Songwriter Sandy Mason Dies

Songwriter Sandy Mason, who penned hits such as Garth Brooks' "Two Pina Coladas" and Crystal Gayle's "When I Dream," died on April 1 in Ormond Beach, Fla., due to complications from pancreatic cancer. She was 71 years old.

A native of the Pittsburgh, Pa., area, Mason, whose full name was Sandy Mason Theoret, grew up performing as part of the Pittsburgh Playhouse as a singer, comedian, pianist and guitar player; as an adult, she briefly worked as a ventriloquist, before focusing her energy on music. Mason hosted her own local TV show in Pittsburgh and recorded for several labels, including Roulette Records, MGM, Epic, Hickory and Mercury.

Mason released "When I Dream" as an artist in 1978, but it was Gayle who took it to No. 3 on the country charts and No. 20 on the Adult Contemporary chart. However, Brooks' "Two Pina Coladas," which Mason co-wrote with Benita Hill and Shawn Camp, was the songwriter's biggest hit.

"Sandy Mason and Shawn Camp and I got together to write," Hill recalls to Nashville's Tennessean. "We had written a bunch of songs before we wrote that one, and we got together on this one day, for another writing session. It was a really cold, gloomy day. It was February, and it was just really yucky. We just fantasized about how nice it would be to be at the beach and have a pina colada, or maybe two, one in each hand.

"We wrote that pretty quickly. Made a little demo of it, and Sandy actually pitched it to [producer] Allen Reynolds," Hill adds. "[Reynolds] goes, 'I think I'm going to play that for Garth.' When [Mason] came back and told me, I was kind of dumbfounded, because I didn't think that that would be anything that Garth would do, but he did."

Mason also had cuts by several other artists, including Johnny Cash, John Prine, George Jones, Roger Cook, Willie Nelson, Mac Davis and Debbie Boone.

According to Music Row, Mason was living in Nashville until her diagnosis with pancreatic cancer several weeks ago. She chose to deny aggressive chemotherapy.

Mason's funeral arrangements are not known. The Boot extends our condolences to her loved ones.

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