Remembering Mel Tillis
The country music legend died Sunday.
NASHVILLE – Mel Tillis, the singer, songwriter, comedian and businessman whose genuine warmth and downhome humor drew countless fans, died early Sunday morning at Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala, Fla., according to his publicist, Don Murry Grubbs. The suspected cause of death is respiratory failure.
Tillis was 85. In his six-decade career, he recorded more than 60 albums, notched three dozen top 10 singles and wrote several hit songs now regarded as classics.
Lonnie Melvin Tillis was born Aug. 8, 1932, near Tampa. His speech impediment developed after a childhood bout of malaria; he was mocked for his stammer when he was young but would later use it to comedic effect on stage and screen. “After a lot of years and more hurting than I like to remember, I can talk about it lightly — which eases things a bit,” he wrote in Stutterin’ Boy, the autobiography he released in 1984. “It’s a way of showing people that it hasn’t licked me, so it doesn’t have to lick others.”
After a stint in the Air Force and as a fireman on the Atlantic Coast Line rail- road, Tillis moved to Nashville in 1957 to pursue music full time and quickly became one of country’s go-to writers. Songs like Ruby (Don’t Take Your Love to Town), Mental Revenge and Detroit City became country classics.
As a recording artist, Tillis was most successful in the 1970s, with two dozen top 10 hits, including Coca-Cola Cow
boy, which was featured in the Clint Eastwood film Every Which Way But
Loose. The Country Music Association named him entertainer of the year in 1976. That year he also was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He appeared on TV shows such as Hee Haw and Hollywood Squares and in films such as Smokey and the Bandit II and The Cannonball Run.
If Tillis wasn’t onstage (and he often was; during the peak of his career, he played up to 300 dates a year), chances are he could be found fishing, gardening or painting — he’d often donate the proceeds from the sales of his art to charity. He toured with his band The Statesiders and regularly appeared on the Opry into his 80s.
“It so happened that I found what I was good for,” Tillis told The Tennessean in 1965. “I’m lucky. A lot of people go through life and never find out.”