EDDIE RABBITT

Eddie Rabbitt was an American country music singer and songwriter. His career began as a songwriter in the late 1960s, spring boarding to a successful recording career after composing hits such as “Kentucky Rain” for Elvis Presley in 1970 and “Pure Love” for Ronnie Milsap in 1974. Later in the 1970s, Rabbitt helped to develop the crossover-influenced sound of country music prevalent in the 1980s with such hits as “Suspicions,” “I Love a Rainy Night,” which was revered as a number-one hit single on the Billboard Hot 100, and “Every Which Way but Loose,” the theme from the film of the same title. His duets “Both to Each Other (Friends and Lovers)” with Juice Newton and “You and I” with Crystal Gayle later appeared on the popular soap operas Days of Our Lives and All My Children. In 1977, the Academy of Country Music named Rabbitt “Top New Male Vocalist of the Year,” and he received the BMI Burton Song of the Year award in 1980 for “Suspicions,” a song he penned with longtime writing partners David Malloy and Even Stevens. Throughout his career, Rabbitt also served as an advocate for several charitable organizations, including the Special Olympics, Easter Seals, and The American Council on Transplantation, of which he served as honorary chairman. He also acted as a spokesman for the Muscular Dystrophy Association and United Cerebral Palsy. The year of his passing, Rabbitt’s vast contributions to country music were further solidified when he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1998.