Carl Robert Belew (April 21, 1931 – October 31, 1990) was an American country music singer and songwriter. Belew recorded for Decca, RCA Victor, and MCA in the 1950s through 1970s, charting 11 times on Hot Country Songs. He also wrote singles for Johnnie & Jack, Eddy Arnold, Jim Reeves, and others. Despite recording eight albums between 1960 and 1972, Carl Belew is best remembered as a songwriter whose work was covered by an eclectic group of artists ranging from Patsy Cline to Gene Vincent to Andy Williams.
Born in Salina, Oklahoma, Carl Belew left school at 15 and became a plumber, but he was intent on becoming a musician. He became one of a long list of performers who moved on from making small rockabilly records to country music fame as both a singer and songwriter. His rockers include Cool Gator Shoes and Folding Money on Four Star for whom he made his debut in 1955 after being brought to the company's attention by Marvin Rainwater. By the following year, he gained his first widespread exposure thanks to appearances on a pair of California-based radio programs, Town Hall Party and The Cliffie Stone Show. In 1957, he performed on the Louisiana Hayride.
He signed to Decca Records by the end of the decade, reaching number 9 on the country music charts with "Am I That Easy to Forget", which was later recorded by Skeeter Davis, Debbie Reynolds, Esther Phillips, Engelbert Humperdinck, Jim Reeves, and others. In 1958 Johnnie & Jack recorded Belew's "Stop the World and Let Me Off", while Andy Williams hit the Top Five with "Lonely Street," a song which would become Belew's trademark tune thanks to subsequent covers by Cline, Vincent, and Rex Allen, Jr. Strangely for such a great writer, Belew scored two hits with Crystal Chandeliers and Hello Out There, neither of which he penned.
In 1960, Belew released his self-titled debut LP; in the same year, he notched a Top 20 hit with the single "Too Much to Lose." Two years later, a label change to RCA prompted another eponymous effort; the single "Hello Out There" earned him another Top Ten hit, his last.
Between 1964 and 1968, Belew released an album a year, beginning with Hello Out There and continuing with Am I That Easy to Forget?, Country Songs, Lonely Street, and finally Twelve Shades of Belew. His last studio album, When My Baby Sings His Song, a record of duets with Betty Jean Robinson, was issued in 1972, while one final single, "Welcome Back to My World," appeared in 1974.
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Throughout his career, Belew's songs continued to be popular with (and popularized by) other singers; Eddy Arnold hit number one in 1965 with "What's He Doing in My World," while Jim Reeves scored a posthumous success in 1968 with "That's When I See the Blues (In Your Pretty Brown Eyes).""Stop the World (And Let Me Off)" also reached the Top 20 twice more thanks to a 1965 cover by Waylon Jennings and a 1974 version by Susan Raye. In 1976 Belew was inducted into Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
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Carl Belew died of cancer on October 31, 1990, in Salina, Oklahoma at the age of 59. Two years after his death he won the Music City News award for Best Song with Look At Us. It's a beautiful ballad (If they want to know what true love should be, they'll just look at us), which was a massive hit for Vince Gill. In 2027 he was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall Of Fame.
(Edited
fron AllMusic, TIMS, Hillbilly Music & Wikipedia)