Music manager Dale Morris, who guided the careers of country stars Kenny Chesney and Alabama, has died. He was 89.
Morris' management firm, Morris Higham Management, announced his death in a social media tribute Saturday, Aug. 22. Morris would have turned 90 on Sept. 27.
"Groundbreaker. Risk-taker. Believer in artists, songwriters and stars. Nobody rewrote the rules or built dreams like Dale Morris," the tribute read. "We proudly carry his vision, missing him every day."
The music mogul died in his sleep, according to a statement from Morris' family. Additional details about his death were not immediately available.
USA TODAY has reached out to Morris Higham Management for additional comment.
Morris got his start in music as a songwriter in the late
1960s when he composed the tune "Don't Monkey with Another Monkey's Monkey" for country singer Johnny Paycheck. He later shifted to music management and started his own company, Dale Morris & Associates.
One of Morris' biggest acts was country rock band Alabama, who he met in 1979. Under his management, Alabama shot to mega-stardom, racking up 33 No. 1 hits on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart and winning the Academy of Country Music Awards' entertainer of the year award five times.
He was also instrumental in helping transform the "Love in the First Degree" group's stage show into a rock 'n' roll-influenced spectacle.
"Dale was in an old rattle trap of a Ford station wagon, and he picked us up at the airport," Alabama singer Randy Owen told Pollstar. "He pulled up in this rust bucket and told us, 'I want to be your manager.' I remember it so vividly. We were kids from Alabama, playing in a beach bar. We didn't really know what a manager was or did.
"We'd been working for tips in a bar on the oceanfront, working hard – just trying to exist. We thought we had to pay him, and we didn't have any money. He saw something in us. He saw something we sure didn't."
Morris also achieved similar success with Chesney, who went on to become one of country music's most enduring stars following his 1994 debut. With Morris' help, Chesney scored more than 20 No. 1 country hits and won entertainer of the year at the Academy of Country Music Awards four consecutive times.
Chesney, who discovered Morris' work through being a fan of Alabama, reflected on his relationship with the music manager in his 2025 memoir, "Heart Life Music."
"Classy, grateful and humble, he knew how to make deals and close. I had a friend who called him 'Make a Deal Dale,'" Chesney wrote, per Variety. "He was raw, too. No airs, just unfiltered honesty about how rough it could be. He had relationships with everybody: labels, radio stations, big promoters, TV people and publishers, but also the fair buyers, the country bar owners, the folks out in America who held careers together."
He added: "I didn't bother meeting with another manager. Dale loved the game, and he loved coming up with new ways to do it. If I was willing to work as hard as I said, maybe I was the kid who'd let him do it all over again. He didn't believe in contracts. Didn't have one with Alabama, didn't need one with me. He said, 'Let's do it.'"
Morris Higham Management president Clint Higham said in a statement that Morris "lived a big, bold, beautiful, blessed life," calling his death "the end of an era."
"He was larger than life and never met a dream he couldn't build," Higham said. "Dale Morris gave me my first internship, and I never wanted to go anywhere else. He saw things in people, in me, in Kenny and inspired everyone to reach beyond what we thought possible. Maybe it's how much he loved life, loved his family, loved us."
Morris is survived by his wife Earline; grandchildren Zack, Colton, Nick and Kendall; and great grandchildren Mary Dee and Gus. Morris' son, Tim, died prior to his death.
The manager's family said a memorial service will be held in the fall.
"We're so blessed to have had 90 years with him as the patriarch of our family," Zack Morris said in a statement. "Thank you to our music industry family and to his vast community of friends in Nashville, Boca and beyond for loving him all these many years."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Country music manager Dale Morris, who worked with Kenny Chesney, dies at 89
