LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - South's real name was Joseph Souter. According to Butch Lowery, president of the Lowery Group, the company that published his music, South died at his home in Buford, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta. While details are not definite, South reportedly died from heart failure.

He is perhaps best known for the song "Games People Play," which reached No. 12 on the Billboard charts in 1969 and won him two Grammys for Best Contemporary Song and Song of the Year. The opening lines evoked the message songs of the era: "Oh the games people play now, every night and every day now, never meaning what they say now, never saying what they mean."

The song, which was released on South's debut album "Introspect," spoke an anthem against hate, hypocrisy and inhumanity.

He also had hits with "Walk A Mile In My Shoes" and "Don't It Make You Want to Go Home," and wrote the Grammy-nominated "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden" for country singer Lynn Anderson.

South was an inductee in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. He played guitar on Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools," Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" and albums by Eddy Arnold and Marty Robbins.

Outspoken, with a rough-around-the-edges personality, South's last album was "Classic Masters" in 2002.

South withdrew from the music scene in the early 1970s after his brother's suicide and lived as a recluse, while continuing to write music.

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