Earl Thomas Conley Biography
Earl Thomas Conley was an American country music singer-songwriter. Between (1980 and 2003) he recorded ten studio albums, such as seven for the RCA Records label.
In the 1980s and into the 1990s, Conley also charted more than 30 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, of which 18 reached Number One. Conley’s 18 Billboard Number One country singles during the 1980s marked the most Number One hits by any artist in any genre during that decade except for Alabama and Ronnie Milsap.
Throughout his career, Conley’s music has been referred to as “thinking man’s country.” This is because the narrator looks into the heart and soul of his characters in each song.
Earl Thomas Conley Married | Earl Thomas Conley Wife
Earl Thomas Conley was married twice, to Sandra Sue Smith and Carole Scates. He has 4 children, Ty Conley, Amy Edmisten, Kat Scates, and Erin Scates. No other information regarding his personal life is available.
Earl Thomas Conley Songs
Holding Her and Loving You Don’t Make It Easy For Me · 1983
Once In A Blue Moon Perpetual Emotion · 1998
What I’d Say The Heart of It All · 1988
Fire and Smoke Fire & Smoke · 2015
Somewhere Between Right and Wrong Earl Thomas Conley – Live at Church Street Station · 2016
I Can’t Win For Losin’ You Too Many Times · 2015
Right From The Start Too Many Times · 2015
Don’t Make It Easy For Me Don’t Make It Easy For Me · 1983
Your Love’s On The Line Don’t Make It Easy For Me · 1983
Nobody Falls Like A Fool The Essential Earl Thomas Conley · 1996
Angel In Disguise Don’t Make It Easy For Me · 1983
Love Out Loud The Heart of It All · 1988
What She Is The Heart of It All · 1988
That Was A Close One Too Many Times · 2015
Love Don’t Care Treadin’ Water · 2016
We Believe in Happy Endings The Heart of It All · 1988
I Have Loved You Girl Earl Thomas Conley – Greatest Hits · 1985
Chance Of Lovin’ You Treadin’ Water · 2016
Heavenly Bodies Live At Billy Bob’s Texas · 2005 Silent Treatment Fire & Smoke · 2015
Too Many Times Too Many Times · 2015
Honor Bound Treadin’ Water · 2016
Shadow of a Doubt Yours Truly · 1991
After the Love Slips Away Fire & Smoke · 2015
You Must Not Be Drinking Enough The Heart of It All · 1988
Smokey Mountain Memories Fire & Smoke · 2015
Tell Me Why Fire & Smoke · 2015
It Should’ve Been Over by Now Perpetual Emotion · 1998
Hard Days and Honky Tonk Nights Yours Truly · 1991
Bring Back Your Love to Me The Essential Earl Thomas Conley · 1996
Crowd Around the Corner Don’t Make It Easy For Me · 1983
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down The Country Box (disc 4)
Earl Thomas Conley Net Worth
Earl Thomas Conley was an American country music singer-songwriter. Between 1980 and 2003, he recorded ten studio albums, including seven for the RCA Records label. The former American country music singer-songwriter estimated net worth is $8 million dollars as of 2019.
Earl Thomas Conley Age
He was born on 17th October 1941 in Portsmouth, Ohio, United States. He died on Wednesday, April 10. 2019 at the age of 77 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Earl Thomas Conley Death
Country singer peer Thomas Conley, World Health Organization American ginseng ‘Holding Her and enamored You,’ dies at seventy-seven.
Country singer peer Thomas Conley, familiar for hit songs together with “Holding Her and enamored You,” “What I Would Say” and “Right From the beginning,” died at 12:20 a.m.Wednesday in Nashville, his brother Fred Conley confirmed. The singer had a condition similar to dementia, his brother said, and had been in hospice care for several months.
“He just kept losing ground,” Fred Conley said. “I’m brokenhearted.”Erinn Scates, 22, Earl Thomas Conley’s youngest child, said, “He was a great dad, and he filled our lives with color.”I might forever estimate pappa to rescue Maine from life once life wasn’t forever excellent,” aforementioned the singer’s oldest girl Amy Edmisten, 50. His son Ty Conley, 55, added: “My hero.”Conley helped influence today’s generation of country singers. Upon hearing of his death, Blake Shelton tweeted that his heart was “absolutely destroyed.”
