death_date death_place birth_place nationality name birth_date known_for image article_title birth_name occupation
17 october 1999 houghton lake , michigan morgan county , georgia , united states american tommy durden 15 december 1919 co-writing `` heartbreak hotel '' tommy durden.jpg tommy durden
 thomas russell durden guitarist , songwriter , commercial dishwasher repairman
tommy durden

thomas russell `` tommy '' durden -lrb- december 15 , 1919 -- october 17 , 1999 -rrb- was an american steel guitarist and songwriter , who is most notable for co-writing elvis presley 's breakthrough hit , `` heartbreak hotel '' .
he was born in morgan county , georgia , the son of a sharecropper and the youngest of seven children .
the family later moved to jacksonville , florida , where he learned slide guitar and later steel guitar .
he performed with the westernaires as steel guitarist , and in the early 1950s , after moving to gainesville , joined country band smilin ' jack herring and his swingbillys .
the band 's other members were herring , pee wee jenkins , and bob chisolm .
while playing with the swingbillys , durden began writing the lyrics for `` heartbreak hotel '' , inspired by a `` miami herald '' story about a man who committed suicide , leaving a note that read `` i walk a lonely street '' .
he took the half-written lyrics to his friends and occasional songwriting partners mae boren axton - who worked as a part-time disc jockey and publicist for colonel tom parker 's client hank snow - and glen reeves .
while reeves thought the idea of the `` lonely street '' leading to a `` heartbreak hotel '' was not worthy of a song -lrb- and turned down the offer of a co-writing credit -rrb- , axton composed a tune , and recorded an initial version with durden .
the song was later re-recorded as a demo by reeves who had a better singing voice .
axton had previously promised to write a song for elvis presley , and presented presley with the demo at a 1955 disc jockey convention in nashville .
presley liked the song , and he and parker , his manager , agreed that he should record it so long as he was given a co-writing credit , which axton and durden accepted .
`` heartbreak hotel '' eventually became presley 's first record on rca records and his first number one hit .
although durden continued to write songs with axton and reeves , including `` honey bop '' which was recorded by wanda jackson in 1960 , none had anything approaching the success of `` heartbreak hotel '' .
he later performed as steel guitarist for tex ritter , johnny cash and johnny tillotson .
he moved to live in houghton lake , michigan , and worked as a commercial dishwasher repairman until retiring in the early 1980s .
in later years he recorded two albums , `` moods '' , which included a version of `` heartbreak hotel , '' and `` i believe '' .
he was inducted into the michigan country music hall of fame in 1994 .
he died in houghton lake , michigan in 1999 at the age of 79 .
