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Louvin, who was 83, died of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed with the disease last July and underwent unsuccessful treatment to remove the tumour. Despite his health ailments he continued to perform live and found time to record new material including the single Back When We Were Young - his final recording, released last year.

Louvin was a fixture of the Grand Ole Opry since joining in 1955 and became a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.

As one half of The Louvin Brothers, with his brother Ira, he had hits including I Don't Believe You've Met My Baby, which was No. 1 in 1965, When I Stop Dreaming, Hoping That You're Hoping and You're Running Wild. They broke up in 1963. Ira died in a car crash two years later.

The musician was also a strong influence on Emmylou Harris and the late Gram Parsons, who covered the Louvin Brothers classic The Christian Life with The Byrds.

“I just could not get enough of that sound,” Emmylou Harris told The Observer newspaper in January 2010, “I’d always loved the Everly Brothers, but there was something scary and washed in the blood about the sound of the Louvin Brothers.”

Source: New York Times

More about: 

• Charlie Louvin
• The Louvin Brothers
• Emmylou Harris
• The Byrds
• Gram Parsons

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