As a teenager, Mickey Newbury sang tenor in a moderately successful vocal group called The Embers. The group opened for several famous performers, such as Sam Cooke and Johnny Cash. Although Mickey tried to make a living off of his music by singing in clubs, he put his musical career on hold at age 19 when he joined the Air Force. After four years in the military, Mickey again set his sights on making a living as a songwriter.For a time, he was one of the most influential creative minds in Nashville and it's arguable that he was the first real "outlaw" of the Outlaw country movement of the 1970s\r In 1974, he moved to a house on the McKenzie River in Oregon with his wife, Susan, and new born son, Chris, where they welcomed three more children over the years. He recorded several albums throughout the 1970s for Elektra and ABC/Hickory, all of them critically praised, but financially unsuccessful. In 1980, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.\r Although he spent much of the 1980s retired from performing and recording music, he returned both to recording and touring in the late 1980s and recorded several universally praised albums before he died of a prolonged battle with pulmonary fibrosis on September 29, 2002.\r \r