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Who was country music's Troy Gentry?

Along with Eddie Montgomery, the singer and guitarist killed in the Medford crash was half of one of country music's most popular duos in the 1990s and 2000s.

Troy Gentry died in a helicopter crash in Burlington County.
Troy Gentry died in a helicopter crash in Burlington County.Read moreRICKY BASSMAN / Zuma Press/TNS

Troy Gentry,  the 50-year-old, Kentucky-born guitarist and singer who died in a helicopter crash on Friday afternoon at the Flying W Airport & Resort in Medford before a performance that had been scheduled for that evening. was half of Montgomery Gentry, a Southern-rock flavored country-music duo that had a run of radio hits in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Along with partner Eddie Montgomery — brother of country star John Michael Montgomery — the late singer and sometime songwriter made up a platinum-selling duo who in their prime were second only to Brooks and Dunn as a male twosome specializing in a rugged, high-volume sound influenced by Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band.

Montgomery Gentry was originally called Deuce, but changed its name upon signing to Columbia Records in 1999, and scored a Top 20 country hit that year with "Hillbilly Shoes," off the Tattoo & Scars debut album. Gentry and Montgomery won the Country Music Association Male Duo of the Year award in 2000, breaking Brooks & Dunn's eight-year hold on the award.

Throughout the following decade, Montgomery Gentry was a successful touring act and scored a steady stream of 23 Top 40 country hits, including "My Town," "Something to Be Proud of," and a cover of Robert Earl Keen's "Merry Christmas From the Famil.," The most recent was "Where I Come From" from Rebels on the Run in 2011. The duo's last album, Folks Like Us, came out in 2015, and this year they guested on Southern rock-rap band the Lacs' album American Rebelution.

Gentry is survived by daughters Kaylee and Taylor and wife Angie McClure, whom he married in 1999.