Lise Kristen Gerard is the wife of Mac Davis and a nurse. Mac Davis was a country singer, songwriter, and actor, known for writing popular Elvis Presley hits, like “In the Ghetto,” “A Little Less Conversation” and “Memories” alongside solo hits like “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me,” “One Hell of a Woman,” and “Stop and Smell the Roses.”
Mac Davis died on September 29, 2020, at age 78, following heart surgery in Nashville. According to a tweet from his family, he was “critically ill following heart surgery in Nashville.”
Davis was born in Texas on Jan. 21, 1942. At 16, upon graduating from high school, Davis left Lubbock to join his mother, Edith, in Atlanta. It was there, around the age of 20, that Davis began performing in bands and writing songs while working as a “promotions man” for record labels, trying to secure radio play for their releases. His work in that capacity for Liberty Records eventually landed him in Los Angeles and in the orbit of Nancy Sinatra, who then hired him to write songs for her and her company.
After writing for Sinatra and the pop community around her, Davis’ songs drew the attention of Elvis Presley, who was enjoying a comeback. The combination yielded several hits, including “In the Ghetto,” “Memories” and “Don’t Cry Daddy.” (Presley’s first recording of a Davis song, “A Little Less Conversation” from 1968 and co-written with arranger and producer Billy Strange, wasn’t an immediate success but went on to reach No. 1 in the UK in a remix by Junkie XL.) Glen Campbell, Dolly Parton, Bobby Goldsboro, and Kenny Rogers and The First Edition all subsequently had success with Davis-penned works.
Through the ’70s, Davis began developing his own career as a recording artist, scoring a Grammy nomination for his 1972 chart-topper “Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me.” By the middle of the decade, Davis was a ubiquitous quantity in American popular life, hosting his own variety show (like Sonny & Cher, Johnny Cash and many others); by its close, he had begun appearing in films, too.
Davis’ songwriting career peaked in the ’70s, but his personal recording career reached its apex in the ’80s, on the strength of such hits as “It’s Hard To Be Humble” (cited by Kendrick Lamar and Rihanna in the song “Loyalty”) and “Texas In My Rearview Mirror.”
