LifeNotes: Music Journalist Bill Littleton Dies

Bill Littleton

Veteran country music journalist Bill Littleton passed away last weekend in his home state of South Carolina. He was 75 years old.

Littleton died on Saturday, Jan. 17, at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center. He was a native of Greenwood, S.C. who spent 47 years in Nashville.

He is probably best known as the Nashville bureau chief of Performance magazine for more than 20 years. Littleton was also an actor, a singer-songwriter and a writer of fiction. He had character roles in such films as I Walk the Line (1970), co-starring Gregory Peck and Tuesday Weld; Payday (1973), starring Rip Torn; and Deadhead Miles (1973), co-starring Alan Arkan and Charles Durning.

Bill Littleton recorded several of his songs, occasionally performed in clubs and posted both audio and videos of his music online over the years. He notably accompanied Tom T. Hall on the journey that resulted in Hall’s 1971 LP In Search of a Song. Littleton wrote the album’s liner notes and his many snapshots of the trip were featured on its back jacket.

At the time of his death, Bill Littleton was residing in Boiling Springs, SC. He was predeceased by his parents, his sister and his wife, Connie Fuller Littleton. He is survived by sister Linda Griebno and several nieces and nephews. Celebration of life services are being planned for Boiling Springs as well as Nashville.