Prolific singer at the forefront of country music’s evolution
Eddy Arnold, who died on 8 May, 2008, aged 89, was an American singer who had an astonishing raft of number one hits on the US Country charts in the 1940s and '60s and reached the pop top ten of America and the UK with Make the World Go Away.
A remarkable 28 of his songs topped the country charts and between 1945 and 1983 he released 145 singles, selling more 85 million records. He was the most prolific and arguably the most successful country star of all time.
He was certainly among the most influential. The secret of his success was the combination of his earnest, velvety voice and lavish string accompaniment that gave his music mass appeal and blazed the trail for what would come to be known as the Nashville Sound.
Eddy Arnold was born in Henderson, Tennessee on 15 May, 1918. He was taught guitar at an early age by his mother and played at local dances where his father played the fiddle. But he had a tough childhood - his father died when he was 11 and the family farm went under soon after. Eddy was forced to fall back on his musical abilities and headed to Nashville at the age of 18.
At first he struggled to find work but was then hired as the lead singer of the Pee Wee King band who toured US military bases during the Second World War. In the early 1940s he branched out on his own and established himself as a solo performer on the Grand Ole Opry radio show, earning himself a record deal with RCA Victor.
His first hit, That's How Much I Love You, came in 1946 and it would be the first of many. Under the management of one Colonel Tom Parker he dominated the country charts during the late '40s - at one point he occupied 17 of the 20 positions. His first number one, It's a Sin, came in 1947 and was followed by many country ballads of the same ilk, such as Cattle Call, What's He Doing in My World? and Turn the World Around.
The Tennessee Plowboy, as he was nicknamed, suffered from the advent of rock 'n' roll. He lost his manager to Elvis and upset many fans by recording in New York with easy-listening conductor Hugo Winterhalter. The move from fiddle to orchestral accompaniment was daring at the time, perhaps even foolhardy, but it was also innovative.
Still hungry for mainstream success, Mr Arnold stuck to his guns, confident that lush orchestral arrangements would eventually reap rewards. He was right and in 1965, Make the World Go Away, an average country song, brought to life by the soaring production of Chet Atkins, reached number six on the Billboard Charts and became an international hit. Versions would later be recorded by Elvis Presley, Engelbert Humperdinck, Tom Jones and the Osmonds.
Despite being well into his 40s, Eddy Arnold enjoyed even more success during the remainder of the decade than he had during the first stage of his career. He matched The Beatles in record sales and had a string of eight successive number one country albums. He was credited with part-inspiring a revival of interest in country music, spurning the rhinestone-encrusted, honky tonk caricature the genre had erstwhile been associated with and running at the front of the 'countrypolitan' movement.
He recorded regularly well into the 1980s and after that he concentrated on touring, attracting several generations of fans to his shows. He released a new album every decade or so, his last, After All These Years, coming out in 2005. He performed live for the last time in 1999 at the age of 81.
He was one of the first inductees into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966 and won the Country Music Association's first 'Entertainer Of The Year' award the following year.
His wife of 66 years, Sally, died two months before him. He was survived by their children Dickie and Jo Ann, two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.