Casino Kid and NiGHTS Into Dreams Crossover

“A lot of that country music got into me through my dad’s playing, and my mom’s signing of the Irish songs,” Rabbitt said in a 1990 interview.Īll of this comes into sharp focus when you visit Eddie’s final resting place. But Eddie’s dad was a proficient fiddle and accordion player who had immigrated from Ireland, and would play in dance halls in New York after getting off work at the oil refinery. Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in New Jersey, this was the entirely wrong part of the world to be from to pursue country music as a career. There is a cross though with Celtic knot work helping you to find the Rabbitt family plot.īorn Edward Thomas Rabbitt (yes, it was his real name), Eddie had an unlikely origin story for a country singer.

Aside from the emblem of a guitar, you may never know it’s him buried in a family plot not far from his mother, and his son who died at the age of 2. He’s not buried in the shadow of a gaudy headstone either. Why? Because he was one of the very few country performers who was Catholic.īeing in a cemetery all by himself means you have to make a special effort to see Eddie. Unlike so many on Nashville’s big cemeteries that are packed with country stars you can hunt down, Eddie Rabbitt is the only country star of note in the Calvary Cemetery. While in Nashville recently, I decided to pay a visit to Eddie Rabbitt at the Calvary Cemetery just east of town. This is one of the many reasons the legacy of Eddie Rabbitt seems scandalously lost to country music, and one of the reasons preserving and talking about it is so important. The public didn’t even know Rabbitt had part of his lung removed, and had been diagnosed as terminal. Not even his agent knew, nor anyone else beyond his family. It wasn’t until after the burial that the word got out. But nobody reported on the passing of Rabbitt when it happened at the request of his family. In fact, you barely ever hear the name of Eddie Rabbitt in country music at all these days.Įddie Rabbitt died in Nashville on May 7th, 1998 from lung Cancer at the age of 56. But you almost never hear Eddie Rabbitt’s name brought up in the context of the Hall of Fame. With an incredible twenty #1 songs, and 34 total Top 10 hits-most of which he wrote himself-Eddie Rabbitt was one of the biggest and most influential country artists of the late ’70s and throughout the ’80s.Įddie Rabbitt’s career wasn’t just accomplished, it was downright Hall of Fame worthy. And it’s all the fault of country music legend Eddie Rabbitt. I love a rainy night, and I’m driving my life away.

Casino Kid and NiGHTS Into Dreams Crossover