Johnny Paycheck - Later Life and Death

Later Life and Death

In 1981 he appeared on the television show, The Dukes of Hazzard, as himself. The scene had him playing "Take This Job and Shove It" and arguing with Boss Hogg when the sheriff tried to give him a citation over the content of the song.

In December 1985, Paycheck was convicted and sentenced to 7 years in jail for shooting a man at the North High Lounge in Hillsboro, Ohio after he fired a .22 pistol, grazing the man's head with a bullet. Paycheck claimed the act was self-defense. After several years spent fighting the sentence, in 1989 he began his sentence, spending 22 months in prison before he was pardoned by the Governor of Ohio, Richard Celeste.

The most successful of his later singles, released during his appeal, was "Old Violin" which reached # 21 on the country chart in 1986. His last album to chart was "Modern Times" in 1987. He continued to release albums, the last of which, Remembering appeared in 2002.

In 1990, he filed for bankruptcy after tax problems with the IRS.

Although Paycheck suffered from drug and alcohol addiction during his career, he later was said to have "put his life in order" after his prison stay. He continued to perform and tour until the late 1990s. After the year 2000 his health would only allow for short appearances. Suffering from emphysema and asthma after a lengthy illness, Paycheck died at Nashville's Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2003. His funeral was paid for by good friend and music legend George Jones. He was buried in Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Nashville and survived by his wife Sharon and son Jonathan.

His brother Bud Lytle died from cancer in the mid 1990s in Ohio. His brother Jeffrey L. Lytle was killed in a car crash on Ohio State Route 73 near Hillsboro, Ohio on April 1, 2009.