Freddie Hart
Musician · 1926–2018 · Loachapoka, Alabama
Best known for
Songwriter
Freddie Hart was an Alabama-born country singer and songwriter whose 1971 single “Easy Loving” took back-to-back Country Music Association Song of the Year honors in 1971 and 1972, transforming a decade-and-a-half journeyman career into one of the biggest country runs of the early seventies. He went on to score five consecutive No. 1 country singles in 1973.
Assisted by AI.
Spot something off? Help us fix it.
- Born Frederick Segrest on December 21, 1926, in Loachapoka, Alabama, the seventh of fifteen children in a sharecropping family; raised in nearby Phenix City.
- Learned guitar at age five; quit school at twelve.
- Lied about his age to join the U.S. Marine Corps at fifteen during World War II and saw combat on Guam and Iwo Jima.
- Spent the late 1950s and 1960s cutting minor sides for Kapp, Columbia, and Capitol before breaking out with “Easy Loving” in the summer of 1971.
- “Easy Loving” topped the country chart, crossed over to the pop Top 20, and earned ACM Single of the Year and Song of the Year honors in 1972.
- Named the Academy of Country Music’s Top Male Vocalist and Entertainer of the Year in 1972.
- Scored five consecutive No. 1 country singles in 1973 after re-signing with Capitol.
- Inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2001.
- Died of pneumonia on October 27, 2018, in Burbank, California, at age 91.
