[Vision2020] Eddy Arnold, Who Transformed Country Music, Dies at 89

[Tom Hansen]

Songs by Eddy Arnold:

"Make the World Go Away"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZf6m_ROIKo

"What's He Doing in My World"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTQDhgECSXU

"Tennessee Stud"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VcnVtvDtG8

"I'll Hold You in My Heart"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_p-_FLE0VY

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>From today's (May 9, 2008) Spokesman Review -

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Eddy Arnold, who transformed country music, dies at 89 

Eddy Arnold, the most successful country hit maker of all time, who played 
a crucial role in transforming what had long been considered "hillbilly 
music" from a rural phenomenon into music with national appeal, died 
Thursday at 89, a week short of his 90th birthday.

Arnold, an elegant, pop-influenced singer, died at a long-term care 
facility near Nashville, Tenn., family spokesman and Arnold biographer Don 
Cusic said Thursday. His wife of 66 years, Sally, had died in March and 
Arnold had broken his hip the same month in a fall at his home.

Determined to transcend the rural poverty he had known as a child in 
Tennessee, he carved out an identity as an urbane crooner unrestricted by 
the trappings associated with country music stardom. He has been 
called "the Garth Brooks of his time" for creating the template still 
followed for country singers who reach beyond a niche audience to capture 
a broad following, a move that angered many traditional country fans.

"He epitomized how someone could become a huge star in this genre," Kyle 
Young, director of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, 
said Thursday. "He certainly set the bar: He sold 80 million records, had 
his own TV show, filled in for Johnny Carson as a 'Tonight Show' host. In 
some ways his career defines what it's like to end up at the top of the 
heap."

Arnold had a run of 57 consecutive top 10 hits from 1945 to 1954, among 
them "I'll Hold You in My Heart (Till I Can Hold You in My Arms)," which 
spent more than five months at No. 1 in 1947, and "Bouquet of Roses," 
which logged 19 weeks in the top spot the following year. Many of those 
songs, despite the twangy steel guitars and fiddles under his voice, 
appealed to large numbers of fans because of his mellow tenor, which was 
virtually free of a drawl.

"More than anyone in the 1940s, he helped change the image of the music 
from 'hillbilly' to 'country,' " Robert Hilburn, the Los Angeles Times' 
former pop music critic, said Thursday. "He ranks with Johnny Cash as one 
of the great ambassadors of country music."

Arnold's music had a huge effect on succeeding generations of country 
performers.

"When I was about 15 years old, the only stuff I sang was Eddy Arnold," 
George Jones said in a statement Thursday. "He would be just about my 
whole show. I'd sing 'Bouquet of Roses' and 'I'm Throwing Rice (at the 
Girl I Love).' All I sang was Eddy until I heard Hank Williams."

Arnold acted as a mentor for younger singers.

"He's given me a lot of advice," Josh Turner wrote in the liner notes for 
his 2006 album "Your Man," which reached No. 2 on Billboard's overall 
album chart, "but the one thing that stuck out in my mind when it came to 
making this record was when he told me, 'You go and record some love 
songs, because that's what people relate to.' He said, 'The relationship 
between a woman and a man relates to people better than anything else.' "

Although Arnold's popularity dipped for a time in the late 1950s in the 
wake of rock 'n' roll's arrival, it rebounded in the 1960s, after a 
crucial change in the people guiding him musically and professionally. 
That led to another run of hits that crystallized what became known 
as "the Nashville sound," typified by swelling orchestral backgrounds and 
female choir voices behind songs such as "Make the World Go Away" and "I 
Want to Go With You," both No. 1 country hits.

Arnold's career spanned seven decades, from the 1930s, when he hosted a 
radio show for five years in Memphis, until 1999, when he last appeared on 
the country singles chart with a duet with then-teenage singer LeAnn Rimes 
in a new version of his 1955 yodel-laden western hit "Cattle Call."

In the latest edition of Joel Whitburn's "Top Country Songs" volume 
collating Billboard's charts from 1944 to 2005, Arnold is ranked as the 
No. 1 country artist of all time, logging 146 records in the Top 100 of 
Billboard's country singles chart, 28 of those making it to No. 1.

Richard Edward Arnold, born May 15, 1918, in Henderson, Tenn., grew up 
working on his parents' farm, only to see it repossessed during the 
Depression, after which the family became sharecroppers on what had been 
their own land.

His father died when Eddy was 11, so the boy started singing at church 
picnics and other events.

"His childhood made such an impression on him," Young said. "I would say 
he was driven, probably until his last breath, because he was still 
worried that some day he might wake up penniless."

Where other country stars flashed their success with bejeweled cowboy 
outfits, silver-dollar-covered luxury cars and guitar-shaped swimming 
pools, Arnold remained the low-key country gentleman, quietly parlaying 
the money from his hit records into lucrative real estate investments in 
and around Nashville.

Critic Hilburn said: "He was a humble guy who didn't seem to care all that 
much about the razzle-dazzle surrounding the music business. He was just 
into going onstage (or into the studio) and singing his songs and then 
enjoying his hobbies and private life."

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Bless you, Eddy, now on tour with the angels

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho


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