Ronnie McDowell's striking visual and vocal similarity to Elvis Presley first brought him into the spotlight, where he notched a run of Top Ten country singles throughout the opening half of the 1980s. Born in 1950 and raised in Portland, TN, he began performing in public during his Navy posting in the Philippines.
Immediately after Presley's death he wrote and recorded the tribute "The King Is Gone," which Scorpion issued and which reached the Top 20 on both the pop and country charts in 1977. He followed that breakthrough with the 1978 Top Five country single "I Love You, I Love You, I Love You." The next year he supplied the singing voice for the Elvis television movie that starred Kurt Russell.
Concerned about being typecast, McDowell enlisted producer Buddy Killen at Epic Records to expand his musical range, a move that established him as a steady country hitmaker. His 1981 chart-topper "Older Women" launched eleven straight Top Ten singles on Epic; "Wandering Eyes," "Watchin' Girls Go By," "You Made a Wanted Man of Me," and "In a New York Minute" each climbed into the Top Five, while "You're Gonna Ruin My Bad Reputation" hit number one in 1983.
Switching to Curb in 1986, McDowell drew notice through pairings with Conway Twitty on a remake of "It's Only Make Believe" and with Jerry Lee Lewis on "You're Never Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll," yet his commercial run soon stalled. He continued supplying Elvis's singing voice for additional television projects, recorded national advertising jingles, and remained on Curb's roster into the early 1990s. Late in the decade he began performing R&B and beach music alongside Bill Pinkney's Original Drifters, and the two parties issued a joint album in 2002.
