NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - Singer-composer Eddie Rabbitt, the
Brooklyn-born son of Irish immigrants who scored dozens of country and
pop
music hits in the 1970s and '80s and later voiced disdain for the racy
side of
rock, has died, his publicist said Friday.
Rabbitt, 56, suffered from lung cancer and underwent surgery to remove
part of
one lung a little more than a year ago, a spokesman for Brokaw Co. in Nashville
said.
He died in a hospital Thursday, but the family withheld the news of his
death
until after a private burial service.
Rabbitt, whose Irish-born father played the fiddle and accordion, would
remark
that he had continued to work hard on recording and touring even after
earning
money and stardom.
``I always break three or four guitar strings per show and fling them at
the
audience,'' Rabbitt said in an interview with Reuters.
Rabbitt also became a vocal opponent of rap music lyrics and music videos
that
he said glorified sex and violence while aiming at a youthful audience,
and he
called pop star Madoona the ``Pied Piper from hell'' for her video and
stage
antics.
``I could get on a soapbox all day long about all these greedy people who
are
selling soft porn, as I call it, to kids buying records,'' Rabbitt said
in a 1991
interview with a Country Music Association publication.
Rabbitt garnered three Grammy Award nominations in country music
categories, and was named the best pop male vocalist at the 1981 American
Music Awards.
Among his best-known hits were ``I Love A Rainy Night,'' ''Drivin' My Life
Away,''
``The Wanderer,'' ``Step By Step,'' and ``Someone Could Lose A Heart Tonight,''
but he also composed songs for other singers.
He launched his career with the composition ``Kentucky Rain,'' which became
a
hit in 1970 for Elvis Presley, but Rabbitt didn't land his own recording
contract
until 1974.
He criticized some other songwriters for not writing for the public.
``They use their adjectives in a sort of 'look at me' way,'' he said in
the interview
with Reuters.
His second album, ``Rocky Mountain Music,'' released in 1976, established
him
as a hit-maker, and he later wrote the popular theme for the 1979 movie
``Every
Which Way But Loose,'' starring Clint Eastwood and an orangutan.
Ultimately, Rabbitt scored 26 No. 1 country music hits and eight top-40
pop
hits, bunched in the 1970s and early 1980s.
His last album, released in September after his cancer surgery and
chemotherapy, was entitled ``Beatin' the Odds.''
Rabbitt is survived by his wife, Janine, a daughter, Demeiza, 16, and a
son,
Tommy, 11. Another son, Timmy, died at age 2 in 1985 from a rare congenital
defect.