Hank Cochran, the esteemed country-music songwriter revered for the poetic economy and power of such enduring hits as Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” and Eddy Arnold’s “Make the World Go Away,” died Thursday at his home in Hendersonville, Tenn., after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 74.
Cochran was joined Wednesday night by musicians Jamey Johnson and Billy Ray Cyrus and fellow songwriter Buddy Cannon, who sang songs with him at his bedside.
In a career spanning more than half a century, Cochran wrote or co-wrote hundreds of songs recorded by Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Elvis Presley, Ray Price, George Strait and numerous others.
Songs of hurt and hope
“He was a great friend, and a great mentor, and he was responsible for some of the music that inspired me to do what I do,” Haggard, himself one of country’s most prolific songwriters, said through a spokeswoman Thursday.
Cochran’s name also can be found on the credits for Cline’s “She’s Got You,” Strait’s “The Chair” and “Ocean Front Property” and Ronnie Milsap’s “Don’t You Ever Get Tired of Hurting Me,” the latter being the one he usually cited as his favorite of his own songs.
“People study songs and go over them and all that,” Cochran once said, “and they tell me that’s one of the most well-written songs, but that has nothing to do with why it’s my favorite. It’s my favorite because it can still cut me up just like the day I wrote it.”
One verse looks at heartache from the viewpoint of a man who is unable to move on: You must think I look bad with a smile, For you haven’t let me wear one In such a long, long while — why must this be? Don’t you ever get tired of hurtin’ me?
“Of my top 20 favorite songs of all time, he wrote about half of ’em,” country star Brad Paisley tweeted Thursday after hearing the news. “What a great guy and great life.”
Garland Perry Cochran was born Aug. 2, 1935, in Isola, Miss. After his parents divorced when he was 9, his father placed him at St. Peter’s Orphans’ Home in Memphis, Tenn. At age 12, he hitchhiked with an uncle to Hobbs, N.M., and spent two years laboring in the oil fields there. Having learned to play guitar from his uncle and having sung in church, he dreamed of making a living in music.
After a brief return to Mississippi, he headed west and, still a teenager, settled in Los Angeles. In 1954, he met future rock star Eddie Coch ran and, although they were not related, they billed themselves as the Cochran Brothers, appearing on an L.A. station’s show. They toured as an opening act with country great Lefty Frizzell.
Heading to Nashville
When Elvis Presley’s career began, the Cochrans traded country for rock ‘n’ roll, but they couldn’t score a hit as a duo and broke up. Hank Coch ran moved to Nashville to pursue a solo career.
He was hired as a $50-a-week staff songwriter for Pamper, a music publishing company run by singer Ray Price, who also hired a young Willie Nelson on Cochran’s recommendation.
What distinguished Coch ran’s songs, Price, 84, said Thursday, is that “they were down to earth. They wasn’t accusatory kind of songs, they wasn’t drunken songs, they was just love songs. … Everything was placed just right, and it wasn’t contrived.”