“Earl was my uncomparable favorite singer, hero and my friend,” Shelton aforementioned.”Prayers to his family. We will all miss you deeply my brother. Now go rest … .”Over the course of his career, Conley had eighteen No.1 country hits and 25 top 10 songs. Conley was born Oct. 17, 1941, in Portsmouth, Ohio. According to his biography on allmusic.com, Conley’s father worked for the railroad and the would-be singer left home at 14 years old when his father lost his job. In the coming years, Conley lived with his older sister and turned down a scholarship for an art school to join the Army. He fell in love with country music during his military service.
“He decided he needed to grow up, and the Army was the best place to do that,” said Carole Scates, the mother of Conley’s two youngest children and his partner for more than two decades. “He said the Army was the best thing he ever did, that he went from being a punk kid to an adult who had a great work ethic.
He could do anything. His talents were unlimited.”Upon his discharge, Conley came to Middle Tennessee, wherever he worked a series of day jobs and vie shows in state capital bars at midnight. With very little success, he moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where he met producer Nelson Larkin and signed with independent record label GRT in 1974.
Three years later, he signed with Warner Bros., but it wasn’t until 1979 that he charted his first top 40 hits, “Dreamin’s All I Do.”
Songs including “I Can’t Win for Losin’ You,” “Once in a Blue Moon” and “That Was a Close One” helped make him a household name for country music fans. In the early Nineteen Eighties, Joe Galante helmed RCA Records when the company purchased Sunbird Records, where Conley was signed.
Galante said the opportunity to work with Conley drove the purchase. RCA Records was Conley’s label home for the majority of his folk success.“There was such soul in everything he did, and he stood out from a lot of other singers that were around at that time,” Galante said.
“You forever say finding one thing distinctive, and his voice certainly did that. He had this mixture of … an awfully country, very sensitive, intimate approach to his music, and you could hear the ache in everything that he did. Then at the same time, he’d come rocking out on something else and there was this guy who just loved to have a good time. You could just hear it in the music.”
Conley’s booking agent Rob Battle said that due to this health, the singer had stopped touring about two years ago. However, Battle, who worked with Conley for more than two decades, described him as “amazing” at the peak of his career.”He was on plenty of Williams son.’s dates when Hank was Entertainer of the Year five years in a row,” Battle said.
“He always delivered. There was the maximum amount if no more crowd response for the peer.”Country singer T.G. Sheppard shared a stage with Conley on many occasions and said that every time it happened, he felt “blessed.”There square measure artists in our business that square measure nice singers and stylists that you simply acknowledge, but just ever so often there are those special artists that have that voice that
you know instantly when you hear the first word,” Sheppard said. “Earl Thomas was one of those voices. And, he was always such a kind man. Once again, it’s going to leave a void in country music to lose a legendary artist such as him.”Conley is survived by his four adult kids, Ty Conley, Amy Edmisten, Kat Scates, and Erinn Scates; their mothers, Sandra Conley and Carole Scates; brothers Fred Conley and Steve Conley; sisters Ronda Hodges and Becky Miller; and 5 grandchildren.
Carole Scates said Conley did not want a funeral. His body was donated to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She said there was the possibility of a celebration of life in his honor in the coming months.
Earl Thomas Conley Family | Early Life
He was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, and when he was 14, his father lost his job with the railroad, forcing the young boy to move in with his older sister in Jamestown, Ohio. He was offered a scholarship to an art school but rejected it in favor of joining the U.S. Army.
While in the Army, Conley became a member of a Christian-influenced trio, where his musical talent and vocal ability first began. He then decided to consider performing as a serious career option. He shifted more deeply into the classic country sounds of artists such as Merle Haggard and George Jones. During this period he first tried his hand at songwriting.
In 1968, after his discharge from the Army, Conley began commuting from Dayton to Nashville. In 1973 while in Nashville, Conley met Dick Heard, who produced country music singer Mel Street.
This meeting eventually led to the Conley-Heard collaboration on the song “Smokey Mountain Memories,” which made the top 10 for Street. After being honorably discharged from the military, he began playing in clubs in Nashville, Tennessee, at night, supporting himself working blue-collar jobs during the day.
Earl Thomas Conley Obituary
“HOLDING HER AND LOVING YOU” WAS ONE OF HIS 18 NUMBER 1 COUNTRY SONGS
By: Kirk Fox
Earl Thomas Conley was a country music legend who charted 18 number one songs on the Billboard country charts. His most popular hit songs were “Holding Her and Loving You,” “Right From the Start,” and “What I’d Say.” He broke new ground when he did a duet with Anita Pointer of the Pointer Sisters on the single “Too Many Times,” which made it to number 2 on the country charts, with the duo appearing on “Soul Train.”
