[2] His songs were also recorded by popular artists of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, including The Grateful Dead, Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Anne Murray, and B. J. Thomas.
His music credits in film include Primary Colors, The Thing Called Love, Texasville, and the documentary Grizzly Man.
[7] He is the author of numerous articles as well as two books: Tales of the Old River Rod and Gun, Bloody Mary Society and Gentleman's Club and The Ancestors and Descendants of Robert Nathanial McDill.
("Don't Close Your Eyes" was recorded by Keith Whitley, reaching #1 in August 1988, and was covered by Kellie Pickler and Alan Jackson.
Two of Mel McDaniel's biggest hits, “Louisiana Saturday Night” and “Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On,” were McDill compositions.
McDill also co-wrote a song called "Someone Like You" with Dickey Lee, which can be heard on Emmylou Harris' album Profile II.
He continued to write songs into the 1990s, including "Gone Country" by Alan Jackson, "All the Good Ones Are Gone" by Pam Tillis (which received a Grammy Award nomination in 1998),[2] and "Why Didn't I Think of That" by Doug Stone.
[17] Nobel Laureate Sir V. S. Naipaul's travelogue A Turn in the South written in 1989 features a section about Bob McDill.