Keith Whitley
Whitley performing in June 1988
Whitley performing in June 1988
Background information
Birth nameJackie Keith Whitley[1]
Born(1954-07-01)July 1, 1954
Ashland, Kentucky, U.S.
OriginSandy Hook, Kentucky, U.S.
DiedMay 9, 1989(1989-05-09) (aged 34)
Goodlettsville, Tennessee, U.S.
GenresCountry, bluegrass
Occupation(s)Singer, songwriter
Instrument(s)Vocals, guitar
Years active1970–1989
LabelsRCA
Formerly ofClinch Mountain Boys
Spouse(s)
​
(m. 1986⁠–⁠1989)​

Jackie Keith Whitley (July 1, 1954 – May 9, 1989) was an American country music singer and songwriter. During his career, he released only two albums but charted 12 singles on the Billboard country charts, and 7 more after his death.

Born in Ashland, Kentucky, Whitley grew up in nearby Sandy Hook, Kentucky. He began his career there in 1970, performing in Ralph Stanley's band. Establishing himself as a lead singer in bluegrass music, Whitley moved to Nashville in 1983 and began his recording career there. His first Top 20 Country Hit single, "Miami, My Amy", was released in 1986. In 1988, his first three singles from his studio album Don't Close Your Eyes, the title song, "When You Say Nothing at All" and "I'm No Stranger to the Rain" were number one hits. Years of alcoholism severely compromised his health and he died of alcohol intoxication in 1989 at his Goodlettsville home at the age of 34. His later singles, "I Wonder Do You Think of Me", "It Ain't Nothin'", and "I'm Over You", were released after his death.

In 2022, Whitley was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.[2]

Early life

Whitley was born to Faye Ferguson (editor of The Elliott County News) and Elmer Whitley (an electrician) in Ashland, Kentucky, but was raised 46 miles away in Sandy Hook, and attended Sandy Hook High School.[3][4] He had two brothers, Randy and Dwight, and a sister, Mary.[5][6] The Whitley family is of English and Scots-Irish descent and has lived in the Elliott County area since the 1840s.

While Whitley was a teenager in Sandy Hook, he and his friends would pass the time drinking bootleg bourbon and racing their cars down mountain roads at dangerous speeds. Whitley was once in a car whose driver attempted to round a curve at 120 miles per hour (190 km/h). The car wrecked, killing his friend and almost breaking Whitley's neck. In another incident, he drove his car off a 120-foot (37 m) cliff into a frozen river, escaping with only a broken collar bone.[7]

Whitley lost his brother Randy in an October 1983 motorcycle accident, and his father Elmer.[3][5]

Musical career

Whitley is known for his neotraditional brand of country popularized by hit artists such as George Strait and Randy Travis.

In 1969, he performed in a musical contest in Ezel, Kentucky, with brother Dwight on five-string banjo. Ricky Skaggs was also in the contest. Skaggs and Whitley instantly bonded and subsequently became close friends.[8]

Whitley and Skaggs, both sixteen years old, were discovered in Ft. Gay, West Virginia, by Ralph Stanley, who was 45 minutes late for a gig due to a flat tire. Stanley opened the door of the club and heard what he thought was the Stanley Brothers playing on a jukebox. However, it was Whitley and Skaggs, who "sounded just like me and Carter in the early days". The two soon joined Stanley's band. Whitley became lead singer for Stanley in 1974. Whitley also played with J.D. Crowe & the New South in the mid-1970s.[7] During this period, he established himself as one of the most versatile and talented lead singers in bluegrass. His singing was heavily influenced by Carter Stanley and Lefty Frizzell. He moved to Nashville in 1983 to pursue a country music career and soon signed a record deal with RCA Records.[7]

Whitley's first solo album, A Hard Act to Follow, was released in 1984, and featured a more mainstream country style. While Whitley was working hard to achieve his own style, the songs he produced were inconsistent. Critics regarded the album as too erratic. Whitley honed his sound within the next few years for his next album, L.A. to Miami.

L.A. to Miami, released in 1985, would give him his first Top 20 country hit single, "Miami, My Amy". The song was followed by three more hit songs: "Ten Feet Away", "Homecoming '63", and "Hard Livin'", The album also included "On the Other Hand" and "Nobody in His Right Mind Would've Left Her". "On the Other Hand" was pitched to Whitley before Randy Travis released the song as a single and when Whitley's version wasn't released as a single, Travis released his in 1986, as did George Strait with "Nobody in His Right Mind Would've Left Her".

During his tour to promote L.A. to Miami, he met and began a romantic relationship with country singer Lorrie Morgan. They were married in November 1986 and had their only child, a son, Jesse Keith Whitley in June 1987. Whitley also adopted Lorrie's daughter, Morgan, from her first marriage.

