<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2cWkTZ_0vkAqeHq00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2cWkTZ_0vkAqeHq00" width="350" height="250" ></figure>Hugh Prestwood, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer who penned “The Song Remembers When” for Trisha Yearwood and “Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart” for Randy Travis, died Sunday in Lincoln, NE. He was 82.Raised in El Paso, TX, Prestwood spent most of his career in New York, though he had been living in Lincoln for the past several months. Judy Collins was one of the first to fall under the sway of Prestwood’s songs, recording his “Hard Times for Lovers” and many other songs.Prestwood almost always wrote by himself, and his songs possessed a distinct and tender thoughtfulness. “All of Hugh’s songs are unusual and tinged with magic,” Collins once said. His first country No. 1 came in 1983 with Crystal Gayle’s “The Sound of Goodbye.” Subsequent hits included Shenandoah and Alison Krauss’ “Ghost in This House,” Kathy Mattea’s “Asking Us to Dance” and Highway 101’s “Bing Bang Boom.” The late Michael Johnson recorded several of Prestwood’s songs, including the 1987 chart-topper “The Moon Is Still Over Her Shoulder.”Jackie DeShannon, Suzy Bogguss, Jimmy Buffett, Sammy Kershaw, Barbara Mandrell, Tim McGraw, Collin Raye, Tanya Tucker, Conway Twitty and Don Williams also recorded his songs.“The Song Remembers When” was inspired by Anne Sexton’s poem, “The Music Swims Back to Me,” and Prestwood wrote it after hearing Travis’ version of “Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart” while driving through Rocky Mountain National Park. “I just sat down with it, and I thought, ‘Well, let me start thinking about where that’s happened, how songs take you back,’” Prestwood told Bart Herbison, Executive Director of Nashville Songwriters’ Association International, in 2015. “I started trying to pull up memories of where that had happened to me.”“Hugh Prestwood was a poet," Yearwood said in a statement to Country Insider. "‘The Song Remembers When’ is one of the greatest songs ever written, and I’m the lucky girl who got to sing it. It’s paints the beautiful picture of the power of music. We’re all lucky that Hugh decided to be a writer. I will miss his voice.” Prestwood was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006.In 2020, British singer Rumer recorded an entire album of Prestwood songs called “Nashville Tears – The Songs of Hugh Prestwood.” “Hugh Prestwood was one of the great American songwriters,” she tells Country Insider. “To have had the opportunity to record an entire album of his songs was one of the biggest joys of my life.”</div></body>

Mountain View, CA

NewsBreak

‘The Song Remembers When’ Writer Hugh Prestwood Dies At 82.

Hugh Prestwood, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer who penned “The Song Remembers When” for Trisha Yearwood and “Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart” for Randy Travis, died Sunday in Lincoln, NE. He was 82. Raised in El Paso, TX, Prestwood spent most of his career...