Gospel Music Hall of Fame member Mosie Lister has died at age 93.

Renowned for creating such enduring classics as “Where No One Stands Alone,” “His Hand in Mine” and “He Knows Just What I Need,” the songwriter, arranger and publisher passed away on Thursday, Feb. 12. He lived in Spring Hill, TN.

Born Thomas Mosie Lister in Cochran, GA, he sang in his family’s gospel group and learned to play fiddle, piano and guitar as a youngster. He later said that he knew he wanted to become a songwriter even when he was a child performer. In 1939, he began studying at the Vaughan School of Music in Lawrenceburg, TN.

He joined The Sunny South Quartet in Tampa, FL in 1941. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he rejoined the group. In 1946, he joined The Melody Masters.

Mosie Lister became one of the founding members of The Statesmen Quartet in Atlanta in 1948. But he soon realized he wanted to get off the touring circuit to concentrate on his songwriting. So Jake Hess, Hovie Lister (no relation) and Jim Wetherington went forward as the nucleus of what became one of the most popular Southern-gospel quartets in history.

The songwriter/arranger maintained his ties to the group. He was soon providing The Statesmen with some of their most popular songs. He formed Mosie Lister Publications in 1953, and began placing his songs with many other gospel acts of the day.

Mosie Lister’s catchy compositions helped to define the entire Southern-gospel movement. In his history of the style, author James R. Goff Jr. wrote that Lister was, “by far the most influential gospel songwriter of the 1950s…. Perhaps more than any other songwriter of the era, Lister enjoyed the overwhelming respect of his peers.”

The Statesmen recorded his “Then I Met the Master,” “I’ll Leave it all Behind,” “Sunday Meetin’ Time,” “I’ve Found a New Friend,” “If to Gain the World,” “Oh What a Friend He Is to Me,” “The Gentle Stranger” and many others.

“He Knows Just What I Need,” Lister’s favorite of the songs he wrote, was recorded by The Statesmen, as well as by James Abbington, The Old Friends Quartet, The Blackwood Brothers, Faron Young and Bill Gaither. The Statesmen also recorded “I’m Bound for the Kingdom,” which was later released by Webb Pierce, Red Foley and Jimmie Davis.

The LeFevre Trio popularized his “I’m Feeling Fine.” The Blackwoods, The Cathedral Quartet, The Jordanaires, Paul Williams & The Victory Trio, J.D. Sumner & The Stamps, The Singing Gospelaires, The Blue Ridge Quartet, The Gaithers, The Talleys, The Hoppers and more spread Lister’s songs throughout Southern-gospel culture.

Gospel Singing World proclaimed in 1955, “it would be hard to find a known quartet not singing one of Mosie’s compositions among their best loved numbers.”

In 1960, Elvis Presley chose the songwriter’s 1953 composition “His Hand in Mine” as the title tune of his first gospel album. The disc earned a Platinum Record award and is regarded as one of the singer’s finest. Presley included Lister’s “Where No One Stands Alone” on his three million-selling 1967 collection How Great Thou Art, which won a Grammy Award.

“Where No One Stands Alone,” written in 1955, has also been recorded by Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Bill Anderson, Alison Krauss & The Cox Family, The Browns, Porter Wagoner, Ferlin Husky, Jean Shepard, George Hamilton IV, The Osborne Brothers, Jack Greene, The Louvin Brothers, Asleep at the Wheel, B.J. Thomas, Dottie West, Don Gibson, Jan Howard, Hank Snow and dozens of others.

“’Til the Storm Passes By,” written by Lister in 1958, was recorded by The Statler Brothers, The Gaither Vocal Band, The Inspirations, Vestal Goodman and Greater Vision, among others.

Lister’s 1956 song “How Long Has it Been” has been popularized by George Beverly Shea, Jim Reeves, Faron Young, Skeeter Davis, Jimmy Dean, The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, Del Reeves, The Homeland Quartet and more.

Other key titles in Mosie Lister’s 700-song catalog include “Happy Rhythm” (1953), “Goodbye, World, Goodbye” (1956), “I’ve Been Changed” (1959), “The King and I” (1954) and “While Ages Roll” (1970).

In 1975, he was ordained as a Baptist minister. He published his autobiography/memoir, The Song Goes On, in 2012.

Mosie Lister was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1976. He was one of the Hall’s first living inductees. In 1997, he became a member of the Southern Gospel Music Association’s Hall of Fame, whose museum is at Dollywood.

He is survived by his wife Martha Jean, twin daughters Brenda and Barbara, stepdaughter Vicki Booth, sister Margery Dillashaw and seven grandchildren.

The visitation will be held 4-8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 16, at Williamson Memorial Funeral Home. He will be buried at Williamson Memorial Gardens.

A “Homegoing Celebration” Concert will take place at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 24, at the People’s Church, 828 Murfreesboro Rd., Franklin, TN.

