Legendary country-music singer, 89 NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Eddy Arnold, one of the most successful country singers in history, died Thursday morning, days short of his 90 th birthday.
Arnold died at a care facility near Nashville, said Don Cusic, a professor at Belmont University and author of the biography Eddy Arnold: I’ll Hold You in My Heart. Arnold’s wife of 66 years, Sally, had died in March; and in the same month, Arnold injured his hip when he fell outside his home.
Arnold’s vocals on songs like the 1965 “Make the World Go Away,” one of his many No. 1 country hits and a top-10 hit on the pop charts, made him one of the most successful country singers in history.
Folksy yet sophisticated, he became a pioneer of “The Nashville Sound,” also called “countrypolitan,” a mixture of country and pop styles. His crossover success paved the way for such later singers as Kenny Rogers.
“I sing a little country, I sing a little pop, and I sing a little folk, and it all goes together,” he said in 1970.
He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966. The next year he was the first person to receive the entertainer-of-theyear award from the Country Music Association.
The reference book Top Country Singles 1944-1993 by Joel Whitburn ranked Arnold the No. 1 country singer in terms of overall success on the Billboard country charts. It lists his first No. 1 hit as “What Is Life Without Love,” 1947, and for the following year ranks his “Bouquet of Roses” as the biggest country hit of the entire year.
Other hits included “Cattle Call,” “ The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me, ” “Anytime,” “ Bouquet of Roses, ” “What’s He Doing in My World ?” “ I Want to Go With You, ” “Somebody Like Me,” “ Lonely Again” and “Turn the World Around.” Arnold was born May 15, 1918, on a farm near Henderson, Tenn., the son of a sharecropper. He is survived by a son, Richard Edward Arnold Jr., and a daughter, Jo Ann Pollard.
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