Earl Thomas Conley (born October 17, 1941, Portsmouth, Ohio, United States)^[1] is an American country music singer-songwriter. Between 1980 and 2003, he recorded ten studio albums, including seven for the RCA Records label. In the 1980s and into the 1990s, Conley also charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, of which eighteen reached Number One. Conley's eighteen Billboard Number One country singles during the 1980s marked the most Number One hits by any artist in any genre during that decade.^[1]

Throughout his career, Conley's music has been referred to as "thinking man's country." This is because the narrator looks into the heart and soul of his characters in each song.^[2]

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

When Conley was 14, his father lost his job with the railroad, forcing the young boy to move in with his older sister in Dayton, Ohio. He was offered a scholarship to an art school, but rejected it in favor of joining the U.S. Army. While in the Army, Conley became a member of a Christian-influenced trio, where his musical talent and vocal ability first began. Conley then decided to consider performing as a serious career option. He shifted more deeply into the classic country sounds of artists such as Merle Haggard and George Jones. During this period he first tried his hand at songwriting. In 1968, after his discharge from the Army, Conley began commuting from Dayton to Nashville. In 1973 while in Nashville, Conley met Dick Herd, who produced country music singer Mel Street. This meeting eventually led to the Conley-Herd collaboration on the song "Smokey Mountain Memories," which made the top 10 for Street.^[3] After being honorably discharged from the military, he began playing in clubs in Nashville, Tennessee, at night, supporting himself working blue-collar jobs during the day.^[2]

Career[link]

Feeling that he wasn't making any progress in Nashville, Conley moved to Huntsville, Alabama to work in a steel mill. There, he met record producer Nelson Larkin, who helped him sign with independent record label GRT in 1974. Conley released four singles on that label, none of which became large hits. At the same time, he was selling songs that he had written to other artists, including Conway Twitty and Mel Street, who were having much success with them.^[2]

Conley returned to Nashville, now writing for Nelson Larkin's publishing house. In 1979, he signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records. Two years later, he had his first Top 40 hit, "Dreamin's All I Do". He left the label in 1979 and joined Sunbird Records, where he again worked with Nelson Larkin. This time, Conley found success, with a Top Ten and a Number One single within the next two years. He continued to have success over the next few years, and in 1983, he was nominated for multiple Grammy Awards for his song "Holding Her and Loving You". He set a record the following year as the first artist in any genre to have four Number One singles from the same album.^[2]

Later years[link]

By the end of the 1980s, Conley began collaborating with Randy Scruggs (son of legendary country singer Earl Scruggs), in the hopes that he could bring his music back to his country roots. His record sales began to drop in the 1990s, as country music took a more traditional turn, and Conley was dropped from his record label in 1992. He took a seven year recording hiatus between 1991 to 1997 due to a number of factors, including vocal problems, disenchantment with record label politics, road fatigue and mental burnout.^[3] He began recording again in 1998.^[2]

In 2002, Blake Shelton charted in the Top 20 with "All Over Me," which Conley co-wrote with Shelton and songwriter Mike Pyle.

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website

Earl Thomas is the name of:

• Earl Thomas (officer), United States Army officer
• Earl Thomas (musician), American blues and soul singer
• Earl Thomas (wide receiver), former professional American football player
• Earl Thomas (defensive back), current safety for the Seattle Seahawks
• Earle Thomas, born William Earle Thomas, New Zealand international football (soccer) player

This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Jackie Keith Whitley^[1] (July 1, 1954^[1][2] — May 9, 1989), known professionally as Keith Whitley, was an American country music singer. Whitley's brief career in mainstream country music lasted from 1984 until his death in 1989, but he continues to influence an entire generation of singers and songwriters. He charted 19 singles on the Billboard country charts, including five consecutive Number Ones: "Don't Close Your Eyes", "When You Say Nothing at All", "I'm No Stranger to the Rain", "I Wonder Do You Think of Me" and "It Ain't Nothin'" (the last two posthumously).

Early life[link]

Whitley was born to Faye (editor of The Elliott County News) and Elmer Whitley (an electrician) in Ashland, Kentucky, but grew up 46 miles away in Sandy Hook, and attended Sandy Hook High School.^[3][4] He had two brothers, Randy and Dwight, and a sister, Mary.^[5][6] The Whitley family has lived in the Elliot County area since the 1840s.

