Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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SHERRILL, Billy

(b 5 November 1936, Phil Campbell AL; d 4 August 2015, Nashville) Country music producer, songwriter, talent scout. Played piano as a child at father's evangelist meetings, played sax in local rock'n'roll bands including the Fairlanes with Rick Hall; in Memphis he engineered records by Jerry Lee Lewis and Charlie Rich at Sun Records in the late '50s, went back to Alabama and formed Fame studio with Hall and Tom Stafford, recording local hits: Dan Penn's 'Crazy Over You', his own sax instrumental 'Tipsy' c.1960.

He relocated to Nashville '63 as a producer at Epic; his breakthrough 'Almost Persuaded' was written and produced for David Houston, a no. 1 country hit '66. He discovered hairdresser Tammy Wynette, co-wrote songs with her and produced her records; she became the biggest female star of the era. He was promoted to Vice-President and Executive Producer of CBS Nashville, discovered 13-year-old Tanya Tucker, Janie Fricke and Lacy J. Dalton; brought Johnny Paycheck back to the limelight '71; revived George Jones's career after Wynette married him; worked with Rich, Marty Robbins, Barbara Mandrell.

For years a billboard advertised: “Four of the biggest words in the recording industry: Produced by Billy Sherrill." Along with Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley in the early '60s he helped to invent the slick 'countrypolitan' style for better or worse, turning country music into MOR with layers of strings and so on, no doubt rendering it acceptable to people who'd never listened to it before. He left CBS '80, worked freelance with Elvis Costello, David Allen Coe, Ray Charles etc.