Legendary country singer and songwriter Mac Davis has died aged 78, his manager has confirmed.
The news follows days after Davis’s family announced that the musician was “critically ill" after undergoing heart surgery in Nashville.
The Texan native was born in Lubbock in 1942. He first found fame working as a songwriter for Elvis Presley in 1969.
Davis is behind the lyrics to some of Presley's most memorable tracks such as “In the Ghetto”, “Memories”, “Don’t Cry Daddy”, and his posthumous hit “A Little Less Conversation”.
Davis’s songwriting catalogue also includes Glen Campbell’s “Everything a Man Could Ever Need” and “Something’s Burning” performed by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.
While he is primarily known as a songwriter, Davis became a prominent country singer too. He earned a Grammy nomination with his 1972 song “Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me”.
In his life, the country music artist received worldwide recognition for his contribution to music. He was named the Academy of Country Music’s Entertainer of the Year in 1974 and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1998.
Davis also enjoyed modest success on television as well, hosting his own variety series The Mac Davis Show on NBC from 1974 to 1976.
Most recently, in 2019, he featured in an episode of the Netflix docuseries Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings.
In 2000, Davis was admitted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame before he entered the national Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006.