During the new recording sessions in 1987, Whitley began feeling that the songs he was were not up to his standards, so he approached RCA and asked if the project of 15 songs could be shelved. He also asked if he could take a major role in creating the songs and in production. The new album, titled Don't Close Your Eyes, was released in 1988, and the album sold extremely well. The album contained one of the many songs that Whitley had a hand in writing in his years at Tree Publishing, "It's All Coming Back to Me Now". On the album was a remake of Lefty Frizzell's classic standard "I Never Go Around Mirrors," and the song became a huge hit at Whitley's concerts. The first three singles from the album—"When You Say Nothing at All," "I'm No Stranger to the Rain," and the title cut—all reached No. 1 on Billboard's country charts during the autumn of 1988 and the winter of 1989, with the title track "Don't Close Your Eyes" being ranked as Billboard’s No. 1 Country song of 1988. Shortly thereafter, "I'm No Stranger to the Rain" also earned Whitley his first and only Country Music Association award as a solo artist and a Grammy nomination for Best Country Vocal Performance, Male.

In early 1989, Whitley approached RCA chairman Joe Galante with the intention of releasing "I Never Go Around Mirrors" as a single. Galante approved of the musical flexibility that Whitley achieved with the song; however, he suggested that Whitley record something new and more upbeat. The result was a song Whitley had optioned for his previous album called I Wonder Do You Think of Me, and was to result in his next album release.

Whitley was scheduled to be invited to join the Grand Ole Opry in late May 1989. He was posthumously inducted as a former member on October 14, 2023, in a tribute concert held during that night's Opry broadcast.[9]

Death

On May 9, 1989, Whitley had a brief phone call with his mother and was later visited by his brother-in-law, Lane Palmer. The two had coffee and were planning a day of golf and lunch, after which Whitley planned to start writing songs for him and Lorrie Morgan to record when she returned from her concert tour. Palmer left at approximately 8:30 a.m.,[10] asking Whitley to be ready to leave within an hour. Upon returning, Palmer found Whitley unresponsive on his bed and called an ambulance. Whitley was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was 34.

The official cause of death was acute ethanolism (alcohol poisoning).[4] Davidson County Medical Examiner Charles Harlan stated that Whitley's blood alcohol level was 0.47 (the equivalent of 20 one-ounce shots of 100-proof whiskey).[11][12][13][14][15] He was born in 1954 per his birth certificate and passport, but RCA and his grave marker erroneously recorded his birth year as 1955.[16][17]

The day after his death, Music Row was lined with black ribbons in memory of Whitley. He is buried in the Spring Hill Cemetery outside Nashville. His gravestone reads, "Forever yours faithfully" (part one) and "His being was my reason" (part two). The "yours" in part one refers to Whitley, and the "my" in part two refers to Morgan, who has a future burial spot next to him.

Posthumous releases

At the time of his death, Whitley had just finished work on his third and final studio album, I Wonder Do You Think of Me. The album was released three months after his death, on August 1, 1989. The album produced two more No. 1 hits, with the title track and "It Ain't Nothin'." "I'm Over You" also was in the Top 5 in early 1990, reaching No. 3.

Two new songs were added to "Greatest Hits": The first, "Tell Lorrie I Love Her" was written and recorded at home by Whitley for Morgan, originally intended as a work tape for Whitley's friend Curtis 'Mr. Harmony' Young to sing at Whitley's wedding. The second was "'Til a Tear Becomes a Rose", a 1987 demo taken from Tree that originally featured harmony vocals by childhood friend Ricky Skaggs. Lorrie Morgan, with creative control and license to Whitley's namesake, recorded her voice alongside Whitley's, and released it as a single, which rose to No. 13 and won them 1990's CMA award for Best Vocal Collaboration as well as a Grammy nomination for Best Country Vocal Collaboration.

RCA also released a compilation of performance clips (from his days in the Ralph Stanley-Fronted Clinch Mountain Boys), interviews, and some previously unreleased material under the title "Kentucky Bluebird". The album produced hits for Whitley as well, including a duet with Earl Thomas Conley, named "Brotherly Love," which peaked at No. 2 in late 1991 and gave Whitley his second consecutive posthumous Grammy nomination for Best Country Vocal Collaboration.