Conley’s music was called, “thinking man’s country.” He was a major influence for many country music stars including Blake Shelton.
Country stars pay tribute to Earl Thomas Conley: “My heart is absolutely destroyed today… I’m sad to report that Earl Thomas Conley passed away very early this morning. Earl was my all-time favorite singer, hero and my friend. Prayers to his family. We will all miss you deeply my
brother. Now go rest.” – Blake Shelton on Twitter
“An all-time great. Earl Thomas Conley passed away today. A huge influence on me. Loved him. Prayers to his family. –T” – Toby Keith on Twitter
“So sad to hear #EarlThomasConley passed away today. He was a huge influence on my style and songwriting. I studied his records like textbooks and could play every note of every song. Truly one of the all-time greats in country music.” – John Rich of Big & Rich on Twitter.
Earl Thomas ConleyAlbums
Earl Thomas ConleyAlbums
Fire & Smoke
The Heart of It All
The Essential Earl Thomas Conley
Don’t Make It EasyRCA Country Legends
Earl Thomas Conley – Live at Church Street Station
The Essential Keith Whitley
Somewhere Between Right and Wrong
Live at Billy Bob’s Texas
Grand Ole Country Live Vol. 4
Back to Back: Earl Thomas Conley & David Frizzell
Earl Thomas Conley Greatest | Earl Thomas Conley Top
Rank, Title, Peak Pos. (Weeks at No. 1), Peak Date
“Don’t Make It Easy for Me,” No. 1 (1 week), April 7, 1984
“I Can’t Win for Losin’ You,” No. 1 (1 week), Feb. 28, 1987
“Somewhere Between Right and Wrong,” No. 1 (1 week), Dec. 18, 1982
“What She Is (Is a Woman in Love),” No. 1 (1 week), June 4, 1988
“Too Many Times,” with Anita Pointer, No. 2, Nov. 1, 1986
“Right From the Start,” No. 1 (1 week), Oct. 31, 1987
14. “Angel in Disguise,” No. 1 (1 week), July 28, 1984
“That Was a Close One,” No. 1 (1 week), July 4, 1987
“We Believe in Happy Endings,” with Emmylou Harris, No. 1 (1 week), Oct. 1, 1988
“Chance of Lovin’ You,” No. 1 (1 week), Dec. 8, 1984
“Nobody Falls Like a Fool,” No. 1 (1 week), Dec. 14, 1985
“I Have Love You, Girl (But Not Like This Before),” No. 2, April 9, 1983
“Once in a Blue Moon,” No. 1 (1 week), May 3, 1986
“Honor Bound,” No. 1 (1 week), April 13, 1985
“Holding Her and Loving You,” No. 1 (1 week), Nov. 26, 1983
“Your Love’s on the Line,” No. 1 (1 week), Aug. 6, 1983
” Love Don’t Care (Whose Heart It Breaks),” No. 1 (1 week), July 27, 1985
“What I’d Say,” No. 1 (1 week), Feb. 4, 1989
“Love Out Loud,” No. 1 (1 week), June 17, 1989
“Fire and Smoke,” No. 1 (1 week), July 11, 1981
Earl Thomas Conley What I’d Say
What I’d Say” is a song written by Robert Byrne and Will Robinson, and recorded by American country music artist Earl Thomas Conley. It was released on October 1988 as the third single from his album, The Heart of It All.
“What I’d Say” was Earl Thomas Conley’s seventeenth number one country single. went to number one on the U.S. and Canadian country chart’s and spent a total of fourteen weeks on the U.S. country chart.
Earl Thomas Conley Fire And Smoke
“Fire and Smoke” is a song written and recorded by American country music singer Earl Thomas Conley. It was released on April 1981 as the second single and title track from the album Fire and Smoke.
The song was Conley’s fourth top 40 country hit, and continued his recent run of success, which had started with the previous single, “Silent Treatment” “Fire and Smoke” topped the success of “Silent Treatment,”. The single was his first No. 1 hit in July 1981 and spent 14 weeks in the top 40 country chart.
At the end of the year, “Fire and Smoke” was named the No. 1 song of the entire year.
Earl Thomas Conley Once In A Blue Moon
He wrote the song”Once in a Blue Moon” with Tom Brasfield, and recorded by American country music artist Earl Thomas Conley. It was released on January 1986 as the second and final single from his Greatest Hits album.
The song was Earl Thomas Conley’s eleventh number one on the country chart. The single went to number one for one week and spent fourteen weeks on the country chart.