I had the good fortune of seeing Wayne Carson live in concert several years ago when I lived in Rapid City.

Eddie Rabbit was playing at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center and Wayne Carson was the show opener. Now, most of the people in the crowd had never heard of Wayne Carson, but as a guy who admired the songwriters, I certainly knew who Wayne Carson was.

The one thing I remember from that show was Wayne on stage with his guitar and prior to singing the great song he wrote, 'Always On My Mind', he said "I'd like to thank Elvis for recording this song and allowing me to buy a brand new car. And I'd like to thank Willie Nelson for recording this song and allowing me to buy a brand new house".

The following is courtesy of usatoday.com.

Wayne Carson, a songwriter known for penning the Willie Nelson smash Always on My Mind and the Box Tops/Joe Cocker hit The Letter, died early Monday morning. He was 72.

Carson's wife, Wendy Harp Head, confirmed the songwriter's death to The Springfield News-Leader. Carson had suffered from various health issues and had been in hospice care for the past month.

Born in Colorado to musicians who performed under the stage names "Shorty & Sue," Carson grew up around music and began playing guitar at age 14 after hearing finger-picking great Merle Travis on record. He got his first big cut when Eddy Arnold recorded Somebody Like Me and took it to the top of the country charts in 1966.

The following year, Memphis rock group the Box Tops had a No. 1 pop hit with Carson's The Letter, a song Carson said was inspired by several pages of lyrics sent him by his father, one of which contained the word "airplane" spelled as "aero-plane." From that, Carson's wrote the song's memorable first line, "Give me a ticket for an aero-plane." The song was also a top 10 pop hit for Cocker and Leon Russell in 1970.

The Box Tops had two other top-40 successes with Carson tunes, Neon Rainbow and Soul Deep.

Carson's biggest success came with Always on My Mind. The song had been recorded by Brenda Lee in 1972 and later covered by Elvis Presley. But Willie Nelsons 1982 version topped both the pop and the country charts, winning Carson Grammys for song of the year and best country song. Nelson's version proved so popular that Always on My Mind was named the Country Music Association's song of the year in both 1982 and 1983, leading the organization to change its voting procedures so that a song could win the award only once.

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