Brian "Nashville" Duckworth, the country singer who performed alongside his siblings in the family band Taylor Made, has died at 56, leaving behind a wife, six children, and a musical legacy rooted in fairs, festivals, and family.
Duckworth died September 7 at his home, Fox News Digital reported, citing a family obituary hosted by Bartlett Funeral Home in West Virginia. No cause of death was disclosed. He is set to be laid to rest at Floral Hills Memorial Garden.
He leaves behind his wife Tina, to whom he was married nearly 16 years, along with six children, Zach, Ashton, Logan, Kayla, Michael, and Matt, four grandchildren, and five siblings.
Duckworth worked as a dump truck driver for Wolfe's Excavating, a job his family said he loved because it kept him outdoors. But music ran through the family, and Duckworth never let the day job crowd it out.
In 2008, he joined his brother Greg Duckworth and sister Wendy Williams to form a band called I-79. The trio debuted at the Colgate Country Showdown that year and later renamed the group Taylor Made. Their song "Things You Don't Grow Out Of" climbed to No. 36 on the Billboard Indicator chart.
His family's obituary captured the man behind the music plainly. "Brian never passed up an opportunity to share his voice, earning him the affectionate nickname 'Nashville,'" the obituary read. He also went by "Truck Boss", a nod to the work that paid the bills while the music fed his soul.
The music world has absorbed a string of painful losses in recent months. ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard died at 77 after nearly six decades behind the kit, and country songwriter Brett James, the pen behind Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take the Wheel" and hits for Taylor Swift and Brantley Gilbert, was killed at 57 in a plane crash in Franklin, North Carolina, along with his partner and her daughter. James had been inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2020.
Duckworth's death did not make national headlines the way those losses did. He was not a chart-topping solo act or a hall-of-fame inductee. He was a working man who sang with his brother and sister at county fairs and local festivals, and whose family loved him for it.
His niece, Brianna Duckworth Kazner, shared a video on Facebook from her own wedding, footage of Taylor Made performing together. She wrote that she was "having a hard time believing" it was "the last time Taylor Made sang together."
Kazner, who described growing up watching her father, aunt, and uncle perform, said she eventually joined them onstage when she was old enough. As she began writing her own songs, Duckworth became the person she turned to when the words stopped coming.
She wrote on Facebook:
"As I've gotten older and started writing my own music, I knew the guy to call whenever I got creatively 'stuck.' He truly had such a way with song lyrics that I knew without a doubt Uncle Brian would pull me out of the songwriter's slump."
Kazner added: "I can't count the number of times we got to sing together but it will have never been enough." She noted that the two had recently spoken by phone about a song idea he had been working on.
The entertainment world has also mourned Christian worship songwriter Brian Doerksen, who died at 60 shortly after a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, and actor Michael Wright, star of The Five Heartbeats, who passed at 70.
The family obituary described a man whose priorities were simple and consistent. "Above all, Brian treasured his family and the special memories they created together," it read. "He also dearly loved his faithful fur family, who were constant companions and brought him great comfort and happiness."
The obituary closed with a line that doubled as a summary of the man: "Brian's love of family, music, and the outdoors will forever remain in the hearts of all who knew and loved him."
In an era when fame is measured in followers and streams, Brian "Nashville" Duckworth measured it in something older, the people who showed up to hear him sing, and the family that sang alongside him. That kind of life doesn't trend. It endures.
