Don Schlitz, one of country music’s most celebrated songwriters, died Thursday at a Nashville hospital following a sudden illness. He was 73.
Born in Durham, North Carolina in 1952, Schlitz left Duke University at 20 and moved to Nashville with little more than $80 to his name. He did not wait long to make his mark. At 23, he wrote “The Gambler,” which Kenny Rogers took to No. 1 on the country charts in 1978 and which earned the Grammy Award for best country song.
Over the following decades, Schlitz accumulated 25 No. 1 hits, writing for Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis, The Judds, Alison Krauss, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Keith Whitley and many others. His credits include “On the Other Hand,” “Forever and Ever, Amen,” “When You Say Nothing At All” and “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her.”
He won three CMA Song of the Year awards, two ACM Song of the Year awards, two Grammys and was named ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year four consecutive years from 1988 to 1991. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1993, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012, the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2017 and the Grand Ole Opry in 2022 — the first non-artist songwriter ever to receive that distinction.
He is survived by his wife Stacey; daughter Cory Dixon and her husband Matt; son Pete Schlitz and his wife Christian Webb Schlitz; grandchildren Roman, Gia, Isla and Lilah; brother Brad Schlitz; and sister Kathy Hinkley.
