How wonderful can a will be? Legendary songwriter Cindy Walker has donated the writer’s share of her royalties to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum! She died in 2006 at the age of 87. Everybody on Music Row knew and loved Cindy Walker.

My fondest memories of Cindy were during the days she would come to Nashville from her home in Mexia, TX. Her mother was a piano player. Cindy and her Mom would be in town pitching songs together. In those days, every producer had a piano in the office. I was working for Paul Cohen in the Kapp Records office when Cindy and Mom would make an appointment with Paul to play Cindy’s new material with Mom on the piano and Cindy singing. They were two lovely ladies.

They kept an apartment here on West End Avenue. She was elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1997. When she was elected into the Country Music Hall, she sent me a note and a picture. In the note she told me how proud she was during the induction ceremony to be wearing the dress her mother made for her several years before. Among the hits Cindy wrote were  “In the Misty Moonlight”, “Distant Drums”, “I Don’t Care”. “You Don’t Know Me” was a giant hit for both Eddy Arnold and later Ray Charles. Interestingly, Cindy never admitted who she was thinking about when she wrote the lyric.

The secret went to the grave with her. Cindy’s “Dream Baby” was a giant for Roy Orbison. Cindy and the great bandleader Bob Wills became great friends. She wrote 39 songs for eight Bob Wills movies and dozens more for Bob’s recording career. Her first cut was Bing Crosby’s “Lone Star Trail.” We became friends over the years and I think of her often. To learn more about Cindy, “Google” her and look at the life and career of one of the world’s most prolific songwriters.