William Pursell, Grammy-nominated composer, dies at 94 due to coronavirus

William Bill Pursell, a Grammy-nominated composer who worked as a Nashville studio musician with artists like Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, has died. During the 1960s and 1970s, he worked as a session pianist for artists like Johnny Cash, Boots Randolph, Chet Atkins, Marty Robbins, Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, Johnny Paycheck, Joan Baez, Scotty Moore, J.J. Cale, Dan Fogelberg and more. He later started a long career as a composition professor at Belmont University, where he taught students like Brad Paisley and Trisha Yearwood. His daughter, Laura Pursell, said in a statement that her father became a Catholic while being treated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which “gives us some measure of peace.” ALSO READ | Writer Gail Sheehy, author of Passages, dies at 83 in New York