Many Blooms Still Linger There

Category: Obituary/News

There are songwriters, then there are songwriters' songwriters.  Jerry Chesnut was a songwriter's songwriter.

Chesnut, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer, died Saturday (12/15) in Nashville.  Music Row reported that Chesnut's death was unexpected despite the fact that he had been suffering from a respiratory illness for some time.

Born in the eastern Kentucky town of Loyall, Jerry Donald Chesnut enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War, then settled in St. Augustine, Florida after his military service.  He worked as a railroad conductor by day and a country music performer by night.  Moving to Nashville in 1958, he continued a day job (vacuum cleaner salesman) while honing his craft.

And hone his craft, he did.  Beginning with "A Dime At a Time," the country music world became Jerry Chesnut's oyster throughout the late 60s and early 70s.  Among the highly-touted songwriters who turned to Chesnut for songs:  Del Reeves (the aforementioned hit and "Looking At the World Through a Windshield"), Bill Anderson ("Don't She Look Good"), Loretta Lynn ("They Don't Make 'Em Like My Daddy"), Johnny Cash ("Oney"), and Mel Tillis ("Best Way I Know How").

Then there was that little song about a man's world falling apart while the garden maintained its beauty:  "A Good Year for the Roses."  George Jones made the song a #2 smash in 1970 and set the stage for others, ranging from punk icon Elvis Costello to country outlaw Johnny Paycheck, to cover the tune.  "A Good Year for the Roses" is a powerful song of heartbreak ("many blooms still linger there, the lawn could stand another mowing, funny how I don't even care") and ranks right up there with "He Stopped Loving Her Today" as one of Jones' finest rip-your-heart-out sad songs.

Chesnut also penned another heartbreaking classic, Faron Young's later-era hit "It's Four in the Morning."  And, just to prove he wasn't solely a heartbreak song man, Chesnut penned the rocking "T-R-O-U-B-L-E," a hit for Elvis Presley in the 70s and Travis Tritt in the 90s.

Chesnut retired from songwriting in the early 1980s but would occasionally still perform.  He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1996 and the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame in 2004, the second induction class for the state's music hall of fame.

Jerry Chesnut was 87.