Melvin Endsley, 70; Musician Wrote ‘Singin’ the Blues’

Melvin Endsley, 70, who wrote one of the most popular songs of the 20th century, “Singin’ the Blues,” which has sold more than 2.5 million copies and been recorded by about 100 artists, died Aug. 16 in his native Drasco, Ark., of heart problems. He spent his life in a wheelchair after contracting polio at the age of 3.

Endsley taught himself to play guitar, and began writing songs as an adolescent living at the Crippled Children’s Home in Memphis, Tenn. He launched his career just after leaving high school when Wayne Raney offered him a spot on his Searcy, Ark., radio show -- where Endsley first performed “Singin’ the Blues” to a receptive audience.

He copyrighted the song and had a friend drive him to Nashville, where Marty Robbins introduced him to Acuff-Rose publishers and recorded a version of “Singin’ the Blues.” The Robbins version was a No. 1 country song for three months in 1956, but the best-known recording remains that by Guy Mitchell, which topped the popular charts for 10 weeks in late 1956 and early 1957.

Endsley, who recorded on his own and performed with the Grand Ole Opry and the Louisiana Hayride, wrote more than 400 songs before he became disillusioned with the recording industry and switched to raising cattle. Among his songs popularized by such artists as Don Gibson, Janis Martin, Johnny Cash and Andy Williams were “It Happens Everytime,” “Love Me to Pieces,” “I’d Just Be Fool Enough” and “I Like Your Kind of Love.”