Charlie Rich
December 14, 1932 – July 25, 1995
Nicknamed “The Silver Fox,” Charlie Rich was a Grammy-winning country singer who had string of hits in the early ’70s. Although his career started back in the late ’50s, it wasn’t until 1973 that he scored his two huge country and pop chart-topping hits with “Behind Closed Doors,” and “The Most Beautiful Girl.” Perhaps the reason for his “late-blooming” was that the world wasn’t quite ready for his eclectic sound until someone came up with the genre, “countrypolitan,” and suddenly he fit right in. But Rich’s popularity was short-lived partly due to his erratic behavior and problems in his personal life, likely due to his excessive drinking. He floundered through the next couple of decades, trying, but never being able to get anything substantial going again. In July of 1995, Rich was traveling home from his son’s concert in Mississippi when he came down with a severe cough. After a doctor sent him on his way with antibiotics, Rich continued the drive home until he found a place for he and his wife to spend the night. Rich died in his sleep that night of what was later determined to be a blood clot in his lung. He was 62.
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