Country Singer Dies at 37 Just Hours After Wedding – Billboard

Country singer Jake Flint died on Nov. 26 just hours after getting married. According to EW, publicist Clif Doyal confirmed that the 37-year-old up-and-coming singer died in his sleep, with a cause of death not announced at press time.

The Oklahoma native’s death was announced over the weekend by manager Brenda Cline of Route 66 Entertainment, who wrote on Facebook, “With a broken heart and in deep grief I must announce that Jake Flint has tragically passed away. I’ve tried several times today to make a post, but you can’t comment on what you can’t process. The photo below is when Jake and I excitedly signed our artist management contract. That was the beginning of a wonderful friendship and partnership. Jake was even more than that to me, I loved him much like a son.”

Cline called Flint the “funniest, most hilarious, hardest working, dedicated” artist she’s ever worked with, noting that they were about to embark on some business together after his wedding to wife Brenda, which took place just hours before his passing.

“Yes-yesterday. Jake has a million friends and I’m not sure how everyone will cope with this tragic loss,” Cline wrote. “We need prayers- it’s all so surreal. Please please pray for his new wife Brenda, Jake’s precious mother, his sister and the rest of his family and friends. This is going to be incredibly difficult for so many. We love you Jake and in our hearts forever.”

New wife Brenda also mourned Flint, writing on FB, “We should be going through wedding photos but instead I have to pick out clothes to bury my husband in. People aren’t meant to feel this much pain. My heart is gone and I just really need him to come back. I can’t take much more. I need him here.”

According to “Cowtown” singer Flint’s website, he was born in 1985 and raised in Holdenville, Oklahoma and was best known for his songs Oklahoma Red Dirt-style songs “Fireline” and “Hurry Up and Wait.” Flint pursued music spurred by his late father’s wish to share something with his son. After his dad was diagnosed with ALS, he asked some friends to teach him how to play guitar, leading to the singer “float[ing] through life loving, hating, gaining, losing, experimenting, witnessing, missioning, sinning, breaking the law, paying the consequences while openly and candidly writing about it all.”

Flint’s friend and fellow musician, Mike Hosty, told The Oklahoman that the wedding took place on a remote Oklahoma homestead on Nov. 26, just hours before the singer’s death. “It was rainy, but he’d rented a 40-by-60 circus tent,” Hosty said. “They put up a bunch of carpets over the mud and then got two pieces of three-and-a-quarter-inch plywood and set it on the ground — and that was my stageJake goes, ‘Is that gonna be all right for you?’ And I go, ‘Jake, that’s perfect.’ A piece of plywood or a flatbed trailer is where I shine.”

Hosty called his late friend a “singer-songwriter, through and through, and just a big personality… a big heart, and [he’d] bend over backwards to do anything for you. When any musician asks you to play at their wedding it’s one of those most important days… and it’s always an honor.”

Flint’s most recent album was June 2021’s Live and Socially Distanced at Mercury Lounge, which included the songs “What’s Your Name,” “Drugged, Drunk and Alone/Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “Hard Livin’” and “Cold in This House.” Previous studio releases included a self-titled 2020 album and 2016’s I’m Not OK.

See Cline’s tribute below.