Keith Whitley

At 34 years old, Keith Whitley has this physical status:

Jackie Keith Whitley (July 1, 1955 – May 9, 1989) was an American country music singer.

During his career, Whitley only recorded 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.

Whitley 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, Tennessee, in 1983 and began his recording career there.

His first Top 20 Country Hit single, "Miami, My Amy", was released in 1986.

While touring for his album L.A.

to Miami, he married country singer Lorrie Morgan.

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 two singles, "I Wonder Do You Think of Me" and "It Ain't Nothin'", were released after his death.

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. He had two brothers, Randy and Dwight, and a sister, Mary. 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.

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

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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 hit it off right away and quickly befriended each other.

Sixteen-year-old Whitley and 16-year-old Skaggs were discovered in Ft. Gay, West Virginia, by Ralph Stanley who was 45 minutes late for a show 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 Ralph's band. Whitley became lead singer for Stanley in 1974. Whitley also played with J.D. Crowe & the New South in the mid-1970s. 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.

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.

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