Daryle Singletary died Monday morning (Feb. 12) in Nashville. He was 46. His cause of death is being determined.

Singletary was best known for ’90s country hits including “I Let Her Lie,” “Too Much Fun,” and “Amen Kind of Love.” Throughout his career, Singletary has collaborated with George Jones, Dwight Yoakam, Merle Haggard, Ricky Skaggs, John Anderson and more.

Singletary moved to Nashville in 1990, and began performing in talent contests around Music City, before he began a regular gig at The Broken Spoke. After releasing a couple of unsuccessful singles on Evergreen Records in the early ’90s, Singletary released his debut album for Giant Records in 1995, followed by two follow up projects, garnering hits including “I Let Her Lie Lie” and “Too Much Fun.”

By 2000, he had teamed with Koch Records for the album Now and Again, which featured Greg Cole as producer. They followed with 2002’s That’s Why I Sing This Way, which featured collaborations with Johnny Paycheck, Jones, Haggard and more.

After Koch Records closed in 2005, Singletary moved to Shanachie Records to release 2007’s Straight From The Heart, which featured appearances from Skaggs, Anderson and others on country evergreens including “The Bottle Let Me Down” and “Fifteen Years Ago.” 2009 saw the release of Rockin’ The Country, followed by 2015’s There’s Still A Little Country Left. In 2017, he teamed with bluegrass star Rhonda Vincent on the duets album American Grandstand.

Singletary, a native of Cairo, Georgia, is survived by his wife, Holly, two sons, Jonah and Mercer, two daughters, Nora and Charlotte, parents, Roger and Anita Singletary, brother, Kevin Singletary, sister-in-law, Melinda Singletary, mother and father-in-law, Terry and Sandy Mercer, and brother and sister-in-law, Tony and Kristy Rowland.

Funeral arrangements will be announced at a later date.

 

HoriPro’s longtime Executive Advisor Dave Hall died on Friday, Jan. 19, MusicRow has confirmed. He was 76.

Hall’s career included performing around the world with several country artists. Hall worked in conjunction with HoriPro’s Royalty Department and Creative Team to guide policy as well as day-to-day functions.

Visitation will be Friday, Jan. 26 from 4 p.m.-8 p.m. at Bond Memorial Chapel in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. Graveside services will be conducted 1 p.m. Saturday, January 27, 2018 at Mt. Juliet Memorial Gardens with Phil O’Donnell and Butch Baker officiating.

Hall was the son of the late, Staley and Mary Basham Hall. Dave was also preceded in death by his wife, Peggy Hall. He is survived by daughter, Leslie (Michael) Barr; brothers, Woody (Linda) Hall and Ron (Janice) Hall; sister, Narvona Langley; grandchildren, Amber Bay and Tabitha Sanders; great-grandchildren, Landon Wortham, Aarik Bay, Adrianna Zaragoza and Mariah Zaragoza and several nieces and nephews.

Flowers accepted or memorials may be made to the American Heart Association, PO Box 840692, Dallas, TX 75284-0692.

 

Visitation for the late Eddie Mascolo will begin Tuesday afternoon (Jan. 16), 4-7 p.m., at St. Matthew Catholic Church in Franklin.

The widely loved Music Row record-promotion executive passed away at age 76 on Friday, Jan. 12, following a battle with cancer. Mascolo was a 1991 graduate of Leadership Music and was an avid participant in the annual Country Radio Seminar events.

A native of the Pittsburgh, PA area, Edward H. Mascolo began his music career as an independent pop record promoter in 1968-69. His skills garnered immediate recognition from national record companies. Decca Records was the first major label to hire him. From 1970-75, he was the Southeast regional promotion director for PolyGram Records.

In 1975, RCA Records hired him as its manager of promotion for the Southeast and Southwest regions. As such, he became a key figure in the RCA pop-crossover successes of Dolly Parton (1980), Waylon Jennings (1980), Ronnie Milsap (1981), Alabama (1981), Sylvia (1982), Deborah Allen (1983) and Kenny Rogers (1983). Mascolo made history in 1984 when he became the first Nashville executive to be appointed as a major-label director of national pop promotion. Based in both Music City and Manhattan, he worked with such RCA pop stars as Hall & Oates, Diana Ross, Eurythmics, The Pointer Sisters and Rick Springfield.

From there, he was elevated to Senior Vice President of Product Development at RCA. In 1988, Mercury Records named him its Senior Vice President of Country Promotion. That label’s roster featured Kathy Mattea, The Statler Brothers and The Kentucky HeadHunters, among others. In 1994, Eddie Mascolo became the vice president and general manager at River North Records. The company had already signed Peter Cetera as its flagship pop artist. Its Nashville division included Holly Dunn, Rob Crosby and Steve Azar on its country artist roster.

Starstruck Entertainment hired him as its vice president of radio promotion in 1999. The company’s main artist was/is Reba McEntire. As the senior vice president of promotion at McCluskey & Associates, Mascolo next worked with a variety of artists, including Vince Gill, Collin Raye and BlackHawk.

He joined Turner & Nichols & Associates and Trey Turner Management in recent years. This is where he became instrumental in the breakthrough of Easton Corbin and in the on-going stardom of Rascal Flatts.

Following Tuesday’s visitation, a second one is scheduled for 9:30-11 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Jan. 17. The funeral mass will follow at 11 a.m. St. Matthew Catholic Church is at 535 Sneed Rd. W., Franklin, TN 37069. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the church.

Eddie Mascolo is survived by Carol, his wife of 55 years, as well as by sons Mark and Brian and by his five grandchildren.

