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 Remembering the late Donald Eugene Lytle, better known as Johnny PayCheck, who was born on this date, May 31, in 1938 in Greenfield, OH.

Paycheck was most notable for recording the David Allan Coe song, "Take This Job and Shove It". He achieved his greatest success in the 1970s as a force in country music's "outlaw movement" popularized by artists Hank Williams Jr., Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, and Merle Haggard.

In 1980, Paycheck appeared on the PBS music program Austin City Limits (season 5). During 1980s, his music career slowed due to drug, alcohol, and legal problems. He served a prison sentence in the early 1990s and his declining health effectively ended his career in early 2000. In autographs, Paycheck signed his name "PayCheck".

After a stint in the Navy in the 1950s, he relocated to Nashville, Tennessee. He was a tenor harmony singer with numerous hard country performers in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including Ray Price. He worked along with Willie Nelson in Price's band the Cherokee Cowboys. He was featured as a tenor singer on recordings by Faron Young, Roger Miller, and Skeets McDonald.

In 1960, he reached Top 35 status in Cashbox magazine's country charts as Donny Young with the tune "Miracle Of Love". In the early 1960s, he convinced country music legend George Jones to hire him. Paycheck provided harmony vocals as well as bass and steel guitar for Jones. He later co-wrote Jones's hit song "Once You've Had the Best." From the early to mid 1960s, he also enjoyed some success as a songwriter for others, with his biggest songwriting hit being "Apartment No. 9", which served as Tammy Wynette's first chart hit in December 1966.

In 1964, he changed his name legally to Johnny Paycheck, taking the name from Johnny Paychek, a top-ranked boxer from Chicago who once fought Joe Louis for the heavyweight title (and not directly as a humorous alternative to Johnny Cash, as is commonly believed).

He first charted under his new name with "A-11" in 1965. His bestselling single from this period was "She's All I Got", which reached No. 2 on the US country singles charts in 1971 and made it onto the Billboard Hot 100. His "Mr. Lovemaker" also reached No. 2 on the US country singles chart in 1973. But with the popularity of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings in the mid-1970s, Paycheck changed his image to that of outlaw, with which he was to have his largest financial success.

His producer Billy Sherrill helped revive his career by significantly changing his sound and image. Sherrill was best known for carefully choreographing his records and infusing them with considerable pop feel. The Paycheck records were clearly based on Sherrill's take on the bands backing Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson on records.

A member of the Grand Ole Opry, Paycheck is best remembered for his 1977 hit single, "Take This Job and Shove It", written by David Allan Coe, which sold over two million copies and inspired a motion picture of the same name. "Colorado Kool-Aid", "Me and the IRS", "Friend, Lover, Wife", "Slide Off of Your Satin Sheets", and "I'm the Only Hell (Mama Ever Raised)" were other hits for Paycheck during this period. He received an Academy of Country Music Career Achievement award in 1977.

The most successful of his later singles, released during his appeal, was "Old Violin", which reached No. 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. He continued to perform and tour until the late 1990s. Shortly before his retirement, in 1997, he was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry; in a rare exception to protocol, Opry general manager Bob Whittaker personally invited Paycheck to join instead of having another member do the invitation.

After 2000, his health would only allow for short appearances. Contracting emphysema and asthma after a lengthy illness, Paycheck died at Nashville's Vanderbilt University Medical Center on February 19, 2003, aged 64.

He was buried in Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Nashville, in a plot donated by George Jones.