Winner of four Country Music Association Awards, including Male Vocalist of the Year, Single of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year. His song "There Goes My Everything" was a hit in 1966.
He learned how to play guitar when he was ten years old and worked as a disc jockey at a radio station when he was a teenager, before being a regular on the television show Tennessee Barn Dance when he was eighteen.
He was once a part of Ernest Tubb's backing band, The Texas Troubadours, in 1962.
He was born in Maryville, Tennessee.
His final album, Precious Memories, Treasured Friends, was released in 2010 and contained a series of duets, including one with Lorrie Morgan.
