Beloved Country Singer John Wesley Ryles Has Died

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John Wesley Ryles had a successful career as a country music performer, amassing eleven Top 40 hits over a 20 year time span, including signature songs like “Kay” recorded when he was just 17 years old, and 1977’s “Once in a Lifetime Thing” that reached the Top 5. But it was his work as a harmony singer and studio musician singing on countless country cuts that earned him the respect of so many in Nashville.

“An absolute Giant in our industry,” says ’90s country hitmaker Bryan White. “An incredible songwriter and an outstanding singer. When I moved to town and started singing demos for publishers and writers John Wesley and I would pass each other in the hallways of studios all over Nashville. I was always in awe. His skills were unmatched. He could literally match the tone and the phrasing of whomever he was singing with. It didn’t matter who it was. He was flawless.”

Born in Bastrop, Louisiana on December 5th, 1950, John Wesley Riels moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area when he was 10 where his dad worked in construction. His father had been a Gospel singer with his brothers in Arkansas, and taught John and his sisters how to sing. Riels was playing guitar by the age of six. They would perform on local shows such as the Cowtown Hoedown and the Big D Jamboree, as well as singing backing vocals for bigger local acts.

When Riels arrived in Nashville with his family in 1968 at the age of 17, he was hired by well-known producer George Richey to sing the demo version of the song “Kay.” When Richey heard the demo, he thought it would be difficult to impossible to beat it, and released it as a proper single. It went to #9 in the charts, and the career of John Wesley Ryles was launched, recording for Columbia Records. They changed his last name from “Riels” to “Ryles” because they were worried DJs and others would have a hard time pronouncing it.

His next couple of singles would stall outside of the Top 50, and Ryles would spend much of his career pinballing between labels, including recording for Plantation, Dot, MCA, Warner Bros., and others throughout his career. He would occasionally land a minor hit, including his version of “You Are Always On My Mind” that hit #20 in 1979.

Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Ryles would supplant his career by singing harmonies with others both live and in the studio. In 1988 after his last single “Nobody Knows” stalled outside the Top 50 once again, Wyles focused his career almost solely on singing harmonies on studio recordings, and quickly became one of the most in-demand harmony singers around.

Willie Nelson, Conway Twitty, Waylon Jennings, Garth Brooks, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Gene Watson, Craig Campbell, Aaron Watson, Kenney Chesney, Joe Nichols, Martina McBride, Terry Clark, and so on and so forth all recorded songs with John Wesley Ryles singing harmonies with them, and he remained prolific well into the early 2020s. Incidentally, Ryles was married to fellow country singer Joni Lee, who is also the daughter of Conway Twitty.

John Wesley Ryles passed away on Sunday, November 2nd at the age of 74, leaving behind a huge, if somewhat unheralded legacy from being the other singer on so many timeless country classics.

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