Eddy Arnold was the first artist to successfully and consistently blend country and pop music into a new hybrid, pioneering what became known as the Nashville Sound. He brought country music to a broad audience, registering 37 pop hits and nearly 150 country hits, charting records in six decades, and in 1948 holding the No. 1 position on the country charts for all but two weeks. Born Richard Edward Arnold on May 15, 1918, on a farm in Chester County, Tennessee, about 20 miles south of Jackson, he began helping support his family by singing on the radio in Jackson after his father's death in 1929. He moved to Memphis at 16 and then to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1938. After auditioning for Pee Wee King's Golden West Cowboys, he joined in January 1940 and stayed until 1943, becoming popular on the Grand Ole Opry before being hired there as a solo act. In 1944, he signed with RCA Victor Records, and between 1944 and 1953 he was managed by Colonel Tom Parker, who would later guide Elvis Presley to stardom. Arnold's first recording session in Nashville produced the hit single "The Cattle Call" and was the first in the city since 1928, helping lay the groundwork for Nashville to become the recording center of country music. He scored 28 No. 1 country hits, including 12 in the 1940s such as "That's How Much I Love You," "It's a Sin," and "I'll Hold You In My Heart." With warm vocals and increasingly full instrumentation, he broadened his following, and his 1953 recording of "I Really Don't Want to Know" foreshadowed the country-pop blend soon called the Nashville Sound. Although rock 'n' roll set back his career, he returned in 1959 with "Tennessee Stud" and then as a pop crooner, with mid-1960s hits including "What's He Doing in My World" and "Make the World Go Away," which topped the country charts and reached No. 6 on the pop charts. Appearing with full symphony orchestras, he performed regularly on national television, in Las Vegas, and on national concert tours. In 1966, he entered the Country Music Hall of Fame, and in 1967 he became the first Entertainer of the Year at the Country Music Association awards show. As sales slowly declined, he semiretired and, mindful of the poverty of his youth, invested mainly in real estate, buying large amounts of land in Brentwood near Nashville. On his 80th birthday in 1998, he announced his permanent retirement from touring. He died in Nashville on May 8, 2008, one week before his 90th birthday, and three weeks later his last single, "To Life," spent one week on the country charts, setting a record for the longest span between a first and last chart single at 62 years and 11 months.