Mac Davis, the ’70s-vintage songwriter and pop star, has died. CNN reports that Davis died yesterday in Nashville after open-heart surgery. In a Facebook statement, Jim Morey, Davis’ manager, reports that Davis was surrounded by family when he died. Davis was 78.

Davis grew up in Lubbock, Texas, and he moved to Atlanta after high school. There, he started a band called the Zots, and he did behind-the-scenes work for labels like Vee Jay and Liberty Records, as well as Nancy Sinatra’s Boots Enterprises. Davis played on Sinatra’s records and in her touring band. In 1970, he signed to Columbia as a solo artist.

By that time, Davis’ career as a songwriter had started taking off. In 1968, Elvis Presley recorded Davis’ song “A Little Less Conversation.” (A remix of that song became a hit in 2002, long after Presley’s death.) David also wrote “In The Ghetto,” a massive 1969 hit for Presley, as well as singles like “Memories” and “Don’t Cry Daddy.” Davis also wrote “Watching Scotty Grow” for Bobby Goldsboro and “I Believe In Music,” a 1972 hit for Gallery.

As a songwriter and a solo artist, Davis specialized in songs that toed the line between country and adult contemporary. That was the case for the rambling-man warning song “Baby, Don’t Get Hooked On Me,” a #1 hit for Davis in 1972. That became Davis’ biggest hits, but he had pop-chart success through the mid-’70s with singles like “Stop And Smell The Roses” and “One Hell Of A Woman.” The Academy Of Country Music named Davis its Entertainer Of The Year in 1974, and his singles charted on country radio well into the ’80s.

Davis also hosted a TV variety show for a couple of years in the mid-’70s, and he made his film debut opposite Nick Nolte in the 1979 football movie North Dallas 40. In 1983’s The Sting II, Davis played the role that Robert Redford had played in the original. After his heyday, Davis largely stayed out of the spotlight, but he kept recording and acting, making occasional TV appearances.

As the chart historian Chris Molanphy points out on Twitter, it seems oddly poetic that Davis died on the same day as Helen Reddy, another early-’70s pop star who had success around the same era. Davis’ “Baby, Don’t Get Hooked On Me” and Reddy’s “I Am Woman” were both on the pop charts at the same time. Below, watch some examples of Davis’ work.