Don Gibson
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| Don Gibson | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Donald Eugene Gibson |
| Born | April 3, 1928 |
| Origin | North Carolina |
| Died | November 17, 2003 |
| Genre(s) | Country music |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | guitar |
| Years active | 1948-2003 |
| Label(s) | RCA, Columbia, MGM, Mercury |
Donald Eugene Gibson (April 3, 1928 – November 17, 2003) was an American songwriter and country musician.
Gibson was born in Shelby, North Carolina, into a poor working-class family, and he dropped out of school in the second grade.
His first band was called Sons of the Soil, with whom he made his first recording in 1948.
In 1957, he journeyed to Nashville to record "Oh Lonesome Me" for RCA. The song became a big hit both on the country and pop charts.
"Oh Lonesome Me" set the pattern for a long series of other RCA hits. "Blue Blue Day" was a number 1 hit in 1958. Later singles were "Don't Tell Me Your Troubles" (1959), "Sea of Heartbreak" (1961); "Lonesome No. 1," "I Can Mend Your Broken Heart" (1962), and "Woman (Sensuous Woman)", a Number one country hit in 1972.
Gibson recorded a series of successful duets with Dottie West in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the most successful of which were the Number two country hit "Rings of Gold" (1969) and the top 10 hit "There's a Story Goin' Round" (1970). West and Gibson released and album together in 1969, titled Dottie and Don. He also recorded several duets with Sue Thompson among these being the Top 40 hits, "I Think They Call It Love" (1972), "Good Old Fashioned Country Love" (1974) and "Oh, How Love Changes" (1975)
A talented songwriter, Gibson was nicknamed "The Sad Poet," because he frequently wrote songs that told of loneliness and lost love. He wrote and sang "I Can't Stop Loving You", a song that would be recorded by over 700 artists, most notably by Ray Charles in 1962. He also wrote and recorded "Sweet Dreams," a song that would become a major 1963 crossover hit for Patsy Cline. Roy Orbison was a great fan of Gibson's songwriting, and in 1967, he recorded an album of his songs simply titled Roy Orbison Sings Don Gibson. Additionally, Gibson's wide appeal is shown in Neil Young's recorded version of "Oh Lonesome Me" on his 1970 album After the Gold Rush, which is one of the very few songs Young has recorded that was not penned by himself.
Gibson was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1973, and in 2001, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
On his passing in 2003, he was buried in the Sunset Cemetery in his hometown of Shelby, North Carolina.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- Wolfe, Stacey (1998). "Don Gibson". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 199.
