Country Music Hall of Fame member Sonny James, one of the genre’s most prolific hit makers, has passed away at age 86.

Known as “The Southern Gentleman,” James died on Feb. 22, according to his website. In 1967, James became the first host of the CMA Awards. He was the first Nashville country star to get a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

During his long career, he placed more than 70 titles on the country hit parade and scored 43 Top 10 hits. Between 1967 and 1972, he had 16 consecutive No. 1 singles on the Billboard country chart.

In 1956-57, his singles “Young Love” and “First Date, First Kiss, First Love” became pop-crossover, teen-music successes. More than a dozen of his other country singles also placed on the pop charts.

He was born James Hugh Loden on May 1, 1929. The family’s hometown was Hackelburg, Alabama, which is where he began his career. He began playing guitar, mandolin and fiddle before he reached his teens and was soon touring with his parents and sister as The Loden Family. By the 1940s, the Lodens were regulars on WNOX in Knoxville.

Sonny James served in the National Guard during the Korean War. While overseas, he began writing songs for the first time. Following his discharge, he travelled to Nashville. Chet Atkins, who’d known him in Knoxville, admired his flat-top guitar skills and became his mentor. Atkins introduced him to Capitol Records executive Ken Nelson, who offered Sonny James a recording contract.

James first hit the Top 10 with 1953’s “That’s Me Without You.” Four more singles hit the charts in 1954-56. Then came “Young Love.” In 1956, it became a No. 1 smash on both the country and pop charts and sold a million. For the next few years, James toured as a teen idol.

During the 1950s, he was also a regular on TV’s The Ozark Jubilee. He got his star in Hollywood in 1961. The following year, he was invited to join the cast of the Grand Ole Opry.

His permanent return to the country hit parade began with 1963’s “The Minute You’re Gone.” An even bigger country hit came the following year, “You’re the Only World I Know.”

He was featured in a number of pioneering country feature films of the 1960s. These included Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar (1965), Nashville Rebel (1966), Las Vegas Hillbillys (1966) and Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967).

In 1967, he and Bobbie Gentry were chosen to co-host the first CMA Awards show. The show began its long run as a network television staple the following year.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sonny James specialized in country versions of such pop hits as “Take Good Care of Her,” “I’ll Never Find Another You,” “A World of Our Own,” “Born to Be With You,” “Only the Lonely,” “Running Bear,” “Since I Met You Baby,” “It’s Just a Matter of TIme,” “My Love,” “Endlessly” and “Only Love Can Break a Heart.”

Sonny James played guitar on all of his recording sessions and his live shows always showcased his acoustic-guitar prowess. His soft-spoken humility and courtly manners brought him the nickname “The Southern Gentleman.”

In 1971, a cassette of his music accompanied the Apollo 14 space mission. He was rewarded with an American flag that had been taken to the moon.

In the 1970s, James branched out into song publishing and record production. He produced the first three albums by Marie Osmond. The first one included her breakthrough country hit, 1973’s “Paper Roses.”

In his own recording career, he signed with Columbia Records and immediately scored a No. 1 hit with 1972’s “When the Snow Is on the Roses.” Another notable big song for James during this era was 1974’s “Is It Wrong (For Loving You).”

In 1977, he traveled to the Tennessee State Penitentiary to record In Prison, In Person. A country band of inmates accompanied him on this landmark album.

Sonny James retired from live performing in 1983. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2006.

He is survived by his wife Doris. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

Danny O’Brian, who was George Strait’s longtime agent and a vice president at the Erv Woolsey Company, died Sunday, Jan. 17, in Nashville. He was 73.

The executive joined Woolsey’s company in 1984 and had a guiding hand in Strait’s career. O’Brian, born Frank Whitley Dickey Jr., was a radio disc jockey in Texas and also worked for MCA Records before joining Woolsey.

He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Anita Dickey; his son, Darrin Dickey; daughter, Darci Taylor; and six grandchildren.

Visitation will be held from 4-8 p.m. Thursday (Jan. 22) and a graveside service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday (Jan. 23) at Hendersonville Memory Gardens, 353 Johnny Cash Parkway, Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Hendersonville Funeral Home is overseeing memorial preparations.

[Updated: Jan. 14, 2016 at 10 a.m.]

A memorial service for songwriter Don Pfrimmer has been announced for Sunday, Jan. 31, at 5 p.m. at Richland Country Club in Nashville.

