Music journalist, editor and author, Chet Flippo died Wednesday morning (June 19) of pneumonia at age 69.
Flippo became Rolling Stone’s New York Bureau Chief in 1974 and became senior editor in 1977 when the magazine relocated to San Francisco. He taught journalism at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in the early nineties then became Billboard’s Nashville Bureau Chief from 1995 to 2000. At the time of his death, he was editorial director of CMT and CMT.com.
He enjoyed writing about credible artists trying to break out into the industry Billboard reports.
He wrote about artists including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and John Lennon but he also helped boots the coverage of country music by covering artists such as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Dolly Parton.
“Chet was a fierce advocate for country music long before country was cool. Chet articulated the virtues and joys of country music with a passion and intelligence that helped make the genre respectable even among snobs and city slickers,” CMT President Brian Philips said in a statement.
In 1980 he wrote his first book Your Cheetin’ Heart: A Biography of Hank Williams. He went on to write Graceland: The Living Legacy of Elvis Presley, books about the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and an anthology Everybody Was Kung-Fu Dancing: Chronicles of the Lionized and the Notorious Rolling Stone reports.
Flippo was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1943. He served in the Navy during the Vietnam War.