Condolences: Mel Tillis

• Country music legend Mel Tillis died Sunday morning, Nov. 19 at the Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala, FL. He was 85. According to The Tennessean, Tillis had been ill for some time. In January 2016 he underwent surgery after a serious bout of diverticulitis. He battled sepsis and spent the better part of a month in the intensive care unit. The suspected cause of death is respiratory failure.

Variety reports Tillis began recording in the late ’50s and continued to perform through 2015, but remained best known for a string of No. 1 country hits in the late ’70s. Through the late ’50s and ’60s, Tillis balanced his career as a then-minor hitmaker with bigger songwriting successes for other artists, including “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” for Kenny Rogers and the First Edition and “Detroit City” for Bobby Bare. In 1971 Tillis had his first No. 1 hit as a recording artist, with “I Ain’t Never,” which he followed later in the decade with “Good Woman Blues,” “Heart Healer,” “I Believe In You” and “Coca-Cola Cowboy.” Tillis also made numerous movie and TV appearances in the ’70s and ’80s, including Every Which Way But Loose with Clint Eastwood and three movies with pal Burt Reynolds — Smokey and the Bandit II and two Cannonball Run movies.

After his recording career faded in the ’80s, Tillis acquired several radio stations, including KIXZ and KYTX/Amarillo, TX, and WMML/Mobile, AL, which he eventually sold for a sizable profit. He also found a different kind of fame with a new generation by virtue of being the father of Pam Tillis, who had a run of 13 Top 10 hits in the ’90s and often referred to her famous dad. In 1976, Tillis won the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year award and was inducted in the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. In 2007, Tillis was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, as well as the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Tillis the National Medal of Arts.