Songwriterobit: Curly Putman

Curly Putman, songwriter, has died at the age of 85.

Yes, Green Green Grass of Home. Yes, DIVORCE. But, mostly, this is his masterwork:

Bobby Braddock remembered how Putnam breathed life into DIVORCE:

"I said, 'Curly, why is it that we don't have any takers on this song?' Nobody was jumping on board with it. He said, 'I think it seems a little bit too happy for such a sad song.' I said, 'Do you think it needs a new melody?' He said, Well, just in a couple of places. The last line of the verse and the last line of the chorus.' What I had, looking back, it sounded kind of like a soap commercial... I thought we should split the writer's share on the song, and he didn't want to take it, so we compromised. He took 25 percent, and we put his name on there. If we'd done it today, we probably would have split it right down the middle because the song had been sitting around and nothing had happened with it. Then, Curly made that little change and it made so much difference."

Putman, like the Waltons, spent his early years living on a mountain which bore the family name.

As if his own work wasn't immortality enough, he's also recorded in a Paul McCartney song, Junior's Farm - written after Putman had rented his farm to Paul and Linda for a period in the early 1970s.

Countryobit: George Jones

George Jones, dead at 81

Doowopobit: George 'Wydell' Jones

The death has been announced of George 'Wydell' Jones, a member of the Edsels. Jones wrote - and, as a member of the band, performed on - Rama Lama Ding Dong.

The Edsels were originally formed under the no-less-branded name The Essos in Campbell, Ohio, in 1957. The band were cut a lucky break, as Rama Lama Ding Dong's moment had seemed to have passed without notice before a New York DJ resurrected it following the success of Blue Moon. Suddenly, a song whose time had passed had come again, just stalling outside the top 20 but lodging itself in the psyche of the nation - Grease's We Go Together and Who Put The Bop? both reference the title in their lyrics.

The delay between writing the song and hitting the charts proved difficult, though; the band had lost its impetus and attempts to capitalise on the hit didn't take. The band split in 1963, and although George Jones continued to tour, he did so in such obscurity that Joel Whitburn's book Top Pop Singles 1955-1999 listed him as dead.

George Jones was 71; his son told media that he died as a result of cancer on September 27th.