Earl Thomas Conley

Best known as a purveyor of romantic ballads that often blurred the border between country and pop, Earl Thomas Conley enjoyed an epic string of huge country hits throughout the '80s. Born in Portsmouth, Ohio on October 17, 1941, he joined the U.S. Army as a young man, and actually started singing during his hitch in the service. In the late '60s he began making inroads as a songwriter in Nashville. He had some of his songs cut by Jose Feliciano in the early '70s, but his first big songwriting successes came in 1975 with Mel Street's recording of "Smokey Mountain Memories" and Conway Twitty's "This Time I've Hurt Her More Than She Loves Me." Conley kicked off his career as a recording artist in 1971 with a cover of The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," but it wasn't until the '80s that his own singles started making a major impact. His 1981 LP Fire & Smoke was the one that turned everything around for him, bearing three Top 10 country singles, including the No. 1 title track. For the rest of the decade, Conley could do no wrong, and his huge tally of hits in the '80s included no less than 18 No. 1 singles. Conley's 1986 hit duet with Anita Pointer of The Pointer Sisters on "Too Many Times" was a major crossover moment for country at the time. In the early '90s Conley's hits were fewer and further between, and for a number of reasons he put his career on hold for several years, returning in 1998 with the album Perpetual Emotion. The comeback didn't take, however, and that proved to be his last LP. Nevertheless, Conley continued to perform up until the end of his life. He passed away from cerebral atrophy on April 10, 2019.