Mickey Newbury
Musician · 1940–2002 · Houston, Texas
Best known for
Songwriter
Mickey Newbury was a Houston-born Nashville songwriter whose 1968 stretch of four simultaneous No. 1 hits across four different Billboard charts — pop-rock, country, easy listening, and R&B — remains unmatched in American popular music. He is grouped with Townes Van Zandt and Kris Kristofferson as one of the literary songwriter pioneers of the early-1970s Nashville renaissance.
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- Born Milton Sims Newbury Jr. on May 19, 1940, in Houston, Texas.
- Sang tenor as a teenager in the vocal group the Embers, opening for Sam Cooke and Johnny Cash.
- Joined the U.S. Air Force at nineteen and served four years before moving to Nashville to write songs.
- Signed to Acuff-Rose Music and released his first single, “Who’s Gonna Cry (When I’m Gone),” in 1964.
- In 1968, became the first and only songwriter to hold the No. 1 spot on three Billboard charts at once while a fourth Newbury song sat at No. 5 on the pop chart—including Kenny Rogers and the First Edition’s “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” at No. 5, country with Eddy Arnold’s “Here Comes the Rain, Baby,” easy listening with Andy Williams’s “Sweet Memories,” and R&B with Solomon Burke’s “Time Is a Thief.”
- Released his “American Trilogy” medley of “Dixie,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and “All My Trials” on the 1971 album Frisco Mabel Joy; the song reached No. 26 in his own version and was later carried around the world by Elvis Presley.
- Songs have been recorded more than 500 times by some 400 different artists across more than a dozen countries.
- Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
- Died in his sleep in Springfield, Oregon, on September 29, 2002.
