Mel Tillis, Down-Home Country Music Favorite, Dies At 85

NASHVILLE, TN — A childhood bout with malaria left Mel Tillis with a permanent mark: the stutter that became his trademark as much as any of the classic songs he penned and sang. In a career spanning six decades, Tillis left an indelible mark of his own on the music he fell in love with while shelling peas in a cannery his family owned.

Tillis, a Country Music Hall of Famer who wrote and sang tunes that became classics, died Sunday. Tillis was 85.

Born outside Tampa, Fla. in 1932, Tillis beat the tropical disease but was mocked for the speech impediment that resulted. After hearing The Carter Family and Eddy Arnold, Tillis became determined to learn to play the down-home, from-the-heart music he heard, teaching himself to play guitar.

After high school, he briefly attended the University of Florida before joining the Air Force, where, during a posting in Okinawa, he joined a band called The Westerners. After his Air Force discharge, Tillis worked for the Atlantic Coast Line railroad and would travel to Nashville to pitch his songs.

After two years of rejections, Tillis finally hit the charts as a songwriter when Webb Pierce took "I'm Tired" to No. 3, starting a long collaboration between the pair, which included "I Ain't Never," one of the era's most enduring songs.

Like so many before and since, Tillis spent years as a writer before ever getting a chance to perform on his own.

In 1967, he wrote "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town," a melancholy song sung from the perspective of a wounded veteran of "that crazy Asian war" urging his lover not to seek another man. It is among the only songs to come out of Nashville to speak frankly about Vietnam and the horrors of war that stay with soldiers long after they've left the battlefield along with Jimmy Webb's "Galveston," released by Glen Campbell two years later. The most famous recording of "Ruby" by Kenny Rogers and The First Edition marked that group's shift from pop to country, ultimately creating, in Rogers, one of country's hugest stars.

Tillis finally hit the big time as an artist in the 1970s, going to No. 1 with his own recording of "I Ain't Never" in 1972. He had a run of 12 Top 10 singles, including five that topped the charts.

Tillis, who also had a natural, home-spun sense of humor accentuated by his famous stutter, began appearing on TV and in films during the era, becoming a regular on "Hee Haw" and "Hollywood Squares" on the small screen and in "Cannonball Run" and "Smokey And The Bandit 2" on the big one.

Tillis also parlayed his songwriting royalties and performance earnings into successful business ventures, purchasing publishing rights and becoming one of the first artists to open a theater in Branson, Mo.

His daughter, Pam, became a country star in her own right, as well.

Tillis was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2007 and received the National Medal of Arts in 2012.

Recording Artist Mel Tillis performs at 'The Legend's at Legends' during CRS 2015 on February 25, 2015 at the in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images)