Conway Twitty
#
141
Ranking
Hall of Famer
BIRTHDATE
BIRTHPLACE
Friars Point
,
MS
,
USA
59
6
'
0
"
DIED
Conway Twitty (born September 1, 1933) was a Friars Point, Mississippi-born country legend born Harold Lloyd Jenkins who went from playing guitar in his father's Mississippi River pilothouse to scoring a number-one rock hit in 22 countries with "It's Only Make Believe," then walking offstage one night and reinventing himself as a country artist who recorded 55 number-one singles, more than any artist in country music history until George Strait surpassed him, and forging with Loretta Lynn the most celebrated male-female duet partnership the genre has ever known before his death on June 5, 1993, at age 59.
Current Tour & Setlist
Conway Twitty continued performing at the peak of his powers almost until the very end of his life, collapsing after a show in Branson, Missouri, on June 5, 1993, and dying of an abdominal aortic aneurysm at age 59. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame posthumously in 1999, inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, and honored with a marker on the Mississippi Country Music Trail in his hometown of Friars Point in 2012. His legacy lives on through the enduring popularity of classics including "Hello Darlin'," "Tight Fittin' Jeans," and his beloved duets with Loretta Lynn, which remain some of the most celebrated male-female recordings in country music history.
Early Life
Born Harold Lloyd Jenkins on September 1, 1933, in Friars Point, Mississippi, named after his great-uncle's favorite silent film actor Harold Lloyd, young Conway Twitty grew up in what he later described as a "Huckleberry Finn type of childhood," spending his earliest years on a houseboat on the Mississippi River where his father worked as a riverboat pilot, learning guitar at age four on a Sears and Roebuck acoustic his father gave him, and picking up gospel sounds from a local Black church that he has said were as formative as anything he heard on the radio. When the family relocated to Helena, Arkansas, at age ten, he formed his first band the Phillips County Ramblers at twelve and secured his own weekly show on local radio station KFFA every Saturday morning, while also developing into a gifted enough baseball player that the Philadelphia Phillies would offer him a professional contract at 18 before the Army draft changed his plans entirely.
Career Highlights
After serving in the U.S. Army in Japan, where he organized a band called the Cimmarons to entertain fellow soldiers, Twitty returned to the States electrified by the new rockabilly sound of Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins, auditioned unsuccessfully at Sun Records for Sam Phillips, and eventually signed with MGM Records under his new stage name, a combination of two towns he found on a map: Conway, Arkansas, and Twitty, Texas. In 1958 his MGM single "It's Only Make Believe," written between sets at a Canadian club, shot to number one in the United States and in 21 other countries, sold eight million copies, and launched a rock and roll career before Twitty walked offstage one night in New Jersey, looked out at a room of teenagers, thought of his family at home, and decided on the spot to pivot entirely to country music. Signing with Decca Records in 1965, Twitty scored his first country number one with "Next in Line" in 1968 and went on to record 55 number-one country singles, a record that stood until George Strait surpassed it, while his legendary duet partnership with Loretta Lynn produced 12 top-ten hits and four consecutive CMA Vocal Duo of the Year awards between 1972 and 1975, earning him the nickname "the High Priest of Country Music" and a Country Music Hall of Fame induction in 1999.
Family & Personal Life
Twitty married Temple Maxine Jaco Medley and the couple had four children together, including son Michael and daughters Joni, Jimmy, and Cathy, before the marriage ended in divorce in 1985, and he later married Dee Henry, who remained his wife until his death and with whom he was involved in managing his business empire including Twitty City, a popular tourist complex and park in Hendersonville, Tennessee, built on the grounds of his estate that drew thousands of fans to visit the homes of Conway and several family members each year. His daughter Joni Lee Jenkins and son Michael Twitty both pursued careers in country music in their own right following their father's death.
