Mel Tillis, who earned a place in the Country Music Hall of Fame and a National Medal of Arts as a singer and writer of enduring songs like “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town,” and who was equally known for the stutter he employed to humorous and self-deprecating effect onstage, died on Sunday in Ocala, Fla. He was 85.

Mr. Tillis had “battled intestinal issues since early 2016 and never fully recovered,” his publicist, Don Murry Grubbs, said in a statement. The suspected cause of death was respiratory failure, he said.

Mr. Tillis found a way to turn his speech impediment into an asset by using his ready smile and innate comedic timing to get his audiences to laugh along with him. He stuttered his way to regular appearances on television talk shows and to clowning bit parts in Hollywood movies.

He even went so far as to make the nickname Stutterin’ Boy, conferred upon him by the singer Webb Pierce, the title of his autobiography (written with Walter Wager and published in 1984), and to have it painted on the side of his tour bus. He named his personal airplane Stutter One and referred to his female backup singers as the Stutterettes.