Mel Tillis Would Have Turned 93 Today—Remembering Country Music’s Stuttering Storyteller

Mel Tillis would have turned 93 today—a stuttering storyteller with an easy grin whose songs, humor, and twang left a lasting mark on country music.

Tillis died in 2017 following a long battle with ongoing health issues. He endured surgery in January of 2016 following a severe bout of diverticulitis. Then he spent almost a month in intensive care fighting sepsis. He never fully recovered, and his suspected cause of death is respiratory failure.
Tillis earned his first charting country single in 1958 with “The Violet and a Rose,” and “I Ain’t Never” became his first No. 1 14 years later.

“Mel Tillis was a guy who had it all: He could write, he could sing, and he could entertain an audience,” Grand Ole Opry announcer and WSM DJ Eddie Stubbs told The Tennessean. “There’s a big difference between a concert and a show. Mel Tillis always put on a show….You always felt good about being around him.”

Tillis’ recording career was at its peak in the 1970s, with two dozen Top 10 hits. Five of those were No. 1 songs, including “Coca Cola Cowboy” from the Clint Eastwood film Every Which Way But Loose. The Country Music Association named Tillis Entertainer of the Year in 1976, the same year was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame that same year.

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Mel Tillis had Five No. 1 Country Hits

There was more to Tillis than music. The Florida native appeared regularly on television shows such as Hee Haw and Hollywood Squares. He was in multiple films, including Smokey and the Bandit 2 and Cannonball Run, and appeared in commercials for the fast-food chain Whataburger.

Tillis went by Mel, but his given name was Lonnie Melvin Tillis. The Country Music Hall of Famer used his childhood stutter as his distinguishing factor in country music. While he stuttered when he talked, he didn’t stutter when he sang.

“After a lot of years and more hurting than I like to remember, I can talk about it lightly—which eases things a bit,” he wrote in “Stutterin’ Boy,” the autobiography he released in 1984. “It’s a way of showing people that it hasn’t licked me, so it doesn’t have to lick others.”

Tillis wrote more than a thousand songs over 60 years, including “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” for Kenny Rogers and “Detroit City” for Bobby Bare, in addition to his own hits “Coca-Cola Cowboy” and “Good Woman Blues.”

Mel Tillis Wrote Songs for Kenny Rogers and Bobby Bare

In the ’90s, well past his country radio prime, Tillis opened his Mel Tillis Theater in Branson, Missouri, where he routinely performed for sold-out audiences. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2007. And, President Barack Obama presented Tillis with the National Medal of Arts in 2012.
Eight years after he passed away, Tillis is remembered as a born entertainer, an inspiration, a country music ambassador, and a warm and supportive friend.

“Mel was a special friend, great artist, and constant inspiration to me—Heaven’s choir just got sweeter,” Randy Travis told Pollstar.

(Photo by David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images)