Researching Wayne Kemp

Kemp was born, as one of nine children, to a musical family in Greenwood, Arkansas. His parents played several instruments and always encouraged their kids to sing and harmonize together. When Wayne was six, the family moved to Muldrow, Oklahoma, and soon he was performing in church and at local events. By the age of 16, he was writing songs and playing guitar professionally with Tulsa country star Benny Ketchum.

Kemp's first break came in 1965, when a friend passed his demo tape to George Jones. The singer liked the guitar playing and two of Kemp's songs, "Love Bug" and "I Made Her That Way," and recorded them. Soon, Kemp found himself in Nashville, recording with Jones and making his own solo record.

But just as his star was on the rise, tragedy struck. En route to a gig, a drunk driver crashed into the car that Kemp and his band were riding in. The car burst into flames. Two of Kemp's bandmates were killed, and Wayne suffered third degree burns on his face, hands and legs. Doctors told him he would never play guitar again.

But with hard work and determination, Kemp proved them wrong. In 1968, he had his first #1, "Next in Line" by Conway Twitty, quickly followed by Twitty's hits with “The Image of Me”, "Darling, You Know I Wouldn't Lie" and "That's When She Started to Stop Loving You." Kemp signed as a staff writer with Tree International and hit the road, playing guitar for Twitty. His own solo recording career finally got rolling the year after, with hits like "Won't You Come Home (And Talk to a Stranger)", "Bar Room Habits", and “I’ll Leave This World Loving You.”

For the next two decades, Kemp pursued his solo career while writing for others and earning a gold-plated reputation as a master of the "tear in my beer" heartbreak song. Along the way, he scored cuts by Johnny Cash (the #1 country hit "One Piece at a Time"), George Strait (“The Fireman”), Johnny Paycheck (“The Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised”), Hank Williams Jr., Ronnie Milsap, Jack Greene, Faron Young, Mickey Gilley, Charley Pride, Tom Petty, and Willie Nelson. Ricky Van Shelton scored a #1 country hit when he released a cover of Kemp's "I'll Leave This World Loving You" and Emmylou Harris's cover of "Feelin' Single - Seein' Double" became one of her signature songs.

Wayne Kemp was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1999.

Kemp died on March 9, 2015, at Macon County General Hospital in Lafayette, Tennessee, at the age of 74. He was suffering from multiple ailments and was on kidney dialysis when he died.