[Updated, Feb. 5]: Services have been set for Bob Meador. A public visitation will be held Saturday, Feb. 7 from 4-6 p.m. at Woodlawn-Roesch-Patton Funeral Home & Memorial Park, located at 660 Thompson Lane in Nashville. On Monday, Feb. 9, a public visitation will be held at 10 a.m., with a memorial service beginning at 12 noon at Christ Presbyterian Church, located at 2323 Old Hickory Blvd. in Nashville.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Pearl Point (formerly the Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation).

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[Original post]: Bob Meador, husband of music industry executive Jo Walker-Meador, died Wednesday, Feb. 4, at age 88.

Meador had two children, Rob and Karen, from a previous marriage. He had been battling leukemia.

Bob and Jo were married 33 years ago.

As executive director of the Country Music Association (CMA) from 1962 to 1991, Jo Walker-Meador was influential in the growth of the country music industry during those years. One year before she took the helm at the CMA, full-time country radio stations numbered fewer than 100 nationwide. By 1995, there were nearly 2,400 country radio stations. She is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Funeral arrangements for Bob Meador are pending.

Award-winning bluegrass songwriter and former top country-music journalist Dixie Hall has passed away at age 80.

The wife of Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Tom T. Hall died on Friday, January 15, following a long illness. She and her husband won Songwriter of the Year honors from SPBGMA (the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America) for 10 consecutive years. She also co-wrote songs with Jeanette Williams, Billy Smith and Country Music Hall of Fame member Maybelle Carter, among others.

Dixie Hall founded the record label Blue Circle Records, the publishing company Good Home Grown Music and a recording studio. In the 1960s, she was the editor of country music’s biggest periodical.
Born Iris Violet May Lawrence in a town near Manchester, England, she wrote poetry as a youngster. During the 1950s, she became a country-music fan and began working as an overseas representative for Tex Ritter, Starday Records and other Nashvillians.

She moved to Music City in 1961 and was adopted by the legendary Maybelle Carter. Iris Lawrence adopted “Dixie Dean” as her Nashville pen name. She and Carter co-wrote the Johnny Cash songs “A Letter From Home” and “Troublesome Waters.”

Also as “Dixie Dean,” she co-wrote the 1965 Dave Dudley hit “Truck Drivin’ Son-of-a-Gun.” Under this same byline, she wrote celebrity profiles for the Music City News fan magazine and eventually became its editor. She met Tom T. Hall at a BMI awards banquet in 1964. They married in 1968. For many years, she raised and trained award-winning basset hounds while her husband became a country superstar.

Dixie Hall reactivated her songwriting in the 1990s. Tom T. Hall wanted to retire, but she urged him to continue writing by becoming his collaborator. This is also when she established their record label, song-publishing company and recording studio, all headquartered at their Williamson County home, Fox Hollow.

She subsequently wrote or co-wrote more than 500 recorded bluegrass songs. They were sung by a who’s-who of the genre, including The Grascals, Special Consensus, Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice, Don Rigsby, Josh Williams, Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road, James Monroe, Dale Ann Bradley, Chris Jones & The Night Drivers, Little Roy Lewis and Paul Williams.

She produced the all-female ensemble Daughters of Bluegrass. The group’s Pickin’ Like a Girl record was totally comprised of Dixie Hall songs and won an award from the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) in 2010.

Carlene Carter included Dixie’s co-written “Troublesome Waters” on her 2014 CD Carter Girl. Miranda Lambert placed Dixie’s co-written “All That’s Left” on her million-selling 2014 CMA Album of the Year winner Platinum.

Dixie Hall’s funeral will be private, according to The Tennessean. Tom T. Hall reportedly plans a celebration of his wife’s life and music at a later date.

Rick Martin, one of the great personalities of the Nashville nightclub scene, passed away on Thursday, Jan. 8.

Martin, who was 65, died at home. He was the co-owner of Douglas Corner Café, a longtime showcase venue for the singers, songwriters and instrumentalists of Music City. In addition to establishing the nightclub, Martin was notable as the road manager for acclaimed singer-songwriter David Olney for many years.

Known for his wit and sense of humor, Rick Martin was also a fixture of the Waverly-Belmont neighborhood. He renovated a historic home there and could be found many mornings holding forth at the area’s Bongo Java coffee house. The colorful, charming entrepreneur was a native Nashvillian who was born into the large Martin family of Hillsboro Village. Several of his siblings also became known to Nashville’s music community of the 1970s and 1980s.

Douglas Corner Café was notable as a place where Rick Martin displayed his generosity and loyalty toward creative musicians who sometimes worked outside the commercial mainstream. This is why the club became a locus for what later became known as the Americana music genre. In short, Martin was a champion of Americana long before it had a name.

He is survived by his sisters Julie and Terry Martin. Donations to Alive Hospice in his memory are welcome.

A celebration of Rick Martin’s life will be held at Douglas Corner Café on Wednesday, Jan. 14, at 6 p.m.