Biography
Boudleaux Bryant, born February 13, 1920, in Shellman, Georgia, trained on classical violin beginning at age five and performed with the Atlanta Philharmonic throughout its 1938 season. Although he ultimately ranked among country music’s most celebrated songwriters, a 1938 favor for a friend drew him into a country ensemble, after which he traveled with Hank Penny’s Radio Cowboys during the early 1940s. By 1945 his musical loyalties had shifted toward jazz when he encountered Felice Scaduto, born August 7, 1925, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who would become both his wife and lifelong songwriting partner.
Together they composed material and submitted “Country Boy” to Fred Rose, whose purchase of the number inaugurated Acuff-Rose Publishing’s enduring relationship with the Bryants. Little Jimmy Dickens propelled the song into the country Top Ten in June 1949. Carl Smith’s 1953 recording of the Bryants’ “Hey Joe” likewise charted, while Frankie Laine’s contemporaneous pop rendition surpassed one million copies. Toward the close of the decade the couple ventured further into rock & roll, supplying Buddy Holly with a composition and crafting the majority of the Everly Brothers’ signature successes—“Bye Bye Love,” “Problems,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” and “Bird Dog.”
Although they had never fully abandoned country, the Bryants redirected their primary energies toward that field in the 1960s, generating hits for Jim Reeves, Sonny James, and additional artists. In 1967 they departed Acuff-Rose to establish their own House of Bryant publishing firm. Fresh standards continued to emerge throughout the 1970s, and in 1979 Boudleaux oversaw the couple’s debut album as recording artists, All I Have to Do Is Dream, issued in the United States as A Touch of Bryant.
By the late 1980s the Bryants’ catalog of roughly 3,000 songs was estimated to have sold more than 300 million copies globally, securing their induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and, more unusually for non-performing writers, the Country Music Hall of Fame. Boudleaux died in June 1987; Felice persisted with occasional writing until her death at age 77 in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in April 2003.
Together they composed material and submitted “Country Boy” to Fred Rose, whose purchase of the number inaugurated Acuff-Rose Publishing’s enduring relationship with the Bryants. Little Jimmy Dickens propelled the song into the country Top Ten in June 1949. Carl Smith’s 1953 recording of the Bryants’ “Hey Joe” likewise charted, while Frankie Laine’s contemporaneous pop rendition surpassed one million copies. Toward the close of the decade the couple ventured further into rock & roll, supplying Buddy Holly with a composition and crafting the majority of the Everly Brothers’ signature successes—“Bye Bye Love,” “Problems,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” and “Bird Dog.”
Although they had never fully abandoned country, the Bryants redirected their primary energies toward that field in the 1960s, generating hits for Jim Reeves, Sonny James, and additional artists. In 1967 they departed Acuff-Rose to establish their own House of Bryant publishing firm. Fresh standards continued to emerge throughout the 1970s, and in 1979 Boudleaux oversaw the couple’s debut album as recording artists, All I Have to Do Is Dream, issued in the United States as A Touch of Bryant.
By the late 1980s the Bryants’ catalog of roughly 3,000 songs was estimated to have sold more than 300 million copies globally, securing their induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and, more unusually for non-performing writers, the Country Music Hall of Fame. Boudleaux died in June 1987; Felice persisted with occasional writing until her death at age 77 in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in April 2003.
Singles
