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Country Legend Eddy Arnold Dead at 89
8-May-2008
Written by: Nolan Maloney
Countrypolitan pioneer dies after 70 years of music.
Eddy Arnold, pioneer of the country & western sound, died today at a care facility in Nashville.
The singer, whose most popular song of his almost 70-year career was arguably “Make the World Go Away,” had sold more than 85 million recordings. He was known particularly for his smooth, sophisticated croon and his efforts to elevate country music above the stereotypical “drinking and cheating” motifs that inhabited much of the genre.
“I’ve never thought of myself as a country and western singer,” he told a reporter for the Charlotte Observer in 1968. “With the type material I do, I’m really a pop music artist.”
Arnold’s music career took off in 1940 when he became the lead singer of Pee Wee King’s Golden West Cowboys, a Grand Ole Opry mainstay. Over the years, he honed his music to sound more vibrant and multi-dimensional, helping what is known as the Nashville Sound, or Countrypolitan. This paved the way for artists such as Patsy Cline and Floyd Cramer.
He announced his retirement in 1999 in Las Vegas. In the same year, at 81, he recorded one more record for the charts: a remake of his 1955 song, “The Cattle Call,” sung in duet with LeAnn Rimes.
More Perry Como than Gram Parsons, more Martin than Merle Haggard, Eddy Arnold will be missed.
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