Dale Morris, one of the leading figures in Nashville music management who helped build the superstar careers of Alabama and Kenny Chesney, has died at the age of 89.
Dale Morris dies at 89
Morris died peacefully in his sleep on Friday night, 21 August, according to his representatives. A specific cause of death was not provided.
“He lived a big, bold, beautiful, blessed life, and I’m holding onto that right now,” Clint Higham, president of Morris Higham Management, said in a statement about his mentor and longtime business partner. “It’s the end of an era.”
Morris began his career in the music industry as a songwriter, writing Johnny Paycheck’s 1967 single “Don’t Monkey With Another Monkey’s Monkey”, before moving to the business side of the industry.
After establishing Dale Morris & Associates, he was introduced to the then little-known band Alabama in 1979 at The Bowery in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Under his management, the group went on to become one of the most successful acts in country music history.
Alabama scored 33 No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, the most for a duo or group, and became a major touring attraction. The band’s concerts also helped bring large-scale production values associated with rock shows into country music.
The group was named Entertainer of the Year three times by the Country Music Association and five times by the Academy of Country Music during the mid-1980s.
Morris later helped oversee another extraordinary rise with Kenny Chesney, guiding the singer from a developing country artist to one of the genre’s most dependable stadium draws. Chesney was named Entertainer of the Year four times during the 2000s by both the CMA and ACM and recorded 32 No. 1 Billboard country hits.
His other management clients included Old Dominion, Ricky Van Shelton, Jerry Lee Lewis and Bobby “Crash” Craddock, his first management client in the late 1960s.
Morris’s career spanned decades of country music and left a lasting mark on the artists and performers who helped define Nashville’s modern era.
