The legendary Eddy Arnold was born Richard Edward Arnold 101 years ago today on a farm near Henderson, Tenn. One of country music’s most successful artists, he was also the first real crossover artist. By the numbers, he had 146 singles on the Billboard country charts from 1945-2008, 13 of them were Top 40 pop hits! 28 of those country singles were #1 songs. In a feat that will probably never be repeated, Eddy had five #1 hits in 1948, most of them occupying the top spot for several weeks, so much so that only one other artist had a #1 song that year—that’s right, Eddy had a song at the top of the chart for the entire year except for one other artist! He died in 2008, almost two months after his wife, Sally, passed away.