Harlan Howard

Country music's preeminent composer, Harlan Howard boasted an unparalleled body of work encompassing well over 4,000 songs; the writer behind such perennials as "I Fall to Pieces," "Life Turned Her That Way," and "Heartaches by the Number," he scored major chart hits during every decade of the postwar era. Born September 8, 1929, in Lexington, KY, Howard and his family moved to Detroit just two years later. A devoted fan of the Grand Ole Opry radio show, his idol was the great Ernest Tubb, whose songs Howard attempted to copy down lyric by lyric; a number of words were subsequently lost in the translation, of course, forcing him to invent new lines -- sometimes even entire verses -- and in the process an aspiring songwriter was born. After graduating high school, Howard spent the next four years stationed in Fort Benning, GA, serving as a military paratrooper; in his off hours, he learned to play guitar, and each Friday night he and a friend would hitchhike to Nashville, spending the weekends soaking up live country music.

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