Old Country Music Album Songs
On The Acoustic

Welcome to my old country music album songs page where you'll find info and lessons covering several well known old time country artists.

This pages are all being updated in a new format starting in Jul 26. Stay tuned.

You've Got To Stand For Something was Aaron Tippin’s debut single, released on October 8, 1990, and the title track of his first album for RCA Nashville.

Tippin wrote it with Buddy Brock, and the two drew on the lessons their fathers taught them about sticking to your convictions. Emory Gordy Jr. produced it.

The song climbed to No. 6 on Billboard’s country chart in early 1991 and No. 13 in Canada. It became an anthem for soldiers during the Gulf War, and Bob Hope, who heard Tippin perform it in 1990, invited him on his USO tour. Charley Pride recorded it as a single in 1992.

Black Rose is the opening track of Billy Joe Shaver’s 1973 debut album, Old Five and Dimers Like Me, and one of his most daring early songs. In it, a man confesses to an affair with a married Black woman, a subject few country writers touched in 1973, and he asks the Lord to help him leave her alone.

Its hook says the devil made him do it the first time, but the second time he did it on his own. The song is sometimes listed as “The Devil Made Me Do It the First Time.”

Waylon Jennings recorded it the same year on Honky Tonk Heroes, an album built almost entirely on Shaver’s songs, and Shannon McNally and Buddy Miller revived it later.

Bottom Dollar is a swinging waltz that Billy Joe Shaver wrote with Danny Finley, who is credited as Panama Red on some listings.

Jerry Lee Lewis recorded it first in 1972, and Shaver followed with his own version on his 1973 debut album, Old Five and Dimers Like Me. He recorded it again for his 1982 self-titled Columbia album and later performed it live on Live from Austin, TX in 2012.

Robert Earl Keen is among the artists who have covered it. A restless, piano-driven tune, it fits Shaver’s reputation as a songwriter who helped shape outlaw country in the 1970s. Shaver died on October 28, 2020, at age 81.

Freedom's Child is the title track of Billy Joe Shaver’s 2002 album, released on the Houston label Compadre Records.

Producer R.S. Field, who also worked on Shaver’s acclaimed 1993 album Tramp on Your Street, recorded it in three days in Nashville. It came after a brutal stretch in Shaver’s life, during which he lost his son Eddy and survived a heart attack on stage, and it was his first album without Eddy since 1987.

The song was released as a single, and actor Robert Duvall appeared in its video. The album was a hit on Americana radio, and Shaver toured North America to support it.

Live Forever is Billy Joe Shaver’s signature song, which he wrote with his son and guitarist Eddy Shaver. It first appeared on Tramp on Your Street, the 1993 debut album of their duo, Shaver, and they re-recorded it for the 1998 album Victory.

The song says the singer will live on through the songs he leaves behind, a message that took on added meaning after Eddy died on New Year’s Eve in 2000. The Highwaymen recorded it in 1995 for their final album,

The Road Goes On Forever, and Robert Duvall performed it in the film Crazy Heart. Willie Nelson’s version, from a 2022 tribute album, won the 2023 Grammy for Best Country Solo Performance.

I Can Help was a surprise No. 1 hit for Billy Swan, a Missouri-born musician who spent years playing bass in Kris Kristofferson’s band. He wrote it in March 1974 on a small RMI organ that Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge had given him as a wedding present, and he has said the words seemed to come out of nowhere.

Swan recorded it that same month at Young ‘Un Sound studio in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, with engineer Chip Young, and Monument Records released it in July 1974.

By November it had reached No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the country chart, and it also reached No. 6 on the adult contemporary chart. Elvis Presley later covered it, but Swan never scored another major hit.

Sugar Moon is a Western swing love song written by Bob Wills and Texas songwriter Cindy Walker, who wrote more than 50 songs that Wills and the Texas Playboys recorded.

The title comes from the chorus, which looks ahead to sugarcane time in June and walking with a sweetheart under an old sugar moon. Wills and the band recorded it in 1947 for Columbia, and it reached No. 1 on the country chart that year. One reviewer called it so light, spry and romantic that you don’t mind the “June, moon, soon” rhymes. K.d. lang,

Asleep at the Wheel and Willie Nelson have all covered it. It’s a different song from Pat Boone’s pop hit also called “Sugar Moon.”

500 Miles Away From Home is Bobby Bare’s version of “500 Miles,” a folk song credited to Georgia singer-songwriter Hedy West, who copyrighted it in 1961 after reworking an older lament called “Nine Hundred Miles.”

