DAVE'S DIARY - 14 SEPTEMBER 2004 - L E WHITE RIP

L E WHITE RIP AT 74

When prolific hit writer L E White died at 74 on September 7 it was the end of an era - for back-room chart spinners known by their initials.

Sure, K D Lang has done it but fans knew her name was Kathy Dawn.

But singer-songwriter White went to his grave in Nashville on September 10 as not so plain old L.E. White.

White won BMI Awards for After The Fire Is Gone and I Love You More Today - two of the 186 songs attributed to him on the major publisher's web page.

After The Fire Is Gone won a 1971 Grammy for the late Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn.
Freddy Fender, Willie Nelson, Tracy Nelson, Ricky Lynn Gregg and many other artists also cut it.

The late Patsy Cline and Twitty also recorded I Love You More Today.


TWITTY HIT CITY


Conway Twitty
White was born in Blaine, Tennessee, and died in Hendersonville - the Nashville suburb that was home for peers including the late John and June Carter Cash, Johnny Russell, Bobby Bare and many more.

White spent his early career as a musician and singer with Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys and Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper's Clinch Mountain Clan.

In 1977, he and singing partner Lola Jean Dillon charted twice for Epic Records with Home, Sweet Home/ It's Almost As Cold Outside and novelty tune, You're The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly.

The latter was a hit for Twitty and Lynn in the seventies and topped European charts in the new millennium for Kacey Jones and Texan Delbert McClinton.

Jones, former lead singer for Ethel & The Shameless Hussies, has also recorded a brace of solo discs and produced the Kinky Friedman disc Pearls In The Snow.

White's songs I Love You More Today and To See My Angel Cry provided Twitty with back-to-back No. 1 singles in 1969.

Twitty also scored a #3 hit on April 4, 1974, with a co-write with White on I'm Not Through Loving You Yet.

Other songs in his catalogue included To See An Angel Cry, cut by Twitty, After Five Affair and Home Is Where The Heartache Is.

Another was Up Comes The Bottle Down Goes - penned with Twitty under Conway's real name Harold Jenkins.

White and Dillon also wrote We're Caught Between Love And A Love Affair for Conway and Loretta and Bring Back The Arms It Came In for T Jae Christian.

Dillon also wrote tunes such as I'll Kiss My Wedding Ring Tonight, Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Alone, When The Tingle Becomes A Chill, Recipe For Marriage On The Rocks, Love's A Woman's Job, I Know What It's Like In Her Arms, Somebody Led Me Away and I Can't Leave Him, penned with the late Harlan Howard.


Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn

MICHAEL WHITE

White helped establish and administer the Twitty publishing companies Hello Darling Music and Twitty Bird Music.

White is the father of Michael White, who recorded for Reprise Records in the early 1990s.

Michael's 1992 disc Familiar Ground featured six of his original tunes including the title track and One Of My Near Mrs penned by Craig Wiseman and Dave Gibson of the Gibson-Miller Band.

His father L E White joined Lenny LeBlanc, Robert Byrne, Mac McAnally, Curtis Young and Cindy Richardson-Walker as harmony singers on the album.

Among the steel guitar players on the disc are Bruce Bouton and Duncan Cameron who made his name with Amazing Rhythm Aces and Sawyer Brown.

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