***RARE*** Countrycross over Superstar Keith Whitley personally autographed RCA photo. Less thana year before his tragic death, I worked for him at a big concert. I guaranteethis as original as it was signed in front of me.

This is an EXTREMELYRARE piece as there are NO other autographs on all of .

Jackie KeithWhitley (July 1, 1955—May 9, 1989), known professionally as Keith Whitley, was an American countrymusic singer. Whitley\'s brief career in mainstream country music lasted from1984 until his death in 1989, but he continues to influence an entiregeneration of singers and songwriters. He charted nineteen singles on the Billboardcountry charts, including five consecutive Number Ones: \"Don\'t Close YourEyes\", \"When You Say Nothing at All\", \"I\'m No Stranger tothe Rain\", \"I Wonder Do You Think of Me\" and \"It Ain\'t Nothin\'\" (the last two posthumously).

Whitley was born to Faye (editorof The Elliott County News) and Elmer Whitley (an electrician) in Ashland, Kentucky, butgrew up 46 miles away in Sandy Hook, and attended Sandy Hook High School.He had two brothers, Randy and Dwight, and a sister, Mary. The Whitley familyhas lived in the Elliot County area since the1840s.

As a teenager in Sandy Hook, Keith and his friends would pass the timedrinking bootleg bourbon and racing their cars down mountain roads at dangerousspeeds. Whitley was once in a car whose driver attempted to round a curve at120 mph. The car wrecked, killing his friend and almost breaking Whitley\'sneck. In another incident, he drove his car off a 120 foot cliff into a frozenriver, escaping with only a broken collar bone.

In 1969 he performed in a musicalcontest in Ezel, Kentucky, with brother Dwight on five-stringbanjo. Future country-music star Ricky Skaggs was also in the contest. Skaggsand Keith hit it off right away and became fast friends.

As teenagers, Whitley (15) andSkaggs (16) were discovered by Ralph Stanley while they were singing StanleyBrothers\' songs as an opening act for the Clinch Mountain Boys. The two soonjoined Ralph\'s band. Whitley also played with J.D. Crowe & the New South inthe mid-seventies. During this period, he established himself as one of themost versatile and talented lead singers in bluegrass. His singing was heavilyinfluenced by Carter Stanley and LeftyFrizzell. He moved to Nashvillein 1983 to pursue a country music career and soon signed a record deal with RCARecords. Whitley\'s first solo album, A Hard Act to Follow, was releasedin 1984, and featured a more mainstream country style. While Whitley wasworking hard to achieve his own style, the songs he produced were inconsistent.Critics regarded the album as too erratic. Whitley honed his sound within thenext few years for his next album, L.A. to Miami.

L.A. to Miami, released in 1986, would give him hisfirst Top 20 country hit single, \"Miami,My Amy\". The song was followed by three more hit songs: \"Ten FeetAway\", \"Homecoming \'63\", and \"Hard Livin\'\", The albumalso included \"On the Other Hand\" and \"Nobody in His Right MindWould\'ve Left Her\". \"On the Other Hand\" was pitched to Keithbefore Randy Travis released the song as a single and when Keith\'s versionwasn\'t released as a single, Randy released his in 1986, as did George Straitwith \"Nobody in His Right Mind Would\'ve Left Her\".

During his tour to promote L.A.to Miami, he met and began a romantic relationship with country singer LorrieMorgan. The pair were married in November 1986, and they had their only child,a son, Jesse Keith Whitley, in June 1987. Keith also adopted Lorrie\'s daughter,Morgan, from her first marriage.

During the new recording sessionsin 1987, Whitley started feeling that the songs he was doing were not up to hisstandards, so he approached RCA and asked if the project of 15 songs could beshelved. He asked if he could assert himself more with the songs and production.The new album, titled Don\'t Close Your Eyes, was released in 1988, andthe album sold extremely well. The album contained one of the many songs thatWhitley had a hand in writing in his years at Tree Publishing, \"It\'s AllComing Back to Me Now.\" Also on the album was a remake of Lefty Frizzell\'sclassic standard \"I Never Go Around Mirrors,\" and the song became ahuge hit at Whitley\'s concerts. The first three singles from thealbum—\"When You Say Nothing at All,\" \"I\'m No Stranger to theRain,\" and the title cut—all reached number 1 on Billboard Magazine\'scountry charts during the fall of 1988 and the winter of 1989, with the titletrack \"Don\'t Close Your Eyes\" being ranked as Billboard\'s No. 1Country song of 1988. Shortly thereafter, \"I\'m No Stranger to theRain\" also earned Whitley his first and only Country Music Associationaward as a solo artist.

In early 1989, Keith approachedSony Music Nashville chairman JoeGalante with the intention of releasing I Never Go Around Mirrorsas a single. Joe approved of the musical flexibility that Keith achieved withthe song; however, he suggested that Keith record something new and moreupbeat. The result was a song Keith had optioned for his previous album called IWonder, Do You Think of Me?, and was to result in his next album release.

