Earl Thomas Conley first plied his trade as a songwriter, generating successful singles for singers like Conway Twitty and Mel Street, before setting out on his own as a performer. The Ohio-born artist quickly became a country radio mainstay in the '70s and '80s, with a string of chart-topping singles and a 1988 duet with Emmylou Harris. Though his commercial prospects dimmed in the '90s, he's still impacting the charts via co-writes for artists like Blake Shelton. Once a songwriter, always a songwriter.