80s country music icon to have surgery after being rushed to the hospital over onstage stroke
The 75-year-old was performing onstage in Pennsylvania the Saturday before last when his words started to become incomprehensible.
His son Ronnie Jr. quickly took him off to the side, whereupon McDowell informed him that he suspected he had suffered a stroke.
That Sunday morning, he underwent testing at a hospital in Reading, Pennsylvania, and by Monday the singer was discharged.
McDowell himself then broke his silence on the incident in a Facebook video of him taking a two-mile walk - just five days after his medical emergency.
'Yes, I had a stroke,' he confirmed for fans, indicating he would have to undergo an operation to 'get all this plaque cleared out here in my jugular.'
He reassured fans that he was 'doing my two-mile walk,' adding that he would still play his scheduled concert in Dry Ridge, Kentucky that Saturday night.
McDowell suffered the stroke three or four songs into his set at the Summer Solstice Music Festival in Oley, Pennsylvania on Saturday, June 21.
The problem became evident when the singer began 'not making sense' and slurring his words, his tour manager told Nashville's WKRN News 2.
According to the tour manager, he brought McDowell aside and asked if he felt all right, to which McDowell said: 'No,' sharing his suspicion that he had had a stroke.
The next day, his son Tyler Dean McDowell confirmed on Facebook that he and his brother Ronnie Jr. were at the hospital with their father, who was awake and 'talking to us' as they waited for an MRI to be performed.
One day later, on Monday June 23, Ronnie Jr. shared that his father was being discharged and was in 'good spirits' after his 'mini-stroke,' also via Facebook.
Ronnie Jr., a musician who joined his father on tour, shared: 'I knew something wasn't right as I had his vocals in my in ear monitor and I could hear him slurring his words and forgetting the words to his songs that he has sang for many years.'
McDowell's son then 'took my Dad off side stage to ask him how he was feeling. He told me that he wasn't ok, and thats not how my strong Dad talks, he said that he thought that he might be having a stroke,' he recalled.
'I immediately took him to the Sprinter for him to cool off. I asked the incredible promoter to bring over an EMT. He was incredibly helpful. He and I agreed that Dad was having a stroke by his actions,' Ronnie Jr. continued.
'I immediately had our friend Diana call an ambulance. They took him to the Reading hospital. I will say this, that every single person at the hospital was so incredibly nice and helpful. The Doctors told him that he will need surgery in the next few weeks.'
Ronnie Jr. noted that medical staff 'do want him to take it easy but they said that he can perform and workout in the next few days. He was so happy about that. When he got out, he wanted to go to his favorite Italian restaurant.'
McDowell became a star in 1977 with his song The King is Gone, a tribute to his idol Elvis Presley, who had died that year of heart failure after years of drug abuse.
Through the 1980s, McDowell landed two number one country singles - Older Women and You're Gonna Ruin My Bad Reputation - as well as a number of other successful songs like All Tied Up, In a New York Minute and Watchin' Girls Go By.
He sang duets with titans of the country music sphere, such as It's Only Make Believe with Conway Twitty and You're Never Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll with Jerry Lee Lewis.
As recently as 2023, his voice was included on Dolly Parton's track I Dreamed About Elvis along with those of the old vocal quartet the Jordanaires, which had been active from 1948 until the death of one of its members in 2013.
McDowell's long association with Elvis Presley spread to the screen, where he provided the singing voice for Kurt Russell to lip-sync to in the 1979 TV movie Elvis, as well as for Don Johnson in the 1981 TV movie Elvis and the Beauty Queen and for Michael St. Gerard on the 1990 miniseries Elvis.
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