![](\"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2013\/08\/15\/arts\/GLASER-obit\/GLASER-obit-articleInline.jpg\")
Tompall Glaser, a key figure in country music\u2019s outlaw movement of the 1970s, died on Tuesday on his way to a hospital in Nashville. He was 79.\u00a0 His death was confirmed by his nephew Louis Glaser, who did not specify the cause. <\/p>\n
Tompall Glaser, a key figure in country music\u2019s outlaw movement of the 1970s, died on Tuesday on his way to a hospital in Nashville. He was 79.\u00a0 His death was confirmed by his nephew Louis Glaser, who did not specify the cause. <\/p>\n
Mr. Glaser was one of four Nashville performers, along with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, featured on the 1976 compilation \u201cWanted! The Outlaws,\u201d the first album in the history of country music to be certified platinum for sales of one million copies. <\/p>\n
The album, which all but single-handedly introduced Nashville\u2019s expression of the freewheeling outlaw spirit to the popular mainstream, included Mr. Glaser\u2019s husky-voiced version of Shel Silverstein\u2019s \u201cPut Another Log on the Fire (Male Chauvinist National Anthem).\u201d <\/p>\n
Mr. Glaser and his younger brothers, Jim and Chuck, had earlier opened Glaser Sound Studios, an artists\u2019 haven off Nashville\u2019s Music Row commonly referred to as Hillbilly Central. Renowned for allowing musicians free rein in the studio \u2014 and not producers, as was then the custom in Nashville \u2014 Hillbilly Central produced outlaw touchstones like Jennings\u2019s 1975 classic \u201cDreaming My Dreams\u201d and Kinky Friedman\u2019s 1973 debut album, \u201cSold American.\u201d Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver and Bobby Bare, for whom Mr. Glaser and Harlan Howard wrote \u201cThe Streets of Baltimore,\u201d a No. 1 country hit in 1966, made landmark recordings there as well.<\/p>\n
Mr. Glaser and his brothers also established their own publishing company, advocating for songwriters to retain ownership and control of their material. Among their earliest signings was John Hartford, the singer and banjo player whose original composition \u201cGentle on My Mind\u201d won Grammy Awards for both him and Glen Campbell in 1968. <\/p>\n
\u201cTompall was way ahead of the game in terms of artist rights and taking control of the creative process and encouraging people to do what was in their heart and soul,\u201d the Grammy-winning Nashville producer Kyle Lehning said in the 2012 documentary \u201cThe Story of the Glaser Brothers: From Nebraska Ranchers to Nashville Rebels.\u201d <\/p>\n
Thomas Paul Glaser was born on Sept. 3, 1933, in Spalding, Neb., and spent his childhood on a 1,200-acre farm northeast of there. He and his brothers performed widely in the eastern half of the state and later hosted a local radio show before appearing on Arthur Godfrey\u2019s network television show in 1957 and attracting the attention of the country singer Marty Robbins, who hired them to sing harmony in his road band. <\/p>\n
Two years later Mr. Glaser and his brothers moved to Nashville, where they toured with Johnny Cash and sang harmony on his 1963 hit \u201cRing of Fire\u201d and on Robbins\u2019s 1959 No. 1 single \u201cEl Paso.\u201d Usually billed as Tompall and the Glaser Brothers, the trio recorded as a folk act for Decca before they moved to MGM, for which they had 12 Top 40 country hits. Named vocal group of the year by the Country Music Association in 1970, Mr. Glaser and his brothers had their first Top 10 country single the next year with \u201cRings.\u201d <\/p>\n
The group disbanded in 1973, after which Mr. Glaser released a series of solo albums that incorporated a mix of western swing, rockabilly and New Orleans rhythm and blues that he called \u201cdiscobilly.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mr. Glaser and his brothers briefly reunited in the late 1970s and achieved their greatest commercial success with a version of Mr. Kristofferson\u2019s \u201cLovin\u2019 Her Was Easier (Than Anything I\u2019ll Ever Do Again),\u201d a No. 2 country hit in 1981. <\/p>\n
Mr. Glaser\u2019s young brothers survive him, as do his wife of 36 years, June; a sister, Eleanor; and an older brother, John. <\/p>\n
Mr. Glaser might not have achieved popularity akin to that of the other performers who appeared with him on \u201cWanted!,\u201d but his work regularly garnered critical acclaim. In his book \u201cThe Best of Country Music,\u201d John Morthland argued that Mr. Glaser\u2019s 1973 solo album \u201cCharlie\u201d could be considered the \u201cfirst bona fide outlaw album\u201d and that \u201cthe title song should have become a standard.\u201d <\/p>\n
Source: New York Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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