Songwriter

Songwriter

Born: August 12, 1938; Died: October 18, 2014

Paul Craft, who has died in Tennessee aged 76 after years of failing health, wrote songs made famous by singers such as The Eagles, Alison Krauss and Linda Rondstadt.

Dropkick Me Jesus Through The Goalposts Of Life, a hit for Bobby Bare, and Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life, recorded by country singer Moe Bandy, were among his signature tunes.

Only 13 days before he died, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters' Hall Of Fame after receiving numerous nominations over the years.

In his youth, Craft found work as a banjo player while in college at Virginia University. He continued to tour and record a series of albums with Jimmy Martin And The Sunny Mountain Boys between 1961 and 1970.

For Craft, songwriting came later but also had its roots at university. There he met John Starling, the bass player with Seldom Scene, the bluegrass band, which subsequently recorded several of his songs.

He wrote poems and set them to music while managing a music store, Paul Craft's Music And Drum City, in Memphis.

And once he felt he had enough, and good enough, songs, he went to Nashville to find publishers and singers who would record them.

Craft was a member of American Mensa, the club for people with high IQs. Wordplay, irony and wit were a feature of his songwriting.

Dropkick Me Jesus Through The Goalposts Of Life, supreme in the admittedly-limited genre of American Football-themed gospel songs, is an example, with lines such as: "I've got the will Lord if you've got the toe."

Meanwhile, in Brother Jukebox, a No. 1 hit for Mark Chesnutt in 1991 having been originally recorded by Don Everly, he describes how ­- the singer having been left by his woman - the only family he has left are "Brother Jukebox, Sister Wine, Mother Freedom and Father Time".

Other hits included It's Me Again, Margaret, a comedy song about an obscene phone-caller, which became a fixture of the live set of folk singer-comedian Ray Stevens.

The Eagles recorded his song Midnight Flyer for their third album On The Border.

Alison Krauss included Craft's song Teardrops Will Kiss The Morning Dew on her breakthrough 1995 album Now That I've Found You: A Collection.

Nowadays, it is common in Nashville for more than one writer to work on a song, but Craft worked almost exclusively alone.

He told an interviewer: "I can't help feeling that if Ernest Hemingway had been forced to co-write The Sun Also Rises, it wouldn't be the same book - and that would be a shame."

Craft continued to write and perform live into his 70s.

He was a frequent visitor at shows and festivals until his health prevented him continuing.