackson.

His father died when the boy was 11, and within a year, the family fell into poverty. Mr. Arnold's teen years were spent in hard times. With the Great Depression raging, he saw few opportunities for financial growth, save for singing. It may have been desperation in part that pushed him into professional music. Certainly, those hardscrabble days stayed with him in terms of his philosophies about money and business. Even after Mr. Arnold became a wealthy man, he was legendarily frugal.

Mr. Arnold began singing over the Jackson airwaves when he was still in his teens, billed as "Smiling Eddy Arnold." He left the farm and took a job driving a hearse; he slept at the funeral home. In January of 1938, Mr. Arnold and fellow performer Speedy McNatt moved to St. Louis and began performing on the radio and in clubs.

An avid radio listener, Mr. Arnold tuned into WSM one morning and noticed that Jack Skaggs, who was normally featured as a singer on Grand Ole Opry star Pee Wee King's morning show, wasn't on the air with King. Mr. Arnold requested, and received an audition, and in January of 1940 he became a member of King's Golden West Cowboys. That job allowed him to tour extensively, impressing audiences with his smooth, sincere voice. The work with King also helped him to gain notoriety around the Grand Ole Opry, and when he decided in late 1942 to pursue a solo career, Mr. Arnold was immediately accepted into the Opry's family of performers.

And so in 1943, Mr. Arnold was living in Nashville with his wife ? he'd married the former Sally Gayhart on Nov. 28, 1941 ? and fronting his own band on the biggest country music show in the world. He formed a band, The Tennessee Plowboys, and he secured a manager in the wily Colonel Tom Parker (who later managed Elvis Presley's career).

In 1944, Mr. Arnold signed a contract with RCA Victor Records, but a musicians' strike meant that he had to delay his recording career. But in December of 1944, Mr. Arnold entered WSM's Studio B and recorded a four-song session that included "Cattle Call," a number that would become one of Mr. Arnold's signatures. Though Mr. Arnold may not have realized it then, that was the first major label recording session in Nashville.

Mr. Arnold's first charting country single came in 1945, with "Each Minute Seems A Million Years," and his star rose quickly. He gained national appeal with the jaunty "That's How Much I Love You," and his voice and cultured cowboy image helped him to gain a prime, 8 ? 8:15 p.m. slot on the Opry. In 1947, Mr. Arnold had his first No. 1 Billboard Country single with "What Is Life Without Love," and he followed that with another No. 1, "It's A Sin."

The watershed moment came with the release of "I'll Hold You In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms." That song ascended to No. 1 in November 1947, stayed there for 21 weeks, crossed over into the pop charts, became the No. 1 country single of the 1940s and began Mr. Arnold's most astounding chart run: For 53 consecutive weeks, he held the No. 1 country singles spot. In 1948, there were only two weeks in which an Eddy Arnold song wasn't No. 1.

"Eddy Arnold put a tuxedo on country music," Cusic said. "Eddy Arnold was the biggest star in country music in the late 1950s and early 1950s. He sold more records than Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell or any other country artist. He also transcended Nashville and country music and had an impact on the American pop audience through his TV shows and appearances."


A reach beyond country


In the late 1940s, Mr. Arnold dominated country charts. In the 1950s, he began to reach beyond country.

He appeared on television shows including Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts and The Perry Como Show, and found that thousands of people who didn't otherwise care for "western music" would sit and smile at his performances. He wound up splitting with Col. Parker over personality conflicts (Parker was like a brash carnival barker, while Mr. Arnold radiated gentility).

In 1951, Mr. Arnold scored 13 No. 1 country hits. And in 1953, Mr. Arnold's recording of "I Really Don't Want To Know" pointed the way to future successes. For that song, Mr. Arnold stripped away traditional country instrumentation (no steel guitar or fiddle, for instance) in favor of softer, crossover-ready sounds.

"He brought country uptown," said music historian and WSM-AM air personality Eddie Stubbs.

The ascension of Presley in the mid-1950s was damaging to most Nashville-based stars, and it pointed to the end of Mr. Arnold's first big chart run. Between 1956 and 1964, Mr. Arnold scored no top hits. But while other country artists ? including Webb Pierce and Jimmy Dickens ? tried to move towards a rock 'n' roll sound, Mr. Arnold moved the other way, into polished, string-laden, adult music. In 1965, the lush "What's He Doing In My World" was a smash hit, and he followed that with the classic "Make The World Go Away."

"I wanted to broaden my appeal," he told a UPI reporter. "I never wanted to desert the country field, and I will not. I wanted my style and my image to be enjoyed and accepted by a broader segment of the people."

Therein lay the key to his 1960s' successes, which continued unabated until decade's end: Mr. Arnold kept much of his country-loving fan base while drawing in the button-down crowd in urban locales. In 1966, he played Carnegie Hall and was elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The following year, he was named the CMA's Entertainer of the Year. He was touring with orchestral accompaniment, and he was a regular on national programs such as The Tonight Show.

Mr. Arnold was an ambassador for Nashville music, even as some charged that his sound was too pop to be considered country. His ambassador status continued through the rest of the century, though Mr. Arnold's singles would never again rise to the top (in 1980, he did reach No. 6 with "Let's Get It While The Gettin's Good."

In the 1980s and '90s, Mr. Arnold remained a popular concert draw and a regular guest on television shows. He continued to record as well. His 100th album, After All This Time, was released in 2005 on RCA.

Mr. Arnold was preceded in death by his wife Sally Gayhart Arnold, who died March 11, 2008. He is survived by their children, Richard Edward Jr., of Nashville, and Jo Ann Pollard, of Brentwood, Tenn. He is also survived by two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren

[tv star collector]

I was introduced to Eddy Arnold via my parents' record collection. He
was one of the all-time greats in the genre of country music.

[DLevine2]

R.I.P. Eddy Arnold.

[catlover79]

[snl 70s show fan]

he was one of my mothers fave singers i liked him too