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Don
Gibson might or might not have been thinking of himself when
he wrote his 1960 song “(I’d Be) A Legend in My Time,” but the
title is an apt description of his own career. He has been
responsible for writing at least three of the most famous
songs in country music history, for helping to define the
sound and studio style of modern country music, and for
releasing more than eighty charted records between 1956 and
1980.
“I
consider myself a songwriter who sings rather than a singer
who writes songs,” Gibson has said, and as late as 1986 he
estimated he had as many as 150 to 175 “working songs”—songs
that were still performed enough to earn him regular
royalties. In addition, as a singer, between 1949 and 1985 he
had recorded 513 titles on a range of labels that included
Mercury, Columbia, RCA Victor, Hickory, MGM, and K-Tel. When
all the data are in, historians may be hard pressed on just
how to catalogue this remarkable talent.
Born on April 3, 1929, Gibson was a poor boy
from Shelby, N.C., who dropped out of school in second grade.
But he became a songwriting genius who sold millions of
records. “The only thing I was any good at was music,” he said
in a 1997 interview.
Gibson got his start with a local band called the Sons of the
Soil on Shelby station WOHS. In 1949, he made his first
recording with them: a Mercury side called “Automatic Mama.”
By 1952 he had gotten a job at Knoxville’s WNOX and was
recording for Columbia. His recordings for this label were not
commercially successful, but he was discovering he had a knack
for songwriting.
By
1955, Gibson had written his first masterpiece, “Sweet
Dreams,” later to a hit for Gibson, Faron Young, and Patsy
Cline. It won him a songwriter’s contract with Acuff-Rose
Publications and a recording deal with MGM. Then, in 1957,
while living in a trailer park north of Knoxville, he wrote
his other two career songs on the same day: “Oh Lonesome Me”
and “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” (The latter would eventually
be recorded more than 700 times by singers in many music
genres and sell more than 30 million records worldwide.)
Produced by Chet Atkins, Gibson’s 1957 recording of “Oh
Lonesome Me” for RCA was a landmark that helped usher in what
became known as the “Nashville Sound.” In 1958, it became
Gibson’s first No. 1 single.
On
November 17, 2003, the 75-year old Don Gibson laid his pen
down for the last time. Indeed, he became a legend in his own
time.
Dusty Owens
TCM Radio News
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