Country Star Arnold Dies
May 08, 2008, 10:50 AM ET
Ray Waddell, Nashville
From Billboard.com
Country Music Hall of Famer Eddy Arnold died this morning at an assisted living center near Nashville. He was 89 and would have celebrated his 90th birthday on May 15. Arnold is considered the top country artist ever in terms of overall chart performance in Billboard.
Known as the Tennessee Plowboy, the Tennessee native enjoyed both pop and country hits, including “Make The World Go Away,” “I Want To Go With You,” “Turn The World Around,” “I Really Don’t Want To Know” and “You Don’t Know Me.”
Arnold notched 28 Billboard No. 1 country singles, from 1947 until 1968, and had 92 top 10 hits, including 67 in a row, more than any other artist. Arnold’s 1947 song “I’ll Hold You in My Heart” spent 21 weeks at No. 1, and “Bouquet Of Roses” spent 19 weeks atop the chart in 1948. In the entire year of 1948 only one record that wasn’t by Arnold topped the country chart.
Arnold was also a savvy businessman, investing in hundreds of acres of real estate and other business concerns.
His 100th album, “After All This Time,” was released in 2005 on RCA.
Arnold was preceded in death by his wife Sally Gayhart Arnold, his wife of 66 years, who died in March. He is survived by their children, Richard Edward Jr., of Nashville, and Jo Ann Pollard, of Brentwood, Tenn. He is also survived by two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
