American country-western singer and songwriter. Although he worked with a number of different bands over the years, much of his success can be traced to the release of his solo album “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” 1988, which gave birth to three number one hits.
Whitley began singing when he was only a few years old, and at age four, he won a talent contest. He learned to play the guitar when he was eight, and soon he was singing on a local radio station. When he was 13, he and his older brother Dwight formed a bluegrass band, and a few years later, he founded the “Lonesome Mountain Boys” with his high school friend, Ricky Skaggs. In 1970, both he and Skaggs joined the “Clinch Mountain Boys.” Whitley stayed with the group for two years and recorded seven albums, including “Crying from the Cross,” 1971, which became Bluegrass Album of the Year.
After leaving in 1973, he worked with several other bands, but returned to “Clinch Mountain Boys” in 1975, staying with them for five more albums. In 1978, he joined “The New South,” but in 1982, he took off on his own. His debut solo album was “Hard Act to Follow,” 1984, and the following year, he released “L.A. to Miami,” which was more commercially successful.
Whitley married Lorrie Morgan, a country-western singer, in 1986. Their son, Jesse Keith, was born in 1987. Although his professional career seemed to be going well, inwardly his life was in turmoil. Whitley had been an alcoholic since his early 20s. He periodically went on binges, and the disease was slowly destroying his life. On 5/09/1989, he died from alcohol poisoning. “I Wonder Do You Think of Me,” completed shortly before his death, was released posthumously, and several songs from the album reached number one on the charts. In 1990, his widow won a CMA Award for their duet “’Till a Tear (becomes a rose),” and Whitley was the subject of her 1994 single “If You Came Back From Heaven.”
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