Earl Thomas Conley was a country singer who rose to prominence throughout the 1980s with a string of popular singles and love ballads. Growing up in a poor family in Ohio, Conley knew country music was to become his passion after hearing George Jones and Merle Haggard records for the first time. His soft, unique voice and lovelorn tales of relationships gone wrong proved to resonate with country pop audiences, resulting in over 30 of Conley's songs hitting the Billboard Hot Country charts over the years. Several of these songs, including "Holding Her & Loving You," "Heavenly Bodies" and "Once in a Blue Moon" have become modern country standards for new artists to regularly adapt and perform.