As a teenager in Sandy Hook, Whitley and his friends would pass the time drinking bootleg bourbon and racing their cars down mountain roads at dangerous speeds. Whitley was once in a car whose driver attempted to round a curve at 120 mph. The car wrecked, killing his friend and almost breaking Whitley's neck. In another incident, he drove his car off a 120 foot cliff into a frozen river, escaping with only a broken collar bone.^[7]

Musical career[link]

In 1969 he performed in a musical contest in Ezel, Kentucky, with brother Dwight on five-string banjo. Future country-music star Ricky Skaggs was also in the contest. Skaggs and Whitley hit it off right away and became fast friends.^[8]

As teenagers, Whitley (15) and Skaggs (16) were discovered by Ralph Stanley while they were singing Stanley Brothers' songs as an opening act for the Clinch Mountain Boys. The two soon joined Ralph's band. Whitley also played with J.D. Crowe & the New South in the mid-seventies.^[7] During this period, he established himself as one of the most versatile and talented lead singers in bluegrass. His singing was heavily influenced by Carter Stanley and Lefty Frizzell. He moved to Nashville in 1983 to pursue a country music career and soon signed a record deal with RCA Records.^[7] Whitley's first solo album, A Hard Act to Follow, was released in 1984, and featured a more mainstream country style. While Whitley was working hard to achieve his own style, the songs he produced were inconsistent. Critics regarded the album as too erratic. Whitley honed his sound within the next few years for his next album, L.A. to Miami.

L.A. to Miami, released in 1986, would give him his first Top 20 country hit single, "Miami, My Amy". The song was followed by three more hit songs: "Ten Feet Away", "Homecoming '63", and "Hard Livin'", The album also included "On the Other Hand" and "Nobody in His Right Mind Would've Left Her". "On the Other Hand" was pitched to Whitley before Randy Travis released the song as a single and when Whitley's version wasn't released as a single, Travis released his in 1986, as did George Strait with "Nobody in His Right Mind Would've Left Her".

During his tour to promote L.A. to Miami, he met and began a romantic relationship with country singer Lorrie Morgan. The pair were married in November 1986, and they had their only child, a son, Jesse Keith Whitley, in June 1987. Whitley also adopted Lorrie's daughter, Morgan, from her first marriage.

During the new recording sessions in 1987, Whitley started feeling that the songs he was doing were not up to his standards, so he approached RCA and asked if the project of 15 songs could be shelved. He asked if he could assert himself more with the songs and production. The new album, titled Don't Close Your Eyes, was released in 1988, and the album sold extremely well. The album contained one of the many songs that Whitley had a hand in writing in his years at Tree Publishing, "It's All Coming Back to Me Now." Also on the album was a remake of Lefty Frizzell's classic standard "I Never Go Around Mirrors," and the song became a huge hit at Whitley's concerts. The first three singles from the album—"When You Say Nothing at All," "I'm No Stranger to the Rain," and the title cut—all reached number 1 on Billboard Magazine's country charts during the fall of 1988 and the winter of 1989, with the title track "Don't Close Your Eyes" being ranked as Billboard's No. 1 Country song of 1988. Shortly thereafter, "I'm No Stranger to the Rain" also earned Whitley his first and only Country Music Association award as a solo artist.

In early 1989, Whitley approached Sony Music Nashville chairman Joe Galante with the intention of releasing I Never Go Around Mirrors as a single. Galante approved of the musical flexibility that Whitley achieved with the song; however, he suggested that Whitley record something new and more upbeat. The result was a song Whitley had optioned for his previous album called I Wonder, Do You Think of Me?, and was to result in his next album release.

Alcoholism and death[link]

Whitley was a longtime alcoholic, who started drinking early in his career at bluegrass gigs, long before he was legally allowed to drink alcohol. Many times he had tried to overcome his alcoholism, but failed. Whitley preferred to drink alone, making it difficult for anyone to detect that he had a problem. According to Lorrie Morgan, she tried to conceal all alcoholic beverages from him, even going as far as binding their legs together before going to bed so as to make it impossible for Whitley to wake up in the middle of the night to consume a drink without her knowledge - only to discover that he would drink things such as perfume and nail polish remover to get intoxicated.

Whitley had lost both his father Elmer and his brother Randy (October 1983 motorcycle accident), in the five years preceding his death.^[3][5]

On the morning of May 9, 1989, after a weekend of drinking and partying, Whitley awoke and spoke with his mother briefly on the phone. He was then visited by his brother-in-law Lane Palmer, and the two had coffee and they were planning a day of golf and having lunch, after which Whitley had planned to start writing songs for he and Lorrie Morgan to record when she returned from her tour. Palmer departed at approximately 8:30 a.m.,^[9] informing Whitley to be ready to leave within an hour. Upon returning, Palmer found Whitley face down on his bed, fully clothed.

