Country singer, songwriter Mel Tillis dies
He wrote hits for Rogers, Strait
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Mel Tillis, the affable longtime country music star who wrote hits for Kenny Rogers, Ricky Skaggs and many others, and overcame a stutter to sing on dozens of his own singles, has died.
A Tillis spokesman, Don Murry Grubbs, said Tillis died early Sunday at an Ocala, Fla., hospital. He was 85.
Grubbs said Tillis had battled intestinal issues since 2016 and never fully recovered. The suspected cause of death is respiratory failure.
Tillis, the father of country singer Pam Tillis, recorded more than 60 albums and had more than 30 top 10 country singles, including “Good Woman Blues,” ”Coca Cola Cowboy” and “Southern Rain.”
Among the hits he wrote for others were “Detroit City” for Bobby Bare; “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town,” by Rogers and the First Edition; and “Thoughts of a Fool” for George Strait.
Bare was a bandmate of Tillis’ in Old Dogs, along with Waylon Jennings and Jerry Reed. Bare said that he had been friends with Tillis since the late 1950s, when they met in Nashville.
Bare said, “Without Mel and ‘Detroit City,’ I probably would not have had a career.”
Country music stars Charlie Daniels, Crystal Gayle, Tanya Tucker, Naomi Judd and Blake Shelton also offered condolences and talked about their memories of Tillis on social media and in statements from publicists.
“He once spent an entire day at his place in Tennessee showing me all the memorabilia he’d gathered over the years where he gave me a pair of his stage boots,” Shelton’s Twitter account said. “He even took time to talk me through some hard times in my life on a couple phone calls.”
Although his early efforts to get a record deal were rebuffed because of his stutter, he was a promising songwriter in Nashville in the 1950s and 1960s, writing tunes for Webb Pierce and Ray Price.
Price, Skaggs, Brenda Lee and hundreds of others would cover his songs.
In all, the Country Music Hall of Fame member wrote more than 1,000 songs and in 2012 received a National Medal of Arts for bringing “his unique blend of warmth and humor to the great tradition of country music.”
He also dabbled in acting, appearing in such feature films as Clint Eastwood’s “Every Which Way But Loose,” and the Burt Reynolds movies “Cannonball Run I and II” and “Smokey and the Bandit II.” He starred in several television movies and briefly had a network TV show, “Mel and Susan Together,” with Susan Anton.
In 2007, Tillis became a regular performer on the Grand Ole Opry country music show.
He held a variety of odd jobs, including being a truck driver, a strawberry picker, a firefighter on the railroad and a milkman, which inspired his breakthrough song. Feeling down one day, he began singing to himself, “Oh Lord, I’m tired. Tired of living this ol’ way.” He turned his lament into “I’m Tired,” which became a hit for Webb Pierce.
Tillis, meanwhile, became a major success on his own in the late 1960s and toured for decades, often using his stutter as a source of humor — though his stutter disappeared when he sang.
He said that when he was in the Air Force as a flight leader, he marched airmen right into a wall.
“I couldn’t get out the word ‘halt,’” he said.
Grubbs said the Tillis family will release information about funeral services in Florida and Nashville.