Don Gibson
Donald Eugene Gibson was an American country singer and songwriter. Gibson wrote such country standards as the ballad "Sweet Dreams" and "I Can't Stop Loving You", and enjoyed a string of country hits from 1956 until the late '70s, including number ones on the US Country Chart with Oh Lonesome Me and Blue Blue Day, both tracks he also wrote.
Gibson was a inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, nicknamed "the Sad Poet" because he frequently wrote songs that told of loneliness and lost love.
Early life
Don Gibson was born in Shelby, North Carolina, into a poor, working-class family. He dropped out of school in the second grade.Career
Gibson's first band was called Sons of the Soil, with whom he made his first recording for Mercury Records in 1949. In 1957, he journeyed to Nashville to work with producer Chet Atkins and record his self-penned songs "Oh Lonesome Me" and "I Can't Stop Loving You" for RCA Victor. The afternoon session resulted in a double-sided hit on both the country and pop charts. "Oh Lonesome Me" set the pattern for a long series of other RCA hits. "Blue Blue Day", recorded prior to "Oh, Lonesome Me" was a number-une hit in 1958. His later singles included "Look Who's Blue", "Don't Tell Me Your Troubles", "Sea of Heartbreak", "Lonesome No. 1", "I Can Mend Your Broken Heart", and "Woman ", a number-one country hit in 1972.Gibson recorded a series of successful duets with Dottie West in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the most successful of which were the number-two country hit "Rings of Gold" and the top-10 hit "There's a Story Goin' Round". West and Gibson released an album together in 1969, titled Dottie and Don. He also recorded several duets with Sue Thompson, among these being the top-40 hits "I Think They Call It Love", "Good Old Fashioned Country Love", and "Oh, How Love Changes".
His song "I Can't Stop Loving You" has been recorded by over 700 artists, most notably by Ray Charles in 1962. He also wrote and recorded "Sweet Dreams", a song that became a major 1963 crossover hit for Patsy Cline. Roy Orbison was a fan of Gibson's songwriting, and in 1967, he recorded an album of his songs simply titled Roy Orbison Sings Don Gibson. Gibson's wide appeal was also shown in Neil Young's recorded version of "Oh Lonesome Me" on his 1970 album, After the Gold Rush, which is one of the few songs Young has recorded that he did not write.
Personal life and death
Don married Bobbi Patterson in 1967.He died of natural causes on November 17, 2003.