Biography Hank Cochran

Garland Perry "Hank" Cochran (August 2, 1935 – July 15, 2010) was an American country music singer and songwriter. Starting during the 1960s, Cochran was a prolific songwriter in the genre, including major hits by Patsy Cline, Ray Price, Eddy Arnold and others. Cochran was also a recording artist between 1962 and 1980, scoring seven times on the Billboard country music charts, with his greatest solo success being the No. 20 "Sally Was a Good Old Girl." In 2014, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Born during the Great Depression in Isola, Mississippi, he contracted pneumonia, whooping cough, measles, and mumps all about the same time at age 2. The doctor didn't believe that he would survive. His parents divorced when he was 9 years old. He relocated with his father to Memphis, Tennessee, but then was put into an orphanage. He was sent to live with his grandparents, in Greenville, Mississippi, after he had run away from the orphanage twice. His uncle Otis Cochran taught him how to play the guitar as the pair hitchhiked from Mississippi to southeastern New Mexico to work in the oilfields. After returning to Mississippi in his teens, he went to California and picked olives. While there he formed The Cochran Brothers, a duo with un-related Eddie Cochran.

Aged 24 he hitchhiked for Hollywood, but ended up going to Nashville in 1960, and teamed with Harlan Howard to write the song "I Fall to Pieces." It became a major success for Patsy Cline (recorded November 16, 1960), reaching No. 1 on the Billboard country music charts and No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 (chart for all music categories). Cline also recorded Cochran's "She's Got You" (recorded December 17, 1961, it was another major hit, No. 1 on the country charts and No. 14 on the Hot 100), and "Why Can't He Be You" (recorded September 5, 1962).

In 1960, he was on a date at a movie theater when the film inspired him. He left the theater quickly, and by the time he got home fifteen minutes later had composed "Make the World Go Away." Ray Price recorded the song, and it scored No. 2 on the Billboard country charts in 1963. The next year Eddy Arnold would make the song his signature hit, scoring No. 1 on the country music charts and then in 1965 No. 6 on the overall Billboard Hot 100 charts (his highest rated song ever). Arnold would also record the song "I Want to Go with You".

Cochran wrote several successful songs sung by Burl Ives ("A Little Bitty Tear", "It's Just My Funny Way of Laughin'", "The Same Old Hurt"). He also wrote songs for George Strait ("The Chair" with Dean Dillon and "Ocean Front Property" with Dillon and Royce Porter), Merle Haggard ("It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad)"), "Don't You Ever Get Tired (of Hurting Me)", a No. 1 scoring record for Ronnie Milsap, and Mickey Gilley ("That's All That Matters").

While working at publishing company Pamper Music, he used to spend nights performing in a Nashville tavern named Tootsie's Orchid Lounge. There he took notice of a new performer whose talent left Cochran amazed. He encouraged management to contract the young songwriter, Willie Nelson, giving Nelson a raise that was owed to him at the time.

Two of his fondest memories were working with Natalie Cole (among other artists) on a 2003 tribute album to Patsy Cline (Remembering Patsy Cline), because of his love for her father Nat King Cole, and his collaboration with Vern Gosdin for the 1988 album Chiseled in Stone (Gosdin's highest rated album at No. 7).

In 2008, he let singer Lea Anne Creswell come to his home and choose an album's worth of songs, which the artist released with the album title Lea Anne Sings Hank Cochran and ....

Cochran was married five times, Jeannie Seely was his fourth bride, and Suzi his fifth, from 1982.

He died on July 15, 2010, age 74.

In October 2012, singer Jamey Johnson released Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran, which features his renditions of sixteen songs that Cochran wrote.

Awards and honors include:

1967: Walkway of Stars – Country Music Association

1974: Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame

2003: Mississippi Music Hall of Fame

2014: Country Music Hall of Fame inductee

Artist recordings

Notable artists who have recorded his songs include:

Eddy Arnold

Patsy Cline

Waylon Jennings

Natalie Cole

Elvis Costello

Bing Crosby

Ella Fitzgerald

Mickey Gilley

Vern Gosdin

Merle Haggard

Emmylou Harris

Rebecca Lynn Howard

Burl Ives

Jamey Johnson

George Jones

Norah Jones

Loretta Lynn

Henry Mancini

Dean Martin

Reba McEntire

Ronnie Milsap

Brad Paisley

Johnny Paycheck

Elvis Presley

Ray Price

Jim Reeves

Linda Ronstadt

Dinah Shore

Nancy Sinatra

George Strait

Hank Williams Jr

Lee Ann Womack

Richard Thompson

Keith Whitley

Discography

Albums

Year Album US Country Label

1965 Hits from the Heart — RCA

Going on Training —

1968 The Heart of Hank 41 Monument

1978 With a Little Help from My Friends — Capitol

1980 Make the World Go Away — Elektra

Singles

Year Single Peak chart positions Album

US Country

1962 "Sally Was a Good Old Girl" 20 Going on Training

"I'd Fight the World" 23 Hits from the Heart

1963 "A Good Country Song" 25 single only

1967 "All of Me Belongs to You" 70 The Heart of Hank

1978 "Willie" 91 With a Little Help from My Friends

"Ain't Life Hell" (with Willie Nelson) 77

1980 "A Little Bitty Tear" (with Willie Nelson) 57 Make the World Go Away

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