Marijohn Wilkin, 86; helped write classic tune ‘Long Black Veil’

Marijohn Wilkin, the songwriter who helped pen such classics as “The Long Black Veil” and “One Day at a Time,” died Saturday at her Nashville home, according to the Woodlawn Roesch-Patton Funeral Home. She was 86.

Wilkin learned last year that her 2003 triple-bypass heart operation had failed and that she was not a candidate for another procedure.

She is credited with discovering Kris Kristofferson, who released a statement Sunday calling her a “tough, intelligent and funny woman making it in a man’s world.”

Born Marijohn Melson in Texas, she was the grandchild of a country fiddler and learned to play piano as a child. After graduating from college, she became a teacher in Tulsa, Okla., and started writing songs for her choir.

She moved to Nashville in 1958, and was signed as a songwriter by Cedarwood Publishing. She scored her first major hit when she and John D. Loudermilk created “Waterloo” in 1959. Stonewall Jackson’s recording topped the country and pop charts.

On the same day Wilkin and Danny Dill composed “The Long Black Veil” in 1959, she was scheduled to pitch songs to Lefty Frizzell, who recorded it that night. The song has been recorded by Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, the Band and others.

Similarly, “One Day at a Time” was a hit for Marilyn Sellers and Cristy Lane, and has been recorded more than 200 times.

Wilkin was a founder of the Nashville Songwriters Assn. International, a nonprofit group that advocates for songwriters, and was dubbed “the den mother of Music Row.” She was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1975.