Revered singer/songwriter dies at 62.

Byline: FRED CRAFTS The Register-Guard

SPRINGFIELD - Mickey Newbury, one of America's most influential and prolific singer-songwriters, was hailed Monday by his longtime friend, singer-songwriter-actor Kris Kristofferson, as "one of the all-time great songwriters."

Newbury, 62, died in his sleep of emphysema at 2:30 a.m. Sunday at his home in east Springfield, his wife, Susan Pack Newbury, said. Newbury had been in fragile health and essentially bedridden for the past five years.

"To me, he was a songbird," Kristofferson said by phone Monday from Los Angeles. "He would do the simplest songs, with simple words, and put them together in such a perfect way that it moved your emotions. ... I learned more about songwriting from Mickey Newbury than anybody I can think of."

Bob Rosemurgy, a fan and lawyer in Escanaba, Mich., who ran Newbury's record company for the fun of it, ranked Newbury as "one of the greatest American artists we've had. He's in the tradition of Stephen Foster and other great writers. His songs have a timelessness and a beautiful simplicity."

Blessed with a pure tenor voice and an engaging guitar style, Newbury not only wrote and performed songs that were immensely popular but, with Kristofferson and other Nashville songwriters in the 1960s and '70s, pushed the boundaries of the country/folk/rock song form. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Association's International Hall of Fame in 1980.

Adored by singers, Newbury's songs were recorded 522 times by all manner of artists from the United States, Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Ireland, Japan, Poland, Norway, South Africa and Sweden.

The U.S. list reads like a who's-who of the music business - Ray Charles, the Everly Brothers, the Grateful Dead, B. B. King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roger Miller, Roy Orbison, Keith Richards, Joan Baez, Gordon Lightfoot, Willie Nelson, Glen Campbell, Etta James, Linda Ronstadt, Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Eddy Arnold, Tammy Wynette, Perry Como and Wayne Newton, among others.

Country singer Don Gibson recorded more of his songs than any other artist (12 songs), followed by Waylon Jennings and Orbison (8 each).

In an unprecedented feat, Newbury had No. 1 hits in 1966 in four categories at the same time - easy listening (Andy Williams' "Sweet Memories"), country (Eddy Arnold's "Here Comes the Rain"), rhythm and blues (Solomon Burke's "Time is a Thief") and pop/rock (Kenny Rogers and the First Edition's "Just Dropped In").

A year later, Don Gibson and Dottie West had a No. 1 country hit with "Sweet Memories" and in the 1990s Willie Nelson topped the charts with the same song.

Newbury's "American Trilogy" was used by Elvis Presley to close his concerts and has been recorded by more than 100 artists. Among his other more popular songs are "Why You Been Gone So Long," "San Francisco Mabel Joy," "Cortelia Clark," "She Even Woke Me up to Say Goodbye," "Makes Me Wonder If I Ever Said Goodbye," "How I Love Them Old Songs," "Funny Familiar Forgotten Feelings," "33rd of August" and "Poison Red Berries."

In recent years, Newbury, easily fatigued by illness, stayed close to home and basked in family life.

"He was a wonderful husband and father," Susan Newbury said Monday. "He didn't put much stock in what the rest of the world did. He just took care of his family. We'd have kids, and he'd take the next year off to change diapers."

His last public concert was at the Kernville (Texas) Folk Festival in 1998, although he mingled with his fans at what were called "Gatherings" in Alabama in November 1999 and in Cottage Grove in August 2000.

"The world has lost a true legend," said Newbury's former manager, Ron Woolman of West Plains, Mo., "and I've lost the best friend I ever had. I never knew anybody who gave of himself more. He helped out tons of singers who are major right now, and he never took any credit."

Newbury and his wife, a former Miss Oregon and member of the New Christie Minstrels recording group, were married in October 1969 in Nashville, then moved to the Eugene area in the summer of 1974, settling along the McKenzie River near Leaburg. Five years ago, they moved to Springfield.

Newbury kept his career alive the last few years by repackaging his older recordings onto CDs and recording new ones, released through his company, Mountain Retreat. His last CD, "Winter Winds," was released Feb. 23. A CD and a video/DVD project is being prepared for possible release at the end of the year.

Even while ill, Newbury composed and recorded four CDs, wrote a children's book (unpublished) and composed numerous songs. He kept in touch with his fans around the world through his personal Web page (www.mickeynewbury.com), often participating in chat room discussions.

Although he wrote all kinds of songs, he was at his best writing sad songs.

"Everybody loves a good cry now and then," Newbury once quipped in a Register-Guard interview. "Everybody's got those empty feelings. Thank goodness."

In nominating Newbury for the Nashville songwriters' hall of fame, composer Joe Allison called Newbury a "writer's writer" who influenced other songwriters "with his 'genius level of standards' of excellence."

While songwriting was Newbury's passion, playing golf was his avocation. He often could be found on the links at the McKenzie River Golf Course and frequently played in celebrity golf tournaments around the world.

Born in a poor neighborhood in Houston, he went to Jefferson Davis High School with singer-songwriter Kenny Rogers.

"When Mickey was 17 years old, he couldn't sing or play," Rogers recalled Monday from a tour stop in Atlanta. "He decided one summer he wanted to do both. He took the summer and locked himself in a room, and I have never seen such a transformation of talent in anyone in my life."

Their paths crossed many times over the years. Newbury's "Just Dropped In" was a 1968 hit for Rogers and was heard on the sound track of the 1998 film "The Big Lebowski."

Blessed with a clear tenor, Newbury first emerged as a member of the doo-wop singing group The Embers. After a stint in the Air Force, he worked on shrimp boats in Galveston, Texas, and began writing songs. His first successful songs appeared in 1964, when he was signed to Acuff-Rose Music in Nashville.

Songwriting was a natural form of expression for him. Steeped on writers as diverse as Jack Kerouac and Oscar Wilde, his lyrics seemed welded to the music.

Many critics felt nobody sang Newbury's songs better than he did. He released a series of low-key albums with dense orchestrations and mournful songs - often accompanied by the lonesome whistle of a steam locomotive - that gained him a wide following.

Newbury, Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Roger Miller and others formed what Newbury's tour manager Owlsey Manier on Monday called "a renegade band of poets that essentially sank the boat of traditional songwriting in Nash- ville."

Newbury once explained his creative process this way: "When I write a song, I write the melody first. It's like the words are being said in the melody, so my job is finding out what the words are."

Composing was hard work, and he often spent long hours holed up in his room working out melodies and lyrics.

"Writing is a real discipline," he said. "I would trade every song I ever wrote to not have to experience it anymore."

Survivors include his mother, Mamie Newbury of Houston; three sons, Joe Lucher of Corpus Christie, Texas, Christopher Newbury of Eugene and Stephen Newbury of Springfield; two daughters, Elizabeth Woodward of Provo, Utah, and Laura Newbury of Springfield; and a brother, Jerry of Houston.

Private graveside services will be held Saturday in Leaburg. No public services are planned. Contributions in Newbury's memory can be made to a Vietnam Veterans group or any other charity.

CAPTION(S):

Songwriter Mickey Newbury died of emphysema in Springfield on Sunday. He had been in fragile health for the past five years. The Register-Guard The Register-Guard Mickey Newbury is shown in his recording studio in 1993.