In 1994, Whitley's widow, Lorrie Morgan, organized several of Whitley's friends in bluegrass and some of the big names in country at the time to record a tribute album to Whitley. The album, Keith Whitley: A Tribute Album, was released in September 1994 via BNA. It included covers of Whitley's songs from artists such as Alan Jackson, Diamond Rio, and Ricky Skaggs. The album also included four previously unreleased tracks recorded by Whitley in 1987, one of which had Morgan dubbed in as a duet partner. The album also included two original songs: "Little Boy Lost", co-written and sung by Daron Norwood, and "A Voice Still Rings True", a multi-artist song.[18] Alison Krauss's rendition of "When You Say Nothing at All" was released as a single from the album, reaching number 3 on the country charts in 1995.

In 1995, the album Wherever You Are Tonight was released, produced by Lorrie Morgan, featuring restored demos of 1986–1988, with crisper 1990s recording techniques and a full orchestra. The album and single of the same name both did very well on the Billboard and R&R charts and "Super Hits" and "The Essential Keith Whitley" followed in 1996. "The Essential" contained the remastered and long since unavailable LP and Whitley's debut, the 6-Track "A Hard Act to Follow", and a scrapped song from 1986's "LA to Miami", "I Wonder Where You Are Tonight".

Legacy

Several film projects depicting Whitley's life were slated, but none have come to fruition. One idea was a film version of the George Vescey-Lorrie Morgan-penned Forever Yours, Faithfully. While Morgan's book was a benchmark in piecing together Whitley's final moments, perhaps the most research went into a project titled Kentucky Bluebird, which was to star writer/actor/director David Keith. This project was in development hell for several years, and was halted in late 2006 after difficulties with casting and funding. Another film project, started in 2004 by songwriter Jeff Swope, was a biopic chronicling Whitley's life and passing. The last information about the project came in 2010, when he announced that pre-production was set to begin, pending investors.[19]

Despite his brief moment in the spotlight, Whitley's legacy remains.[20][21] He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2022;[2] prior to that, he was the subject of an exhibit detailing his life and legacy.[22] Whitley retains a persistent influence on country artists, including Tim McGraw, Ronnie Dunn, and Dierks Bentley.[23] Newer artists like Morgan Wallen are among his progenitors; a song named after Whitley features on Wallen's 2023 double album, One Thing at a Time,[24] which won the approval of Whitley's widow and son.[25]

Whitley is the only person to be posthumously recognized as a former member of the Grand Ole Opry, without ever being an active member. Management had scheduled Whitley for an appearance in late May 1989, where he was to be invited to join, but his death on May 9 interrupted those plans. As the Opry has a policy only inducting living artists as members, Whitley's induction was scrapped. During a Keith Whitley tribute show at the Opry on October 14, 2023, Garth Brooks and Lorrie Morgan announced that Whitley's name would be engraved on a plaque and included in the Opry's Member Gallery backstage, alongside every act who has held Opry membership at some point in the show's history, dating to 1925.

Discography

Billboard number-one hits

Awards and nominations

Grammy Awards

Year Nominee / work Award Result
1990 "I'm No Stranger to the Rain" Best Male Country Vocal Performance Nominated
1991 "'Til a Tear Becomes a Rose" Best Country Collaboration with Vocals Nominated
1992 "Brotherly Love" Nominated

Music City News Country Awards & TNN/Music City News Country Awards

Year Nominee / work Award Result
1989 Keith Whitley Star of Tomorrow Nominated
1990 I Wonder Do You Think of Me Album of the Year Nominated
"I'm No Stranger to the Rain" Single of the Year Nominated
1991 "'Til a Tear Becomes a Rose" Nominated
Lorrie Morgan and Keith Whitley Vocal Collaboration of the Year Won

Academy of Country Music Awards

Year Nominee / work Award Result
1986 Keith Whitley Top New Male Vocalist Nominated
1989 "Don't Close Your Eyes" Song of the Year Nominated
Single Record of the Year Nominated
1990 "I'm No Stranger to the Rain" Nominated
1992 "Brotherly Love" Video of the Year Nominated
2013 Keith Whitley Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award Awarded

Country Music Association Awards

Year Nominee / work Award Result
1989 "I'm No Stranger to the Rain" Single of the Year Won
Keith Whitley Horizon Award Nominated
Male Vocalist of the Year Nominated
1990 I Wonder Do You Think of Me Album of the Year Nominated
Keith Whitley and Lorrie Morgan Vocal Event of the Year Won
1992 Keith Whitley and Earl Thomas Conley Nominated

