The Country Music Hall of Fame opened in 1961 with Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, and Fred Rose as its first members. While the first two names are likely instantly recognizable, Rose is lesser known outside the country music community. The songwriter, producer, and musician was born on this day (Aug. 24) in 1898.
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Born in Evansville, Indiana, Fred Rose had a hand in writing country music staples such as “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and Hank Williams’ “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.” But before that, he was a teenager busking for tips in bars on the South Side of Chicago.
As an adult, Rose first found success penning Roaring ’20s-era pop and jazz hits like “Deed I Do” and “Red Hot Mama.” By 1933, however, his drinking had cost him his Chicago radio job. So he moved to Nashville and lived with cowboy singer Ray Whitley, co-writing songs for the Back in the Saddle star’s movies.
In 1936, Rose secured his first pop-western hit, “We’ll Rest at the End of the Trail,” recorded by Tex Ritter, Bing Crosby, and the Sons of the Pioneers. However, his true legacy came in 1942, when he joined Roy Acuff in founding Acuff-Rose Publications, Nashville’s first major country publishing house.
How Fred Rose Helped Shape Hank Williams’ Career
Acuff-Rose was instantly successful, thanks mostly to the popularity of client Hank Williams. And who was at Williams’ side during the entirety of his too-short career, guiding his songwriting and producing his recordings for MGM Records? Fred Rose.
Rose took an immediate liking to The Singing Kid from Butler County, Alabama, seeing in him a sort of kindred spirit. “”He was just like me – came up the hard way,” the singer-songwriter said in a September 1954 interview with the Alabama Journal. “I’ve been on my own since I was seven. Grew up in a small country town, just like Hank. Used to pass the hat around in saloons for my keep. He was like that.”
Despite rivals’ best efforts, Williams stuck with Rose until a heart attack killed him in 1953 at age 29. Rose died the next year at age 56 — ironically, also of a heart attack.
“I know that one time another firm tried to bribe him away from me for $50,000, but he stuck with Rose,” the producer said of Williams. “He’d say, ‘I started with Rose and I’ll stay with Rose’. And he did.”
Featured image via the Country Music Hall of Fame
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