Hugh Prestwood, the country songwriter who penned hits for Randy Travis, Trisha Yearwood, Alison Krauss, and Jimmy Buffett, died Sunday, Sept. 22, following a stroke, according to his close friend, songwriter James Dean Hicks. Prestwood was 82.
With hits like “Ghost in This House,” “The Song Remembers When,” and “Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart,” Prestwood was known as a first-rate ballad composer whose bent toward literary flourishes made him one of the most respected and in-demand songwriters in Nashville from the late Seventies to the mid-Nineties. In 2006, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside Jimmy Buffett, who recorded Prestwood's “Savannah Fare You Well.”
“Hugh Prestwood was a poet,” Yearwood, who made a hit of his signature song “The Song Remembers When” in 1993, told Country Insider. “We're all lucky that Hugh decided to be a writer. I will miss his voice.”
Prestwood's songwriting attracted artists outside of country music, like Judy Collins and the British singer-songwriter Rumer, to his catalog. “Recording a collection of his work was one of the greatest joys of my life,” Rumer, whose 2020 album Nashville Tears was a tribute to Prestwood, said on
Prestwood grew up in El Paso and spent much of his career living in New York, but in 2022 he moved to Nebraska, where he died.
That same year, Prestwood announced that he was facing homelessness and spoke to Rolling Stone about the way in which he viewed his plight as representative of a larger collective struggle: that of the professional songwriter. “I wouldn't recommend anyone go into songwriting at this point,” he said. “It was hard enough to make a living when it was good but now, I mean, it's ridiculous.”
The experience was ultimately an affirming one for Prestwood, a moment of recognition and support from the industry he felt had let him down. After starting a GoFundMe campaign to pay for moving expenses, a who's who of country music luminaries — from Luke Laird to Travis — pitched in to raise more than $100,000 for the songwriter.
“My ego is always in need of some affirmation, and I don't get it too much, but this is extremely major affirmation,” Prestwood said. “I'm sure I'll be back a year from now feeling depressed about one thing or another, but now I feel really good.”