[Previous story: Dec. 8, 2015]

Award-winning songwriter Don Pfrimmer died last night, Dec. 7, after a battle with leukemia. He was 78 years old.

Pfrimmer was notable for the sustained length of his career. He began placing songs on the country charts in the mid-1970s and continued to do so for the next four decades. Among his successful copyrights are Tim McGraw’s “All I Want Is a Life,” Diamond Rio’s “Meet in the Middle,” Lonestar’s “My Front Porch Looking In” and Ronnie Milsap’s “She Keeps the Home Fires Burning.”

He has earned 14 ASCAP awards and was a 2015 nominee for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Pfrimmer worked with an impressively diverse group of collaborators over the years and was also noted for mentoring many young and beginning songwriters.

Donald Ross Pfrimmer was born Sept. 9, 1937, and grew up in the western Montana mountain town of Whitefish. He attended the University of Montana in 1962-1966, graduating with a B.A. majoring in English. He worked as a commercial fisherman and as a school teacher in Alaska before deciding to try his luck at songwriting in Nashville.

After moving to Music City in the summer of 1973, he had one of his first significant recordings when the Grand Ole Opry duo Lonzo & Oscar released his “Any Old Wind That Blows” as a 1974 single. Other early Pfrimmer songs were recorded by the Republic Records artists David Rogers, Leslie Barnhill, Ray Sanders and Kathy Barnes in 1976-78.

His cowritten “The Power of Positive Drinking” became Pfrimmer’s first Top 10 hit when it was sung by Mickey Gilley in 1978. Signing with Collins Court Music gave him access to artists produced by Tom Collins. This led to a string of hits in the early 1980s by Ronnie Milsap (1980’s “My Heart,” 1985’s “She Keeps the Home Fires Burning”), Sylvia (1981’s “Drifter,” 1981’s “The Matador,” 1982’s “I Never Quite Got Back,” 1984’s “Victims of Goodbye”), Barbara Mandrell (1984’s “Christmas at Our House”) and Steve Wariner (1981’s “By Now”).

Other big successes for the songwriter during the 1980s included 1983’s “You Put the Beat in My Heart” for Eddie Rabbitt, 1985’s “You Should Have Been Gone By Now” for Eddy Raven, 1986’s “You’re the Last Thing I Needed Tonight” for John Schneider and 1989’s “Love Will” for The Forester Sisters. During this decade, his songs were also recorded by Tanya Tucker, Jim & Jesse, Louise Mandrell, Don Williams, Lee Greenwood, Charlie Louvin, Keith Whitley, The Oak Ridge Boys, Lorrie Morgan and Porter Wagoner, among others.

Don Pfrimmer returned to the Top 10 on the country charts with Diamond Rio’s career-launching “Meet in the Middle” in 1991. “Come in Out of the Pain” (Doug Stone, 1992), “Love Without Mercy” (Lee Roy Parnell, 1993), “All I Want Is a Life” (Tim McGraw, 1996) and “She’s Sure Taking it Well” (Kevin Sharp, 1997) were other major Pfrimmer hits of the 1990s. Tammy Wynette, Michelle Wright, Billy Dean, George Jones, Rita Coolidge, Bryan White and Stephanie Bentley also recorded his tunes in that decade.

The veteran songwriter entered the new millennium by co-writing some of the biggest hits of his career. He began the decade promisingly with 2000’s “My Love Goes On and On” for Chris Cagle, then scored massive hits with the No. 1 Lonestar smashes “My Front Porch Looking In” (2003) and “Mr. Mom” (2004). He also co-wrote Lonestar’s 2005 hit “Class Reunion (That Used to Be Us).”

In 2010, he co-wrote songs for a unique album called Merry Ex-mas: Holiday Songs for the Divorced and Soon to Be. The tongue-in-cheek collection received a good deal of press attention. Encouraged by his wife Gail, Don Pfrimmer collaborated on its songs with longtime friends Mike Reid and Will Robinson.

He most recently wrote for Cosmic Mule Music in Nashville. In recent years, his songs have been recorded by Jo Dee Messina, Sarah Darling, Rascal Flatts, bluegrass favorites Darin & Brooke Aldridge, Kenny Rogers, Steve Holy, Neal McCoy, and more. During his long Nashville career, Don Pfrimmer wrote more than 450 songs.