Don Schlitz

Don Schlitz entered the Songwriters Hall of Fame as a 2012 inductee. Long regarded as one of Nashville’s foremost songwriters, he supplied a steady stream of chart-topping hits from the 1970s onward. Born in Durham, North Carolina, he briefly attended Duke University in the early 1970s before relocating to Nashville, where he spent five years working the graveyard shift as a computer operator while sharpening his songwriting abilities.

Breakthrough came in 1978 when Kenny Rogers scored a massive hit with Schlitz’s “The Gambler.” The number-one single became one of Rogers’ signature songs and brought Schlitz the first of three CMA Song of the Year Awards. Two years later Capitol Records released Schlitz’s own album Dreamers Matinee; in subsequent decades he continued issuing solo projects that included I Knew Jack Durham, Allergic to Crazy, Greatest Hits, and the holiday-themed Star on the Tree.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s an array of leading artists recorded his material, among them Randy Travis, Tanya Tucker, Reba McEntire, the Judds, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Garth Brooks, and Keith Whitley. Schlitz frequently collaborated with Paul Overstreet; their partnership yielded the Grammy-winning “Forever and Ever Amen,” a major success for Travis, as well as “When You Say Nothing at All,” which reached number one for Whitley in 1988, number three for Alison Krauss in 1995, and number one again for Ronan Keating in 1999. Schlitz also joined forces with Mary Chapin Carpenter, co-writing four singles for her album Come on Come On, three of which topped the charts.

During the following decade he supplied both music and lyrics for the Broadway musical The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, all while continuing to write songs and perform in Nashville.