Carson
suffered numerous health issues including diabetes and heart and
gallstone problems, his wife, Wyndi Harp Head, told the Springfield
News-Leader newspaper in Missouri, where they lived.
"Our music
community has lost an immense talent much too soon," Neil Portnow,
president of the Recording Academy, said in a statement of the two-time
Grammy winner.
Carson said he wrote "Always On My Mind" in 10
minutes at his kitchen table in Springfield and initially did not think
that the song needed a bridge. Under
pressure from his producer, he was sent to a piano and quickly came up
with the song's memorable bridge -- two lines that begin, "Tell me, tell
me that your sweet love hasn't died." Such speed in songwriting was common for Carson, who played piano, guitar, bass and percussion. "A song ain't nothing but a
story waiting for somebody to tell it. It's like putting one foot in
front of the another," he told the music biographer Gary James.
"Always
On My Mind" became one of the classics of Elvis, whose version was
especially poignant as it came out shortly after his separation from his
wife Priscilla in 1972.
But Carson, along with two co-writers
brought in at the studio, won Grammys for the song in 1983 after it
became a hit for country giant Willie Nelson. Other notable versions included a dance pop rendition by the Pet Shop Boys in 1987. Carson
said that "Always On My Mind" had initially been offered to Fred
Foster, a producer and record executive known notably for his work with
Roy Orbison, but he did not like the song.
Born
in Denver to parents who met working at a radio station, Carson was
mostly associated with country music but developed a love of rock 'n'
roll from a young age. His
first break came when Nashville fixture Eddy Arnold asked him to help
write an additional verse for his song "Somebody Like Me," which went to
number one on the country chart in 1966.
Other
hits by Carson, whose full name was Wayne Carson Thompson, included
"The Letter," a number one song in 1967 for Memphis soul-influenced
rockers The Box Tops, and country singer Conway Twitty's "I See the Want
To in Your Eyes."
