Clarke Van Ness
Musician
Best known for
Songwriter
Clarke Van Ness was the lyricist on “Don’t Let Your Sweet Love Die” — the parlor-style country song he wrote with Zeke Manners and which Roy Hall and his Blue Ridge Entertainers introduced in 1941. The song has since entered the bluegrass repertoire through cuts by Reno & Smiley, Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, Ricky Skaggs, and U.S. Senator Robert Byrd.
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- Co-wrote “Don’t Let Your Sweet Love Die (Like Flowers in the Fall)” with bandleader and songwriter Zeke Manners.
- Roy Hall and his Blue Ridge Entertainers cut the song’s first commercial recording in 1941.
- The song has since been recorded by Reno & Smiley, Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, Ricky Skaggs, U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, and many others.