Bare’s record was released in September 1963 on RCA Victor, with Chet Atkins producing, and it became the title track of his debut studio album. It reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 5 on the country chart and No. 4 on the adult contemporary chart.

It was Bare’s second top-ten country hit, following “Detroit City” earlier that year. Johnny Cash once listed “500 Miles” among his 100 essential country songs.

Detroit City was written by Danny Dill and Mel Tillis, and it was first recorded by Billy Grammer in 1962 under the title “I Wanna Go Home.”

Grammer’s record reached No. 18 on the country chart in early 1963. Bobby Bare recorded the retitled song in Nashville on April 18, 1963, for RCA Victor. It spent 18 weeks on the country chart, reaching No. 6, climbed to No. 16 on the Hot 100 and won the Grammy for Best Country & Western Recording.

The narrator is a Southern country boy who moved north to work in a Detroit auto plant and longs to go back home. Tom Jones took it to No. 8 in the UK in 1967, and George Jones, who had once turned it down, recorded it in 2005.

Gotta Travel On is a folk-rooted song that Billy Grammer turned into a million-seller in 1958. It was the first release on Fred Foster’s Monument label and reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Paul Clayton, Larry Ehrlich, Dave Lazer and Tom Six are credited as writers, and some listings add The Weavers. Bobby Bare recorded his own version for his 1963 debut album, 500 Miles Away from Home, and it also appeared on the 1963 EP Meet Bobby Bare.

Bare’s was an album track rather than a chart single, but it showed how easily he moved between folk songs and country. Grammer also recorded “I Wanna Go Home,” the first chart version of what became Bare’s “Detroit City.”

Ride Me Down Easy is a plea for gentleness written by Billy Joe Shaver, the Texas songwriter who hitchhiked to Nashville and persuaded Bobby Bare to listen to his songs.

Bare hired him as a staff writer and went on to record more than 20 of his songs. Bare’s recording came out in 1973 on RCA Victor, with a more upbeat arrangement than later versions, and reached No. 11 on Billboard’s country chart. It’s on his album I Hate Goodbyes / Ride Me Down Easy.

Waylon Jennings also recorded it for Honky Tonk Heroes, the landmark 1973 album of Shaver songs, and Shaver cut his own version in 1982.

Frog Kissin is a goofy novelty song that showed the playful side of guitar legend Chet Atkins. Buddy Kalb, Ray Stevens’ longtime co-writer and partner in his comedy videos, wrote it, and Stevens produced and arranged Atkins’ recording and sang harmony behind him.

RCA Victor issued it as a single in 1975 or 1976 (sources differ) with the instrumental “Bill Cheatham” on the flip side, and it also appeared on the 1976 compilation The Best of Chet Atkins & Friends.

The lyrics poke fun at the fairy tale of the Frog Prince. Atkins and Stevens performed it together on TV’s Marty Robbins Spotlight in 1977, and Robin the Frog sang it on The Muppet Show.

Love, Me was Collin Raye’s first No. 1 hit and the song that launched his career.

Skip Ewing and Max T. Barnes wrote the ballad, which Epic Records released in October 1991 as the second single from his debut album, All I Can Be. It debuted at No. 75 on Billboard’s country chart on October 19, 1991, and reached the top on January 4, 1992, where it stayed for three weeks.

The song was nominated for the 1992 CMA Song of the Year but lost to “Look at Us,” which was co-written by Barnes’ own father, Max D. Barnes. A tender story about a love that lasts for decades, “Love, Me” has also become a popular choice at funerals.

One Boy One Girl tells a complete love story in just over four minutes. Mark Alan Springer and Shaye Smith wrote it, and Collin Raye released it on July 25, 1995, as the first single from his album I Think About You.

The song follows a couple from the moment their eyes meet in a crowded restaurant, through their wedding day, to a surprise at the hospital when the doctor announces twins, one boy and one girl. It reached No. 2 on Billboard’s country chart and No. 87 on the Hot 100, and it hit No. 1 on the Radio & Records chart in September 1995.

The album became Raye’s fourth platinum record in a row.

Someone You Used To Know was one of Collin Raye’s biggest crossover hits. Tim Johnson and Rory Feek wrote it, and Epic released it on August 17, 1998, as the second single from his album The Walls Came Down, following the No. 1 “I Can Still Feel You.”

The song is a heartbreak ballad in which the narrator finally hears his former love describe him as just someone she used to know. It debuted at No. 65 on Billboard’s country chart in August 1998, reached No. 3, and climbed to No. 37 on the Hot 100.

It also topped the Radio & Records country chart for three weeks in December 1998. Johnson also wrote Daryle Singletary’s “I Let Her Lie.”

