Born Harold Lloyd Jenkins in Mississippi on 1^st September 1933, Twitty was raised in Helena, Arkansas, where he learned to love not only country, but also blues and gospel. When he was ten years old, he joined his first group. In the Forties he formed a country band called the Phillips County Ramblers. Despite his strong interest in music, he had originally planned to become a professional baseball player. He was drafted into the army during the Korean War, and on returning to America in 1956, he decided to pursue a musical career.

He headed to Memphis, where he signed a recording contract with Sun Records, but none of the tracks he cut were ever released. Leaving Sun in late 1956, he set out on a rockabilly package tour, during which he invented the stage name of Conway Twitty by combining the names of a city in Arkansas and Texas, respectively. In 1958 he moved to MGM Records, where he finally achieved success with It’s Only Make Believe. It became a major hit, spending two weeks at number one and going gold.

Over the course of 1959 and 1960, Twitty released a number of singles, the most popular of which was the Top Ten hit Danny Boy. Twitty's rock 'n' roll fame arrived suddenly and it went away just as quickly. By the beginning of 1961, his singles had stopped entering the Top Forty. After signing with ABC-Paramount, he decided he wanted to become a country singer, but he didn't actively pursue that avenue until 1965. He went on to become a major country and western star with hit singles continuing well into the Eighties.

He collapsed after a performance in Branson, Missouri  and died on the 5^th June 1993 from a stomach hemorrhage.