Cliffie Stone; Wrote Country Music Hits

Cliffie Stone, who wrote several country music hits before making his mark hosting country-themed radio and television shows, where his keen eye for new talent boosted the careers of several famous performers, has died. He was 80.

Stone, a Burbank native and longtime Santa Clarita Valley resident, suffered what appeared to be a heart attack Friday at his Canyon Country home.

Paramedics took him to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 8:45 p.m.

In a career stretching from the Depression through country’s commercial boom of the 1990s, Stone was a successful disc jockey, comedian, bandleader, agent, songwriter and music business executive.

He was named to the Disc Jockey Country Music Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1989, and his name was placed on the Western Walk of Fame in Newhall in 1990.

From his early days as a Capitol Records producer, to weekly talent contests at the Palomino Club in North Hollywood, Stone was always searching for new faces. He was credited with helping to accelerate the careers of Johnny Cash, Eddie Arnold, Tex Ritter, Tennessee Ernie Ford and Molly Bee, among many others.

“Those days taught me how the whole thing fits together,” Stone said in a 1986 Times interview about his career at Capitol, which began in 1948. “You have to know good music, but you don’t want to read too much music or it hurts. You have to rely on the creative thinking of your musicians.”

Born Clifford Gilpin Snyder in Burbank on March 1, 1917, Stone was the son of a successful comedian who used the stage name of Herman the Hermit. At 15, he started playing the stand-up bass on radio, becoming known as the “250-pound teenage bass player.” A graduate of Burbank High School, he found that his interest in music switched from pop to country and western in 1935, when he began working as a country music disc jockey at KFVD, and later, KFWB.

He was a bandleader and a featured comedian on the CBS network’s “Hollywood Barn Dance” radio program. His “Wake Up Ranch” was one of the most popular radio shows in Southern California during the 1940s.

He went on to earn writing credits on dozens of songs, including the 1940s hits “Divorce Me C.O.D.,” a collaboration with Merle Travis that reached No. 1, “No Vacancy” and “So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed.”

Stone, who produced more than 14,000 radio and television shows in 45 years, including a highly rated nighttime TV series sponsored by the Ford Motor Co., had a knack for sensing an audience’s perceptions.

“It’s a gut feeling about what’s going through their minds,” Stone said in the 1986 interview. “You look for signs that the crowd is happy. You notice when they don’t look happy, and you weed those parts of the show out.”

He sold one of his publishing firms, Central Songs, to Capitol Records in 1969, but held on o Snyder Music Corp. into the ‘70s. He also worked on record production for such labels as Tower and UNI, in addition to making some records for Capitol in the late 1960s and working for ATV Music Co. in the late 1970s.

He served as president of the California-based Academy of Country & Western Music for two years and was on the board of directors of Nashville’s Country Music Assn. for four years.

Stone is survived by his wife, Joan, and their children, Curtis, Jonathan, Linda and Steve.

Funeral services will be held Wednesday at noon at the Village Church, 24802 Alderbrook Drive, Newhall.