Country star Porter Wagoner is dead at 80

Porter Wagoner, the blond, pompadoured, rhinestone-encrusted personification of Nashville tradition, host of the longest-running country-music variety show in TV history and mentor to Dolly Parton, died Sunday night of lung cancer. He was 80.

Mr. Wagoner died at a hospice in Nashville, according to an announcement on the Grand Ole Opry's Web site.

Parton recently visited the man who inspired her best-known song, "I Will Always Love You," after their acrimonious career split in the mid-1970s.

A little more than year ago, Mr. Wagoner had been seriously ill after suffering an intestinal aneurysm but recovered sufficiently to mount a career comeback that led to appearances last summer on The Late Show With David Letterman and an opening slot at Madison Square Garden with upstart rock band the White Stripes, whose members are ardent Wagoner fans.

Country singer and songwriter Marty Stuart, a generation younger than Wagoner, coaxed his childhood idol into a recording studio last winter to record a new album, The Wagonmaster, expected to garner Mr. Wagoner at least one Grammy Award nomination.

Over a period of nearly 40 years, Mr. Wagoner placed 81 songs on the country-music chart, 19 of those duets with Parton, who joined his show in 1967. Mr. Wagoner and Parton were named country group and country duo of the year in 1970 and 1971 by the Country Music Association.

Mr. Wagoner's music often told dark tales of desperate people in stark terms that placed him in the gothic tradition of country music. This was best exemplified in his 1971 recording "The Rubber Room," about a man who has been driven insane by an unfaithful lover.

Born Aug. 12, 1927, in West Plains, Mo., Mr. Wagoner was working at a department store in West Plains when the owner hired him to sing on a radio show he sponsored. At first, Mr. Wagoner attempted to copy the sound of his idol, Hank Williams, but quickly realized that his only chance at a music career was to be himself.

He wrote and recorded "A Satisfied Mind," which took him to the top of the country chart in 1955 for the first time and remained his biggest hit. He reached the No. 1 spot two more times, in 1962 with "Misery Loves Company," and a dozen years later with "Please Don't Stop Loving Me," a duet with Parton.

Mr. Wagoner's syndicated TV series, The Porter Wagoner Show, ran from 1960 to 1979.

When Parton left his TV show to launch a solo career that made her one of country's biggest stars, Mr. Wagoner felt betrayed; meanwhile, she felt he had exploited her songwriting talent for his own benefit. Mr. Wagoner sued her, but they settled the lawsuit and reconciled.

Mr. Wagoner's old-school country style fell out of favor with Nashville, except for his role at the Opry, as country moved on in the '80s to younger, more pop-music minded stars such as Alabama.

Funeral services were pending.

Mr. Wagoner's survivors include a son, Richard; and two daughters, Denise and Debra.