The legendary country crooner that Billboard Magazine ranked the number one country artist of all time, Eddy Arnold, died at the age of 89 at 4:40 a.m. on Thursday at an assisted living facility in Franklin, Tenn.

Arnold was one of the founding fathers of country music who helped put Music City on the map. The humble, soft-spoken gentlemen, who billed himself as "The Tennessee Plowboy," became a legendary Hall of Fame entertainer well before his death.

The country crooner was a musical maverick, finding a way to keep the hits happening in changing times.

"I got to thinking I like violins. I believe that I could take the same kind of song I'm doing and add the violins and it will obviously make me reach a wider audience," Arnold said

Hits like "Make the World Go Away" followed Arnold's musical change, and his audience never went away. In 2005, at the age of 87, he put out his last album. The album had a reflective song called "To Life."

"I've had a career that I've never in my wildest dreams thought I would have. To have this kind of career, this kind of life, is a dream that I wish every young man could have. I really do," Arnold said.

Arnold was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966. The following year he won Entertainer of the Year. He was also awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2000, and given a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2005.

[N5]