b. Wyatt Merle Kilgore, 9 August 1934, Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA, d. 6 February 2005, Mexico. Kilgore was raised in Louisiana when his family moved to Shreveport. He learned to play guitar as a boy and started working on the radio station KENT as a disc jockey at the age of 16. By the time he was 18, he was the leading guitarist on The Louisiana Hayride and had also appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and the Big D Jamboree in Dallas. Between 1952 and 1954 he was also a regular on KFAZ-TV in Monroe, Louisiana. His songwriting ability soon became apparent. In 1954, his song "More And More" became a hit for both Webb Pierce and Guy Lombardo and in 1959, "Johnny Reb" was a country and pop hit for Johnny Horton. Throughout the 50s, Kilgore was very active as a disc jockey, club performer and regular member of The Lousiana Hayride, and had his own first US country chart hits on the Starday label in 1960 with "Dear Mama" and "Love Has Made You Beautiful" and although it never charted, his song "42 in Chicago" is something of a country standard. In 1962, Kilgore teamed with Claude King to write "Wolverton Mountain". King's subsequent recording sold a million copies and became a US country and pop hit. It later transpired that the trigger-happy old mountain man in the song, Clifton Clowers, was Kilgore's uncle. (Kilgore had originally offered the song to Johnny Horton, who believed it to be the worst song Kilgore had written, and when he offered it to George Jones, the latter told Kilgore that he hated mountain songs.) The following year, Kilgore teamed up with June Carter to write "Ring Of Fire", which repeated the million-selling success when recorded by Carter's future husband, Johnny Cash.
Kilgore recorded for several labels but his releases never proved great sellers. Through the 60s, 70s and 80s, he worked steadily, including film appearances in Country Music On Broadway, Nashville and Coal Miner's Daughter. He portrayed himself in the television movie Living Proof: The Hank Williams Jnr. Story in 1983. Kilgore starred in shows in Las Vegas, played Carnegie Hall, New York, but gradually became more involved with music publishing, production and management. He was the opening act for Hank Williams Jnr. for 21 years and later became his manager and the vice-president of Hank Williams Jnr. Enterprises. He served as director of the Country Music Association board and as president of several Nashville-based songwriting associations. He was also an honorary Tennessee state senator. Kilgore died of congestive heart failure in Mexico, where he had been undergoing cancer treatment.
