Sonny Curtis, the rock pioneer who wrote “I Fought the Legislation” and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame with the Crickets in 2012, has died. He was 88.
Curtis died Friday after instantly falling in poor health, his household confirmed Saturday on Fb.
“I’m heartbroken to inform you that my dad Sonny handed away yesterday after a sudden sickness. I’m so grateful that I used to be with him on the finish, together with my mother. It was peaceable and he didn’t endure,” wrote his son, additionally named Sonny.
“He was 88 and he lived a extra distinctive life than anybody I’d ever met. He made a mark on this world, and he made a mark on the hearts of all who knew him. It’s a tragic day, however what a life. Might we take a look at his life with pleasure reasonably than unhappiness. He would have wished that.”
Curtis penned tons of of songs in his lifetime, together with the theme for the “Mary Tyler Moore Present” and the Everly Brothers’ hit “Stroll Proper Again.”
He grew up with Buddy Holly in Texas, the place the pair took up music and fashioned a rock group collectively. Curtis started writing songs early, and by age 20 had penned Holly’s “Rock Round With Ollie Vee.”
Curtis departed the Crickets earlier than the band discovered main success, however got here again to the band after Holly’s sudden loss of life in 1959.
“Buddy had black hair, however he had dyed it blonde, and it was rising out. And he jogged my memory of a black-and-tan coon hound. We sorta skipped all of the niceties and bought our guitars and began taking part in,” he instructed CBS Information of his buddy in 2022.
Of Holly’s loss of life at 22, Curtis added, “Are you able to think about the quantity of music he pumped into the system in a brief interval of, like, 18 months? No telling how a lot he would’ve contributed had he been round.”
Curtis additionally stated he wrote “I Fought the Legislation” in 20 minutes, although it took a number of years for he track to attain main success, when The Conflict lined the tune in 1966.
4 years later Curtis acquired a cellphone name from a buddy who had heard a couple of new present being put collectively for Mary Tyler Moore. He penned the present’s now-iconic theme based mostly on a four-page present synopsis.
His profession additionally included solo releases and he loved a prime 20 nation hit with 1981’s “Good Ol’ Women.”
Sonny Curtis was born on Might 9, 1937, in Meadow Texas. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee, within the Nineteen Seventies together with his household. Curtis was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Corridor of Fame in 1991 with the Crickets and into Nashville’s Musicians Corridor of Fame and Museum in 2007.
He’s survived by his spouse, Louise.
