Remembering 2025’s Music Losses: Troy Seals

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My niece is working on the insurance for the car transfer. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’m here with another performer we lost in 2025. Sorry, Linda, but it’s another country person…but at least he did write a rock hit. Here’s today’s songwriter. Troy Seals If the last name looks familiar, yes, Troy Seals was related to “England Dan” Seals (who had hits with John Ford Coley) and Jim Seals of Seals and Crofts. While you don’t know his name because, as a performer, he was a pretty big flop, you do know his songs. Seals’ impact was in songwriting, and what an impact he made. Among the hits he wrote were Eric Clapton’s “I’ve Got a Rock and Roll Heart,” George Jones’ classic “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes,” Conway Twitty’s “There’s a Honky Tonk Angel (Who’ll Take Me Back In),” and Ronnie Milsap’s “Lost in the 50s Tonight,” the video for which was the first country video ever played on MTV. You’re welcome. Then there was “Seven Spanish Angels.” Seals said the song was inspired by Marty Robbins’ epic “El Paso.” Within two days of each other, Willie Nelson and Ray Charles separately heard the demo and decided to record the song. Billy Sherrill thought two together on one version would be better, so he convinced Nelson to join Charles for the duet. (Of course, by the 80s, Willie was doing duets with anyone in music who was still breathing, so…) Now, in the 60s, Troy Seals did appear in the background in a few teenybopper films like Hey, Let’s Twist! and Go Johnny Go. He was even a session musician on Dobie Gray’s hit “Drift Away.” However, songwriting was his forte, and he was very good at it…good enough to be inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1988, long before his songs stopped being recorded. You know if you can get people like Eric Clapton AND Willie Nelson interested in your songs, you’re doing something right. Troy Seals Born Troy Harold Seals, November 16, 1938, Bighill, Kentucky Died March 6, 2025, Hendersonville, Tennessee (natural causes) (age 86) HALL OF FAME: Nashville Songwriters, 1988 Willie and Ray doing the Troy Seals classic “Seven Spanish Angels”: