R.I.P.: Ralph Emery, The Dean of Country Broadcasters

Walter Ralph Emery, Country Music Hall of Famer and host of the TNN primetime talk show "Nashville Now," died Saturday.

He was the age of 88, reports The Tennessean.

Emery "passed away peacefully" surrounded by his family Saturday morning at Tristar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, his family wrote in a statement.

The broadcast star was known nationwide for his informal, relaxed hosting style and candid interviews with country music stars. He is widely credited with extending country music's reach throughout the nation during his 50-year career.

"Ralph and I go way back," Loretta Lynn said in a tweet Saturday. "He was a Nashville original and you cannot underestimate the role he played in the growth and success of country music. He made you feel at ease and interviewed everyone just like an old friend."

"Ralph Emery's impact in expanding country music's audience is incalculable," Kyle Young, CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, said in a statement Saturday. "On radio and on television, he allowed fans to get to know the people behind the songs.

"Ralph was more a grand conversationalist than a calculated interviewer, and it was his conversations that revealed the humor and humanity of Tom T. Hall, Barbara Mandrell, Tex Ritter, Marty Robbins and many more. Above all, he believed in music and in the people who make it."

Emery's talent and personality was well-recognized by the industry. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2007, heralded as "the most famous TV and radio personality in country music." He was also inducted into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame in 1989. 

Emery was born in McEwen, Tennessee in 1933 and grew up with a deep love for radio, which served as a sanctuary during his rocky childhood.

He worked as an usher in a downtown Nashville movie theater and as a Kroger stock boy as a teen, saving money to attend the Tennessee School of Broadcasting under the instruction of Nashville radio legend John Richbourg.

Emery began his career at WTPR in Paris, Tennessee, eventually taking over the graveyard shift at Nashville's WSM in 1957 when he was 24 years old.

For 15 years, Emery filled WSM's late-night hours with records and candid conversations and jam sessions with some of country music's biggest names and newest talent — including Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson and Marty Robbins, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame. 

In prior interviews with The Tennessean, Emery credited his success in part to the "total autonomy" afforded to him by the early radio industry. 

"I could play any record I wanted to play; nobody sat me down and told me what to play," he said in 2007.