Joe Edwards, a Corn Belt native who went on to chronicle country music in Nashville for The Associated Press, dies

Loretta Lynn and Joe Edwards (AP photo, undated)

Joe Edwards, who "documented the ascent of country music through interviews with stars ranging from Dolly Parton to Taylor Swift," died Friday in Nashville after a lengthy illness, reports The Associated Press, for which he worked for 42 years, retiring in 2012. He was 75.

Edwards was a product of rural America who worked his way south. Born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, in the Eastern Corn Belt, he worked in Vincennes and Cincinnati before graduating from Eastern Kentucky University and joining AP in Nashville in 1970, working most of the jobs in the bureau. But his byline soon became familiar to country-music fans, and he had superb entré into the music industry.

Edwards had influence in Tennessee. "In 1982, a story Edwards wrote about the popularity of the song 'Rocky Top' led the General Assembly to declare it a state song," AP reports. "He got the ball rolling," said Boudleaux Bryant, who wrote the song in 1967 with his wife Felice at The Gatlinburg Inn (Rocky Top is a peak in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, not the Tennessee town that adopted its name 50 years later). It was first recorded by the Osborne Brothers, a Kentucky-born duo; a more mainstream version by Lynn Anderson in 1970 led to its adoption by the University of Tennessee band and finally to Edwards' September 1981 story, which said the song "has become as beloved in Tennessee as the immortal, but more sedate, 'Tennessee Waltz'."

Edwards "specialized in writing obituaries, including those for music stars Johnny Cash, Porter Wagoner, Roy Orbison, Bill Monroe and Carl Perkins," AP reports. "In 2010, he wrote extensively about the Nashville flooding that left much of the city submerged for several days. But he preferred reporting about more light-hearted topics, such as the taster at the Jack Daniel’s distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee."

UPDATE, Feb. 7: Former AP Tennessee staffer Beth Miller tells Connecting, the newsletter for AP retirees and friends: "I cannot even begin to stress how huge of a force Joe Edwards was for the AP both in Tennessee and afar, even in his always unassuming demeanor. He was a masterful interviewer, and he could tell a story like none other (and boy, did he have the stories!)"