Country Music TV Personality and Singer Dead at 83: RIP to Helen Cornelius

Helen Cornelius, the CMA award-winning country singer-songwriter and TV personality known for her chart-topping duets with Jim Ed Brown, has died.

Cornelius passed away Friday at the age of 83, according to an announcement on her official fan page. Her cause of death was not disclosed.

Born Helen Lorene Johnson in Monroe City, Missouri in 1941, per Country Road TV, Cornelius began her music career at a young age when she joined her sisters Judy and Sharon in a singing trio that toured locally. She eventually began touring solo with a backup band called The Crossroads, and returned to touring in the late ‘60s before signing with Screen Gems Music as a songwriter in 1970. However, it was her songwriting prowess that initially caught attention, Cornelius penning songs throughout the early ‘70s for the likes of The Oak Ridge Boys, Reba McEntire, Connie Smith, Charlie Louvin, Melba Montgomery, and more, per her official bio.

Cornelius rose to fame through her duets Jim Ed Brown in the ‘70s and ‘80s. In 1976, just a year after she signed her first major recording contract with RCA Records, Cornelius and Brown recorded their duet “I Don’t Want to Have to Marry You,” which won them the CMA Award for Vocal Duo of the Year in 1977. They followed it with numerous other – “Saying Hello, Saying I Love You, Saying Goodbye,” I’ll Never Be Free,” and “Don’t Bother to Knock,” just to name a few – with their song “If the World Ran Out of Love Tonight” scoring a Grammy nomination.

Throughout her work with Brown, Cornelius also became a country music TV personality, appearing as a regular guest on the singer’s Nashville on the Road series. She and Brown also performed on a 1977 episode of Dolly Parton’s show Dolly, according to her IMDb profile, as well as the Country’s Family Reunion series

After recording her final duet with Brown in 1981, “Morning Comes too Early,” Cornelius embarked on a solo career, touring with The Statler Brothers and Conway Twitty and also performing in an Annie Get Your Gun road show. I n1991, she opened a dinner theater in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where she performed with a house band nightly.

Her passing sparked an outpouring of tributes from fans, one person writing that they were “absolutely saddened by this news. Been a fan since the very early eighties.” Another person remembered her as a “true legend with a voice to match.”