Melvin Endsley, a songwriter best known for his hit "Singing the Blues",
has died. He was 70.
Mr. Endsley's song-writing career began in the 1950s. Singing the Blues spent
10 weeks at No. 1 in 1956 and has since been covered by more than 100 artists
and, according to Broadcast Music Inc., the song has been played at least
3 million times.
Mr. Endsley died Monday evening at a hospital in Searcy, his daughter Vickie
Wilson of Heber Springs said. He died of heart complications, she said.
Mr. Endsley had polio when he was 3 years old and spent the rest of his life
in a wheelchair. He formed his first band after he was admitted to the
Crippled Children's Hospital in Memphis when he was 11.
He began writing songs early, and country-blues hits eventually earned him
a spot in the Arkansas Entertainer Hall of Fame in Pine Bluff.
Mr. Endsley wrote more than 400 songs.
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