 

With the death of Rick Hall, the music world has lost one of its most successful entrepreneurs, colorful personalities and dynamic creators.

The man who put Muscle Shoals, Alabama on the map as a music mecca passed away at age 85 on Jan. 2. He had been battling cancer.

As a record producer, studio owner, engineer, music publisher, songwriter and deal maker, Rick Hall touched the lives and careers of such greats as Aretha Franklin, Mac Davis, Wilson Pickett, Ronnie Milsap, Shenandoah, Duane Allman, The Osmonds, Tom Jones, Paul Anka, Alabama, Liza Minnelli and Etta James.

He rose from desperate poverty to become a figure of international renown. A native of North Alabama, Hall was raised in log cabins with no amenities. His mother deserted the family when he was four. His father was a moonshiner, sharecropper, carpenter and saw mill worker who raised his barefoot children on a diet of wild game.

The future mogul began his musical career as a square dance fiddler. In the 1950s, he started making trips to Nashville to peddle his songs.

Back home in Alabama, he formed a partnership with Tom Stafford and Billy Sherrill. They built a studio above Stafford’s father’s drug store in Florence, AL. Sherrill coined its name, FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises). After two years of moderate success, the partnership dissolved. Sherrill moved to Nashville and became one of the most successful record producers and songwriters in the city’s history.

Hall kept the FAME name and opened his own studio on Wilson Dam Avenue in 1959. There, he produced “You Better Move On” written and sung by hotel bellhop Arthur Alexander. In 1962, it became the first international hit recorded in the Muscle Shoals area.

Using the profits from that hit, plus investment from his father-in-law, Hall built a new studio on Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals. This is where he produced 1964’s “Steal Away” by Jimmy Hughes.

Working as his studio’s engineer, Hall helped to craft Tommy Roe’s “Everybody” (1963), The Tams’ “What Kind of Fool (Do You Think I Am)” (1964) and other key pop hits of the early 1960s.

Soul stars began beating a path to FAME’s door. Hall produced or co-produced Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man” (1967) and “Do Right Woman” (1967), James & Bobby Purify’s “I’m Your Puppet” (1966), Joe Tex’s “Hold What You’ve Got” (1965), Clarence Carter’s “Slip Away” (1968) and “Patches” (1970), Etta James’ “Tell Mama” (1967) and the Wilson Pickett smashes “Mustang Sally” (1966), “Funky Broadway” (1967) and “Land of 1,000 Dances” (1966).

He molded local musicians into becoming studio professionals. Among the notable graduates of his Muscle Shoals sessions are Jerry Carrigan, David Hawkins, Barry Beckett, Dan Penn, David Briggs, Norbert Putnam, David Hood, Spooner Oldham, Terry Thompson, Jimmy Johnson and Chips Moman.

In 1970, MGM chief Mike Curb approached Rick Hall about producing The Osmonds in Muscle Shoals. The results were such hits as “One Bad Apple” (1971), “Yo-Yo” (1971), “Down By the Lazy River” (1972) and “Sweet and Innocent” (Donnny Osmond, 1972, co-written by Hall) and sales of 11 million.

Hall was named Producer of the Year by Billboard in 1971. Bobbie Gentry (“Fancy,” 1970), Paul Anka (“You’re Having My Baby,” 1974) and Candi Staton (“Stand By Your Man,” 1970) followed The Osmonds to FAME. So did Andy Williams, Liza Minnelli, Lou Rawls, Tom Jones and dozens of others.

Mac Davis came to FAME for “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me” (1972), “Stop and Smell the Roses” (1974), “Texas In My Rear View Mirror” (1980) and “Hooked on Music” (1981) and more. This led Rick Hall back to his first love, country music.

During the 1980s, T.G. Sheppard, Larry Gatlin, Jerry Reed, Gus Hardin, Terri Gibbs, Vern Gosdin, Billy Joe Royal, Tom Wopat and other country stars made the pilgrimage to FAME.

Rick Hall became an inaugural inductee into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1985.

Next, Hall discovered the local Muscle Shoals band Shenandoah and brought it to country fame with such hits as “Church On the Cumberland Road” (1990), “Mama Knows” (1990) and “Ghost in This House” (1991).

By the close of the 1990s, Rick Hall had produced 24 top-10 country hits, 26 top-10 pop hits and 33 top-10 r&b hits. His songs had been recorded by George Jones, Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison, The Amazing Rhythm Aces, Otis Redding, Booker T & The MGs, Huey Lewis, Little Richard, Sam & Dave and T. Graham Brown.

In addition, songs from Hall’s publishing company were making regular appearances on the country charts in the 1990s. His staff writers included Walt Aldridge, Tommy Brasfield, Mark Hall, Robert Byrne, Gary Baker and Frank Myers.

“There’s No Getting Over Me,” “I Swear,” “I Like It, I Love It,” “Holding Her and Loving You,” “”She’s Got a Single Thing In Mind,” “I Sure Can Smell the Rain,” “Leave Him Out of This” and “Crime of Passion” are among Hall’s publishing award winners.

Among the albums recently recorded and/or mixed at FAME are Gregg Allman’s Southern Blood, Third Day’s Revival and John Paul White’s Beula.

In 2013, Rick Hall was prominently featured in the acclaimed documentary Muscle Shoals. He was presented with a Trustees Award by The Recording Academy in 2014. He published his autobiography in 2015, The Man From Muscle Shoals: My Journey From Shame to Fame.

Funeral arrangements have not been announced.