Country music singer and composer O.B. McClinton, born and raised in Senatobia and born Osbie Burnett McClinton in nearby Gravel Springs on April 25, 1940, first found musical success as a songwriter for 1960s Memphis soul labels before emerging during the 1970s and 1980s as one of country music’s most successful African American artists, with fifteen chart hits. The son of clergyman George A. McClinton and his wife Mary, who owned and worked a 700-acre farm, he was the sixth of seven children, though unlike most of his family he did not want a life of cotton picking and plowing and instead dreamed of becoming an entertainer like Hank Williams. During high school he spent spare time learning guitar and developing song ideas, briefly left home to work odd jobs in Memphis, then returned, graduated, and attended Rust College in Holly Springs on a choir scholarship, graduating in 1966. He worked as a D.J. at WDIA in Memphis before facing the draft, then spent four years in the U.S. Air Force, where he strengthened his abilities as a singer and beginning songwriter. A publishing deal with Fame music in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, brought major success as the writer of hits including “You Got My Mind Messed Up” and “A Man Needs a Woman” for James Carr, along with songs recorded by Otis Redding and Clarence Carter. After limited success as an R and B singer for Goldwax Records in Memphis, he turned toward the country music he had always favored after Charley Pride’s success suggested the genre might offer an opening. In 1971, Al Bell of Stax-Volt Records created the Enterprise label to feature McClinton as a country singer on singles including “Country Music, That’s My Thing,” “The Unluckiest Songwriter in Nashville,” and his highest-charting hit, “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You.” As one of the relatively few African American performers in country music, he often addressed that experience with good humor in performances and songs, including “The Other One,” which answered people who mistook him for Charley Pride. He later recorded country music, both serious and comic, for labels including Mercury, ABC/Dot, and Epic, appeared often on country television, remained a popular live performer, and used his loyal following to market his own new records through the 1980s as label support declined. After the announcement in 1986 that he had cancer, Waylon Jennings, Tom T. Hall, Ricky Skaggs, Reba McEntire, and Johnny Rodriguez held a Nashville benefit to help cover his expenses, but he died at age 47 on September 23, 1987.
