Celebrity Celebrity Deaths Celebrity Death News Dave Loggins, Grammy-Nominated 'Please Come to Boston' Singer, Dies at 76 The singer-songwriter also wrote the longstanding "Augusta" theme song for golf's Masters Tournament By Rachel DeSantis Rachel DeSantis Rachel DeSantis is a staff writer on the music team at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2019, and her work has previously appeared in Entertainment Weekly and the New York Daily News. People Editorial Guidelines Published on July 12, 2024 04:05PM EDT Close Dave Loggins circa 1970. Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Singer-songwriter Dave Loggins, who had a hit in 1974 with the soft rock hit “Please Come to Boston,” has died. He was 76. Loggins, a Grammy-nominated member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, died on Wednesday, July 10 at Alive Hospice in Nashville, according to an obituary published in The Tennessean. The musician was best known for writing and singing "Augusta," the theme song of golf's Masters Tournament, and for his seminal ‘70s hit “Please Come to Boston,” which cracked the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and earned him a best male pop vocal performance Grammy nomination. He was inspired to write the song after touring with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1972, and stopping in Boston, Denver and Los Angeles along the way. Dave Loggins performing ca. 1970. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Loggins was born in Shady Valley, Tennessee and raised in Bristol, according to his obituary. His father was a country fiddle player, and the musician, a second cousin of Kenny Loggins, started playing guitar and writing songs in high school. “I listened to records every free moment for hours at night,” he said on the All Things Vocal with Judy Rodman podcast in 2021. “I’d do my homework, eat some dinner, then go upstairs to my room, close the door and develop some trancelike state… My subconscious was studying the structures of the songs.” Loggins worked briefly as a draftsman at a metal company and as insurance salesman, according to the Hall of Fame, but eventually moved to Nashville to live with his brother. He released his debut album, Personal Belongings, in 1972. Joe Egan, Stealers Wheel Musician and 'Stuck in the Middle with You' Co-Writer, Dead at 77 “Nashville was hard, because if you didn’t have country tunes, people didn’t want to hear it,” he said, according to the Hall. “I spent a couple of hard years there.” Still, he found a breakthrough in 1973 when Three Dog Night recorded his song “Pieces of April” and made it a Top 20 hit. Loggins released a stream of albums in the 1970s, but eventually pivoted back to songwriting, and found success penning hits for Music City’s biggest stars, including Johnny Cash, Toby Keith, Willie Nelson and Wynonna Judd, according to his obituary. In 1985, he won the CMA vocal duo of the year award for “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do,” his No. 1 duet with Anne Murray. Loggins is survived by his three sons Quinn, Kyle and Dylan, as well as his grandson Braxton.