The cause of death was determined to be acute ethanolism (alcohol poisoning),^[4] and Davidson County Medical Examiner Charles Harlan stated that his blood alcohol level was .477 (the equivalent of 20 1-ounce shots of 100-proof whiskey^[10] and almost five times over the then Tennessee level of 0.1 legal intoxication limit, and nearly six times over the current .08 legal limit to drive).^{[11][12][12][13][14]} Whitley was 34 years old.^[1][2]

The day after his death, Music Row was lined with black ribbons in memory of Whitley. He is buried in the Spring Hill Cemetery outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

Death controversy[link]

It has long been speculated that Whitley's death may not have been directly caused by his recklessness or alcoholism, but that he may have been a victim of premeditated misconduct. In 2009, Forensic Pathologist and then-chief Medical Examiner Charles W. Harlan stood trial for several cases of forensic fraud which led to the misdiagnoses of several deceased patients, and possibly the conviction of innocent people under suspicion of murder. Subsequently, the man who originally lay claim that Whitley's death was solely by alcohol poisoning has been released of his license to practice pathology. ^{[15] [16]} Whitley's death certificate and autopsy results had once been sealed from public access, but have since been made public record.

Posthumous career[link]

Although Whitley's voice was silenced, his influence on country music has persisted long after his death. At the time of his death, he had just finished work on his fourth and final studio album, I Wonder Do You Think of Me. The album was released three months after his death, on August 1, 1989. The album produced two more #1 hits, with the title track and "It Ain't Nothin'." "I'm Over You" also saw the Top 5 in early 1990, reaching No. 3.

Two new songs were added to "Greatest Hits": The first, "Tell Lorrie I Love Her" was written and recorded at home by Whitley for Morgan, originally intended as a work tape for Whitley's friend Curtis 'Mr. Harmony' Young to sing at Whitley's wedding. The second was "'Til a Tear Becomes a Rose", a 1987 demo taken from Tree that originally featured harmony vocals by childhood friend Ricky Skaggs. Lorrie Morgan, with creative control and license to Whitley's namesake, recorded her voice alongside Whitley's, and released it as a single, which rose to No. 13 and won them 1990's CMA award for Best Vocal Collaboration.

RCA also released a compilation of performance clips (from his days in the Ralph Stanley-Fronted Clinch Mountain Boys), interviews, and some previously unreleased material under the title "Kentucky Bluebird". The album produced hits for Whitley as well, including a duet with Earl Thomas Conley, named "Brotherly Love," which peaked at No. 2 in late 1991.

In 1994, Whitley's widow, Lorrie Morgan, organized several of Whitley's friends in bluegrass and some of the big names in country at the time to record a tribute album to Whitley. The album included covers of Whitley's songs from artists such as Alan Jackson, Diamond Rio, and Ricky Skaggs. The album also included several previously unreleased tracks recorded by Whitley in 1987. One of the songs was a duet that Morgan and Whitley did in 1987 called "I Just Want You". The tribute album credited Whitley with another award for reaching more than 500,000 copies. However, the hit single to come from the tribute album was Alison Krauss & Union Station's rendition of "When You Say Nothing at All", which was a #3 hit for her that year.

In 1995, the album Wherever You Are Tonight was released, produced by Lorrie Morgan, featuring restored demos of 1986-1988, with crisper 1990s recording techniques and a full orchestra. The album and single of the same name both did very well on the Billboard and R&R charts and brought "Super Hits" and "The Essential Keith Whitley" in 1996. "The Essential" contained the remastered and long since unavailable LP and Whitley's debut, the 6-Track "A Hard Act to Follow", and a scrapped song from 1986's "LA to Miami", "I Wonder Where You Are Tonight".

In 2004, songwriter Jeff Swope began writing a film treatment for a biopic concerning Whitley's life and death that was shelved in 2006. On April 13, 2010, he announced that pre-production was set to begin again, pending investors.^[17]

In the last 10 years, several film projects depicting Whitley's life were slated. One idea was a film version of the George Vescey-Lorrie Morgan-penned "Forever Yours, Faithfully". While Morgan's book was a benchmark in piecing together Whitley's final moments, perhaps the most research went into a project titled "Kentucky Bluebird", which was to star writer/actor/director David Keith. This project has been in development hell for several years, and was halted in late 2006 also, after difficulties with casting and funding.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Compilation albums[link]

Singles[link]

Music videos[link]

References[link]

• Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. - Keith Whitley: Biography. - Allmusic.
• Skinker, Chris (1998). - "Keith Whitley". - The Encyclopedia of Country Music: The Ultimate Guide to the Music. - First Edition. - Paul Kingsbury, editor. - New York: Oxford University Press. - pp. 583–584. ISBN 978-0-19-511671-7

Notes[link]