Otis Blackwell, songwriting legend who penned tunes for Elvis Presley, dies in Nashville, TN

Jet, May 27, 2002

Otis Blackwell, the songwriter of such Elvis classics as Don't Be Cruel, All Shook Up, One Broken Heart For Sale and Return To Sender, recently died of a heart attack in Nashville, TN. He was 70.

Born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1931, Blackwell grew up wanting to be a singer. While recording songs for a small company in New York City, the vocalist-pianist was asked to write songs as well. He launched his writing career in the early 1950s by selling six songs for $150.

Throughout his illustrious career, Blackwell would go on to write more than 1,000 songs. They included Jerry Lee Lewis's Great Balls of Fire and Breathless; James Taylor's Handy Man and The Who's Daddy Rolling Stone. He co-wrote Peggy Lee's Fever, but he used a pseudonym. He also wrote Dee Clark's hit classic Hey Little Girl.

In the late 1970s Blackwell recorded the albums These Are My Songs and Singin' The Blues and began to tour. He frequently recorded in Nashville and moved there in 1990. The following year he suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed.

Credited with writing songs that sold more than 185 million copies, Blackwell was a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is survived by his wife, Mamie Wiggins Blackwell of Nashville, and seven children: Otis Jr., Leslie, Odette, Kimberly Scott, Michael Scott, Timothy and Ellen.