Whitley was a longtime alcoholic,who started drinking early in his career at bluegrass gigs, long before he waslegally allowed to drink alcohol. Many times he had tried to overcome hisalcoholism, but failed. Whitley preferred to drink alone, making it difficultfor anyone to detect that he had a problem. According to Lorrie Morgan, shetried to hide alcohol from him, even going as far as binding their legstogether before going to bed so as to make it impossible for Whitley to wake upin the middle of the night to consume a drink without her knowledge - only tofind out that he would drink things such as perfume and nail polish to getintoxicated.

Whitley had lost both his fatherElmer and his brother Randy (October 1983 motorcycle accident), in the fiveyears preceding his death.

On the morning of May 9, 1989,after a weekend of drinking and partying with friends, Whitley woke up andspoke with his mother, Faye, briefly on the phone. He was then visited by hisbrother-in-law, Lane Palmer, and the two had coffee and planned a day of golf,after which Whitley had planned to start writing songs for him and LorrieMorgan to possibly record when she returned from her tour. His brother-in-lawdeparted at approximately 8:30 a.m., informing Whitley to be ready within anhour. Upon returning, Palmer found Whitley face down on his bed, fully clothed.

The day after his death, MusicRow was lined with black ribbons in memory of Whitley. He is buried in the Spring Hill Cemetery in Nashville, Whitley\'s voice wassilenced, his influence on country music has persisted long after his death. Atthe time of his death, he had just finished work on his fourth and final studioalbum, I Wonder Do You Think of Me. The album was released three monthsafter his death, on August 1, 1989. The album produced two more #1 hits, withthe title track and \"It Ain\'t Nothin\'.\" \"I\'m Over You\" alsosaw the Top 5 in early 1990, reaching No. 3.

Two new songs were added to\"Greatest Hits\": The first, \"Tell Lorrie I Love Her\" waswritten and recorded at home by Whitley for Morgan, originally intended as awork tape for Whitley\'s friend Curtis \'Mr. Harmony\' Young to sing at Whitley\'swedding. The second was \"\'Til a Tear Becomes a Rose\", a 1987 demotaken from Tree that originally featured harmony vocals by childhood friend RickySkaggs. Lorrie Morgan, with creative control and license to Whitley\'s namesake,recorded her voice alongside Keith\'s, and released it as a single, which roseto No. 13 and won them 1990\'s CMA award for Best Vocal Collaboration.

RCA also released a compilationof performance clips (from his days in the Ralph Stanley-Fronted ClinchMountain Boys), interviews, and some previously unreleased material under thetitle \"Kentucky Bluebird\". The album produced hits for Whitley aswell, including a duet with Earl Thomas Conley, named \"BrotherlyLove,\" which peaked at No. 2 in late 1991.

In 1994, Whitley\'s widow, LorrieMorgan, organized several of Whitley\'s friends in bluegrass and some of the bignames in country at the time to record a tribute album to Whitley. The albumincluded covers of Whitley\'s songs from artists such as Alan Jackson, DiamondRio, and Ricky Skaggs. The album also included several previously unreleasedtracks recorded by Whitley in 1987. One of the songs was a duet that Lorrie andKeith did in 1987 called \"I Just Want You\". The tribute album creditedWhitley with another award for reaching more than 500,000 copies. However, thehit single to come from the tribute album was Alison Krauss & Union Station\'srendition of \"When You Say Nothing at All\", which was a #3 hit forher that year.

In 1995, the album WhereverYou Are Tonight was released, produced by Lorrie Morgan, featuring restoreddemos of 1986-1988, with crisper 1990s recording techniques and a fullorchestra. The album and single of the same name both did very well on theBillboard and R&R charts and brought \"Super Hits\" and \"TheEssential Keith Whitley\" in 1996. \"The Essential\" contained theremastered and long since unavailable LP and Whitley\'s debut, the 6-Track\"A Hard Act to Follow\", and a scrapped song from 1986\'s \"LA to Miami\", \"IWonder Where You Are Tonight\".

In 2004, songwriter Jeff Swopebegan writing a film treatment for a biopic concerning Keith\'s life and deaththat was shelved in 2006. On April 13, 2010, he announced that pre-productionwas set to begin again, pending investors.

In the last 10 years, severalfilm projects depicting Keith\'s life were slated. One idea was a film versionof the George Vescey-Lorrie Morgan-penned \"Forever Yours, Faithfully\".While Morgan\'s book was a benchmark in piecing together Whitley\'s finalmoments, perhaps the most research went into a project titled \"KentuckyBluebird\", which was to star writer/actor/director David Keith. Thisproject has been in development hell for several years, and was halted in late2006 also, after difficulties with casting and funding.

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