{"id":36098,"date":"2026-04-26T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/?p=36098"},"modified":"2026-04-21T11:29:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:29:40","slug":"country-songwriter-don-schlitz-dies-at-73","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/blogs\/country-music-news\/2026\/04\/country-songwriter-don-schlitz-dies-at-73\/","title":{"rendered":"Country Songwriter Don Schlitz Dies At 73"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Don Schlitz<\/strong>, the legendary country songwriter, has died at age 73. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schlitz penned Kenny Rogers&#8217; iconic &#8220;The Gambler,&#8221; which became a career-defining hit and spawned a television movie series. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His songwriting credits also include &#8220;On the Other Hand&#8221; and &#8220;Forever and Ever, Amen&#8221; for Randy Travis, &#8220;When You Say Nothing at All&#8221; recorded by Keith Whitley and Alison Krauss, and &#8220;He Thinks He&#8217;ll Keep Her&#8221; for Mary Chapin Carpenter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two-time Grammy winner also co-wrote &#8220;Strong Enough to Bend&#8221; for Tanya Tucker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Schlitz was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2017, recognizing his profound impact on country music.<\/p>\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"insta-iframe\" src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DXPBtZ0jtjN\/embed\/captioned\" width=\"auto\" height=\"auto\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display:inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height:0;\"  class=\"mce_SELRES_start\"><\/span><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don Schlitz, the legendary country songwriter, has died at age 73. Schlitz penned Kenny Rogers&#8217; iconic &#8220;The Gambler,&#8221; which became a career-defining hit and spawned a television movie series. His songwriting credits also include &#8220;On the Other Hand&#8221; and &#8220;Forever and Ever, Amen&#8221; for Randy Travis, &#8220;When You Say Nothing at All&#8221; recorded by Keith","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":16936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"featured_img_display":"Yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3337],"tags":[3898,384,9485,6591,3914,7798,3516,7488,4266,6592],"class_list":["post-36098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-country-music-news","tag-country-music-hall-of-fame-and-museum","tag-don-schlitz","tag-forever-and-ever-amen","tag-keith-whitley","tag-kenny-rogers","tag-on-the-other-hand","tag-randy-travis","tag-songwriter","tag-the-gambler","tag-when-you-say-nothing-at-all"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 13:33:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"react_link":"https:\/\/chok.com\/blogs\/country-music-news\/2026\/04\/country-songwriter-don-schlitz-dies-at-73\/","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36159,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36098\/revisions\/36159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briwebapp.net\/chokfm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}