Hal Bynum

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Harold Lynn Bynum (September 29, 1934 – June 2, 2022) was an American country songwriter associated with the outlaw movement of the 1970s. He wrote more than 200 songs for famous artists, including Kenny Rogers’s Lucille, Patty Loveless’s Chains, Johnny Cash’s Papa Was a Good Man, Cash and Waylon Jennings’s There Ain’t No Good Chain Gang, and Jim Reeves’s Nobody’s Fool. He also wrote The Old, Old House, a song performed by George Jones, Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, and the Grateful Dead. In 1977, he won Song of the Year honors from both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music for Lucille (co-written with Roger Bowling).

Bynum published an autobiographical book, The Promise (2002), and a 2002 album of the same name, describing his Texas upbringing and his work as a songwriter in Nashville. He was known for his spoken word recordings, released on his Beauregard Books/Records label. He died in June 2022 at age 87 from the combined effects of Alzheimer's disease and a stroke.