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Bill Cody, a longtime Nashville radio deejay at the venerable WSM and a regular Grand Ole Opry announcer, died Tuesday after a lengthy battle with kidney and heart failure. He was 67. WSM announced Cody’s death in a social media post.
“It is with heavy hearts that we share the passing of our dear friend and beloved WSM voice, Bill Cody,” the statement read. “A singular presence on WSM-AM Nashville for more than three decades, Bill welcomed listeners each morning on Coffee, Country & Cody with a broad smile, a conversational ease, and an unerring ability to make both artists and audiences feel at home. He joined WSM in 1994 and had Charlie Daniels as his first in-studio guest. He built more than a morning show; he created a gathering place rooted in his deep love for country music and the people behind it.”
Details of Cody’s illness were first shared by his daughter Hannah on May 31st, eliciting messages of support from fans and many of the artists to whom Cody was not only a friend, but a trusted voice over the WSM airwaves for more than 30 years. Throughout a career which began in 1971 at just 12 years old, Cody interviewed an impressive array of celebrities and dignitaries, from Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall to former presidents Bush (both father and son). But it was his easygoing manner with country-music artists, both legendary and up-and-coming, that earned him a 2008 induction into the Country Music DJ and Radio Hall of Fame and the admiration of country fans worldwide.
Born Trent Clutts on Dec. 16, 1958, in Huntsville, Alabama, to William and Helen Clutts, natives of Harvest, Alabama, Cody spent most of his childhood in Lebanon, Kentucky, where his father worked as a rural preacher. Cody took his on-air name from his childhood hero, Wild West entertainer Buffalo Bill Cody. His father’s Sunday sermons were played back on local radio station WLBN 1590 AM, a 1,000-watt station operating from sunrise to sunset. Cody would begin his illustrious announcing career there, later recalling that the first record he ever played — Wanda Jackson’s “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine” — went out over the airwaves cued up at the wrong speed.
Like many on-air personalities, Cody would move through a variety of stations and music formats from Kentucky to Texas, before landing his dream job at Nashville’s iconic WSM Radio in April 1994. In addition to his long-running Coffee, Country & Cody morning show, he was a frequent announcer and host of the live Grand Ole Opry broadcasts on 650-AM WSM. He was also an ambassador for the Opry and emceed the radio show live from the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in 2018.
Country star Dierks Bentley remembered Cody as a “pillar” of country music. “Bill was just as important as any artist, songwriter or musician,” Bentley wrote on social media. “No one loved country music, its history and its characters more than Bill Cody.”
Cody and his wife Rebecca, high-school sweethearts, shared their first date at a Waylon Jennings-Jessi Colter concert in Louisville and were married in 1980. The couple spent their honeymoon in Nashville, watching the Grand Ole Opry (from Section 10 of the Grand Ole Opry House) on the historic night that Loretta Lynn introduced future Coal Miner’s Daughter star Sissy Spacek.
Growing up hearing stories from his father about the early Opry stars, including Roy Acuff and Uncle Dave Macon, Cody would later say, “It was a romance for me, because I wanted to go where those people were. I wasn’t quite sure where that was, but I just knew it had to be the coolest place.”
In their tribute, WSM lauded Cody for “his kindness, humility, and genuine gift for connection,” calling him “a trusted voice, a generous friend, and a constant companion to generations of listeners.”