References

  • Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. – Keith Whitley: Biography. – Allmusic.
  • Skinker, Chris (1998). – "Keith Whitley". – The Encyclopedia of Country Music: The Ultimate Guide to the Music. – First Edition. – Paul Kingsbury, editor. – New York: Oxford University Press. – pp. 583–584. ISBN 978-0-19-511671-7
  1. ↑ "Keith Whitley's family remembers their father, husband on 30th anniversary of his death". Tennessean. May 8, 2019.
  2. 1 2 "Keith Whitley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Joe Galante are headed to the Country Music Hall of Fame".
  3. 1 2 Hicks, Jack. – "Singer Keith Whitley's Memory Alive Through Songs, Love in Home Town". – The Kentucky Post. – September 25, 1991.
  4. 1 2 "Country Music Star Keith Whitley Dead at 33". – Lexington Herald-Leader. – May 10, 1989.
  5. 1 2 Lockwood, Frank E. – "Bikers, Sandy Hook Pay Tribute to Favorite Son". – Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) – Saturday, June 27, 1998.
  6. ↑ Lockwood, Frank E. – "Singing in Rain". – Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) – Saturday, June 28, 1999.
  7. 1 2 3 Associated Press – "Whitley Just Getting Started Despite 18-Year Music Career". – Salina Journal (KS) – Thursday, October 27, 1988.
  8. ↑ Rowe, Norman. – Album Echoes Country Classics". – Richmond Times-Dispatch. – April 20, 1986
  9. ↑ "Keith Whitley to be celebrated by Garth Brooks, more, at October Opry event". The Tennessean. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  10. ↑ Jinkins, Shirley. – "A country music love story of death, drinking and devotion". – Fort Worth Star-Telegram. – October 14, 1997.
  11. ↑ "Alcohol Cuts Short a promising career". – Associated Press. – (c/o Salina Journal). – August 10, 1989.
  12. ↑ Edwards, Joe. – "Keith Whitley discovered dead – Alcohol overdose cause of death". – Austin American-Statesman. – May 10, 1989.
  13. ↑ "Country Singer Keith Whitley, 33". – Associated Press. – (c/o Chicago Tribune). – May 10, 1989.
  14. ↑ Hurst, Jack. – "Whitley's Last Days". – Chicago Tribune. – May 14, 1989.
  15. ↑ Green, Barbara. – "Whitley Fans Hate 'To See a Good Man Go To Waste". – Richmond Times-Dispatch. – May 17, 1989.
  16. ↑ Whitburn, Joel (2006). – The Billboard Book of Top 40 Country Hits. – Second Edition. – New York: Billboard Books. – p.382. – ISBN 978-0-8230-8291-9.
  17. ↑ Stambler, Irwin, and Grelun Landon (2000). – Country Music: The Encyclopedia. – New York: St. Martin's Press. – p.533. – ISBN 978-0-312-26487-1.
    —Carlin, Richard (2003). – Country Music: A Biographical Dictionary. – New York: Routledge – p.427. – ISBN 978-0-415-93802-0.
    —Larkin, Colin (1995). – The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music. – New York: Stockton Press – P.4462. – ISBN 978-0-85112-662-3.
    —Stanton, Scott (2003). – The Tombstone Tourist: Musicians. – New York: Pocket Books. – p.395. – ISBN 978-0-7434-6330-0.
    —Hicks, Jack. – "Singer Keith Whitley's Memory Alive Through Songs, Love in Home Town". – The Kentucky Post. – September 25, 1991.
    —"Country Music Star Keith Whitley Dead at 33". – Lexington Herald-Leader. – May 10, 1989.
    —Hurst, Jack. – "Whitley's Last Days". – Chicago Tribune. – May 14, 1989.
    —"Alcohol Kills Country Singer Keith Whitley". – United Press International. – (c/o The San Francisco Chronicle). – May 10, 1989.
  18. ↑ Hurst, Jack (August 11, 1994). "Crowning Touch 'Red Hot + Country' Album Delayed To Include Crosby, Stills And Nash". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved February 17, 2014.
  19. ↑ Mirrors, The Keith Whitley Story – WordPress, April 13, 2010
  20. ↑ Watts, Cindy (May 8, 2019). "Keith Whitley's family remembers him on 30th anniversary of his death". The Tennessean. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
  21. ↑ Morris, Edward (May 8, 2009). "Keith Whitley's Musical Legacy Endures Two Decades After His Death". CMT. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
  22. ↑ Hall, Kristin M. (May 3, 2019). "New exhibit shows Keith Whitley's tragic, but lasting legacy". The Seattle Times. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
  23. ↑ Roland, Tom (May 6, 2014). "How Keith Whitley's Conflicted Legacy Spawned an 'Authentic' Country Revival". Billboard. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
  24. ↑ Nicholson, Jessica (March 4, 2023). "Morgan Wallen Celebrates New Album 'One Thing at a Time' For a Packed House in Nashville". Billboard. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
  25. ↑ "Lorrie Morgan and Jesse Keith Whitley React To Morgan Wallen's New Song That Tributes Keith Whitley". Country Now. January 12, 2023. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
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