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

Mon May 12 21:23:04 PDT 2008

What did he die of?

  Best Regards,

  Donovan

Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
    http://www.mp3.com/albums/20066295/summary.html

  --------------------

  Recall Eddy Arnold's dreamy version of Tex Owens' "Cattle Call," with what sounds to me like yodeling.  I heard this Eddy Arnold performance on a foreign short wave station recently, like  a broadcast from another planet.  The Japanese enjoy US country music: 

  http://www.jics.com/

  For example, Japanese people do not think or say "Disco Sucks!" or "Country music is for country folk!" 
  ------------------------------

  http://www.answers.com/topic/tex-owens?cat=entertainment

  It was Owens' full recording of "Cattle Call," made solo the following day, that ultimately proved more important, introducing a song he'd written and copyrighted in Kansas City that year. According to his wife, he'd written it ahead of a show during a snowstorm when they were stuck at the hotel where the radio station was headquartered, borrowing the melody from "The St. Paul Waltz." The song, one of four he recorded in Chicago that day, wasn't a success at the time, and Owens' relationship with Decca ended after that session. He next recorded ten songs for RCA in September of 1936, none of which -- including another version of "Cattle Call" -- were issued and all of which are lost today. 
------------------------------------------
  Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 5/12/08, lfalen <lfalen at turbonet.com> wrote: 
    Eddy Arnold was great.
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: Tom Hansen thansen at moscow.com
Date: Fri, 09 May 2008 06:13:38 -0700
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Eddy Arnold, Who Transformed Country Music, Dies at 89

> 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
>
> ---------------------------------------------
>
> >From today's (May 9, 2008) Spokesman Review -
>
> --------
>
> 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."
>
> ---------------------------------------------
>
> Bless you, Eddy, now on tour with the angels
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------
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