Eddy Arnold, the most successful country hit maker of all time, who played a crucial role in transforming what had long been considered "hillbilly music" from a rural phenomenon into music with broad-based national appeal, died Thursday. He was 89, a week short of his 90th birthday.
Arnold, an elegant, pop-influenced singer, died at a long-term care facility near Nashville, family spokesman and Arnold biographer Don Cusic said Thursday. His wife of 66 years, Sally, had died in March and Arnold had broken his hip the same month in a fall at his home.
Determined throughout his life to transcend the rural poverty he had known as a child in Tennessee, he carved out an identity as an urbane crooner unrestricted by the trappings associated with country music stardom. He has been called "the Garth Brooks of his time" for creating the template still followed today by country singers who reach beyond a niche audience to capture a broad following, a move that angered many traditional country fans.
"He epitomized how someone could become a huge star in this genre," Kyle Young, director of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, said Thursday. "He certainly set the bar: He sold 80 million records, had his own TV show, filled in for Johnny Carson as a 'Tonight Show' host. In some ways his career defines what it's like to end up at the top of the heap."
Arnold had a nine-year run of 57 consecutive top 10 hits from 1945 to 1954, among them "I'll Hold You in My Heart (Till I Can Hold You in My Arms)," which spent more than five months at No. 1 in 1947, and “Bouquet of Roses,” which logged 19 weeks in the top spot the following year. Many of those songs, despite the twangy steel guitars and fiddles under his voice, appealed to large numbers of fans because of his mellow tenor, which was virtually free of a drawl.
"More than anyone in the 1940s, he helped change the image of the music from 'hillbilly' to 'country,' " Robert Hilburn, The Times' former pop music critic, said Thursday. "He ranks with Johnny Cash as one of the great ambassadors of country music."
Arnold's music had a huge effect on succeeding generations of country performers.
"When I was about 15 years old, the only stuff I sang was Eddy Arnold," George Jones said in a statement Thursday. "He would be just about my whole show. I'd sing 'Bouquet of Roses' and 'I'm Throwing Rice (at the Girl I Love).' All I sang was Eddy until I heard Hank Williams."
