NASHVILLE — Earl Thomas Conley, one of the most popular and prolific country singers of the 1980s, died here on Wednesday. He was 77.

Carole Scates, his partner for more than 20 years, said the cause was cerebral atrophy.

Mr. Conley had 24 Top 10 country singles in the ’80s, several of which he wrote or co-wrote, including 18 that reached No. 1. Only two artists that decade topped the country charts more times than he did: the vocal group Alabama, which had 27 No. 1 singles, and the singer Ronnie Milsap, who had 23. All but one of Mr. Conley’s No. 1 hits were recorded for RCA, starting with “Somewhere Between Right and Wrong” in 1982.

Many of Mr. Conley’s songs, among them “Holding Her and Loving You” and “Don’t Make It Easy for Me,” both No. 1 hits, plumbed the complexity of romantic relationships. Abounding with sincerity, his rich, smoky baritone was well suited to his material, which appealed primarily to adult audiences, much like the vintage country and soul music of the 1960s and ’70s.

Mr. Conley’s affinity for soul music was evident on many of his recordings, maybe nowhere as much as on “Too Many Times,” a 1986 duet with Anita Pointer of the Grammy Award-winning Pointer Sisters. That record reached No. 2 on the country chart and earned Mr. Conley an invitation, rare for a country artist, to perform the song with Ms. Pointer on the R&B-themed television show “Soul Train.”