August 05, 2015

 

Another sad week in Music City

Country Music Hall of Fame member Billy Sherrill passed away Tuesday Aug. 4 at age 78.
As a record producer, his name is on some of the most iconic singles ever created on Music Row — Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man,” George Jones’s “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors,” Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job and Shove It” and Tanya Tucker’s “Delta Dawn” among them. As a songwriter, Sherrill earned BMI Awards for 52 of his compositions. His contributions to the country repertoire include “Too Far Gone,” “My Elusive Dreams,” “Til I Can Make It On My Own,” “The Most Beautiful Girl,” and “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad,” as well as “Stand By Your Man.”
He cowrote 18 songs that became No. 1 country hits and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984. As a record executive, he headed the Nashville office of CBS (Columbia and Epic Records) and discovered Wynette, Tucker, Barbara Mandrell, Lacy J. Dalton and Shelby Lynne.
Billy Sherrill was born and raised in north Alabama as the son of an evangelical preacher. He played saxophone and piano in area rock ’n’ roll and R&B bands, such as The Fairlanes. After trying his hand as a pop recording artist, he moved to Nashville in 1962. Sam Phillips hired him to run the Sun Records office in Music City. The following year, Billy Sherrill joined the artists-and-repertoire department of Epic Records.
He also produced successful records for Joe Stampley, David Allan Coe, Jody Miller, Marty Robbins, Johnny Duncan, Johnny Rodriguez, Johnny Cash, Janie Fricke, Barbara Fairchild, Bobby Vinton, Jim & Jesse and even the iconic  Elvis Costello album, "Almost Blue",
Meanwhile, Tandy Rice, a prominent Nashville talent promoter and businessman known for his work on and off Music Row passed away Monday. He was 76.
The talent agency he founded, Top Billing International, helped the careers of several country greats, including Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner, Jim Ed Brown and Tom T. Hall.
Rice once hosted WLAC's "Good Morning Nashville" and even co-hosted Morningline on NewsChannel 5 Plus.
In 2014, he was honored as the very first inductee into the Nashville Association of Talent Directors Hall of Fame.

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