Wayne Carson will always be on the minds of Springfield’s country music community

This post was originally published July 20, 2015.

Songwriter, producer, two-time Grammy award winner and former Springfieldian Wayne Carson died.

Wayne Carson Head (his full name) was pronounced dead 1:31 a.m. Monday, aged 72, confirmed his wife, Wyndi Harp Head, in a phone call to the News-Leader.

He had been suffering congestive heart failure, COPD, diabetes and gallstone issues, Harp said. A recent gallstone flare-up led to Carson being placed in hospice care for the past month.

“He had numerous health issues,” Harp said.

Though based outside Nashville, Carson had many ties to Springfield and the Ozarks. He last performed a show in Springfield in March 2006, according to a previous News-Leader article.

“He spent a lot of time going back and forth to Springfield from Nashville during his music career,” Harp said.

Nationally known country artists BJ Thomas and Jim Femino, as well as members of the Ozarks country-music community, shared condoleances across social media Monday morning.

“RIP Wayne Carson,” tweeted country artist and Grammy winner B.J. Thomas. “My close friend and brother. One of the great writers. Was loved by all and will be missed.”

“He was Springfield’s last connection to the real music world,” local producer Nick Sibley told the News-Leader. Sibley met Carson in 1973 and handled copyright work on Carson’s songs.

“He’d come into the studio and play songs he’d written the night before,” Sibley said. “Then three months later you’d hear them as hits on country radio by Merle Haggard.”

“He filled the room when he came in the room,” Sibley said. “I always thought it was kind of like being around Elvis, in a smaller way.”

“Wayne Carson wrote so many songs that most people on the planet know by heart,” local musician Greg McKinney told the News-Leader. “Artists are still covering his songs he wrote decades ago.”

“He taught me everything I know about the studio,” said Ruell Chappell, another local musician.

Carson was proficient in country, but also rock and rhythm and blues. He played percussion, piano, guitar and bass in addition to songwriting and producing.

Perhaps Carson’s best-known songwriting credit is “Always On My Mind,” first released in 1972 and performed by Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, the Pet Shop Boys and about 300 other artists since that time, according to data compiled by AllMusic.com.

“Always on My Mind” won Grammy awards in 1983 for Song of the Year and Best Country Song; in 1982 it reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts, according to Carson’s website. The Country Music Association named it the Song of the Year in 1982 and 1983. Also in 1982, the Nashville Songwriters Association International named it Song of the Year and the Academy of Country Music named it Single of the Year.

Carson told an interviewer at classicbands.com that he wrote “A in “about 10 minutes” over his kitchen table when he lived in Springfield in the early 1970s.

Carson said he carried the song around with him for about a year, then teamed up with producer Chips Moman and songwriters Johnny Christopher and Mark James to add a two-line bridge on the spot, during studio recording.

Carson’s major song credits include “Neon Rainbow,” “The Letter,” “Deep” “Keep On” and many others.

Wayne Carson was born Wayne Carson Thompson May 31, 1943 in Denver. His parents, Odie and Olivia Thompson, were professional musicians, according to Carson’s website biography.

They met in Nebraska while working in radio, moved to Colorado and eventually to Springfield, joining the music staff at KWTO.

Carson began playing guitar when he was about 14 after hearing a recording by Merle Travis. As a young man fronting bands, he lived in multiple cities, including Denver and Nashville, before moving back to Springfield, where he began working with music publisher/promoter Si Siman.

In more recent decades, he returned to the Nashville area. He lived in Franklin, Tenn. outside Nashville with wife Wyndi Harp.

Wayne's memorial is scheduled July 28 at 10:00 a.m. at Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens, 9090 Hwy 100, Nashville  TN  37221.

“There’ll be carloads (of Springfield musicians) going down there for the service,” said local musician Nick Sibley.