White Fences And Evergreen Trees is a sad love song written by Dallas Frazier, the songwriter behind “Elvira” and Charley Pride’s “All I Have to Offer You (Is Me).”

Despite the title, it isn’t a Christmas song at all. The singer imagines painting a picture of the love he and his sweetheart once shared, with white fences and evergreen trees standing for the simple, happy life they lost when their faith blew away.

Ferlin Husky recorded it as the title track of a late-1960s Capitol album, and Frazier recorded his own version for his 1971 RCA Victor album My Baby Packed Up My Mind and Left Me. Frazier died in January 2022 at age 82.

Meet Me In Montana is a duet by Dan Seals and Marie Osmond that Paul Davis wrote while touring through Montana. Osmond’s producer, Paul Worley, heard the song and thought it would make a great duet, and he teamed up with Kyle Lehning, who produced Seals, to bring the two singers together.

Released in July 1985, it reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart for one week in October 1985 and No. 19 in Canada. It was the first No. 1 for Seals and the second for Osmond, and it began a run of nine straight chart-toppers for him.

The song earned them the CMA Vocal Duo of the Year award in 1986.

My Old Yellow Car was written by Thom Schuyler and released by Dan Seals in February 1985 as the third and final single from his album San Antone. Kyle Lehning produced the record for EMI America.

The song is nostalgic: the narrator is now wealthy and riding in a chauffeur-driven luxury car, but he wishes he were still driving the old, battered yellow car that gave him so many fond memories. It peaked at No. 9 on both Billboard’s country chart and Canada’s RPM country chart.

The album reached No. 24 on the country albums chart, and later in 1985 Seals scored his first No. 1 with “Meet Me in Montana.”

Look What Followed Me Home was the third single from David Ball’s 1994 platinum-selling album Thinkin’ Problem.

Ball wrote it with Tommy Polk, who also co-wrote “Blowin’ Smoke” and “Honky Tonk Healin’” on the album, and Blake Chancey produced it for Warner Bros. Nashville.

Released on January 14, 1995, the swinging, uptempo song just missed the country top ten, peaking at No. 11 on Billboard’s country chart and No. 14 in Canada. Martin Kahan directed its music video. Its B-side, “What Do You Want with His Love,” became the album’s fourth single in May 1995 and reached No. 48.

Riding With Private Malone is a nostalgic story song about a man who buys a used 1966 Corvette that once belonged to a soldier killed in Vietnam, and who comes to feel the soldier is riding along, even crediting him with saving his life one night.

Wood Newton and Thom Shepherd wrote it, and Newton produced David Ball’s recording. It was released in August 2001 as the lead single from the album Amigo on the independent label Dualtone, and it reached No. 2 on Billboard’s country chart and No. 36 on the Hot 100.

With Mark McGuinn’s “Mrs. Steven Rudy,” it made 2001 the first year since 1983 with two independently distributed country top-10 hits.

Thinkin' Problem was released on March 28, 1994, as the lead single and title track from David Ball’s Warner Bros. Nashville album.

Ball wrote it with Allen Shamblin and Stuart Ziff, and Blake Chancey produced it. The song plays on the phrase “drinking problem”: the narrator admits he can’t stop thinking about the woman who left him, no matter how hard he tries. It debuted at No. 72 in April 1994, reached No. 2 on Billboard’s country chart, No. 1 on Canada’s RPM country chart and No. 40 on the Hot 100.

It earned Ball a Grammy nomination for Best Male Country Vocal Performance and a CMA nomination for Song of the Year, and the album sold more than a million copies.

When The Thought Of You Catches Up With Me was written by David Ball alone and released on August 29, 1994, as the second single from his album Thinkin’ Problem.

Blake Chancey produced it for Warner Bros. Nashville. The song describes how the memory of a lost love can surface at any moment, whether on a Sunday drive under a blue sky, along a lonesome highway or in the dead of night. It debuted on Billboard’s country chart on September 10, 1994, and reached No. 7 on the country chart and No. 6 on Canada’s RPM country chart.

Chris Rogers directed the music video. The album itself had come out on June 14, 1994, and went platinum.

I Need A Little Time Off For Bad Behaviour was the biggest hit from David Allan Coe’s 1987 album A Matter of Life... and Death, his final studio album for Columbia after more than 20 albums for the label.

Coe wrote it with Bobby Keel and Larry Latimer, and Billy Sherrill produced the album. Released in early 1987, it climbed to No. 34 on Billboard’s country chart, and critics noted it sounded like the records Hank Williams Jr. was making at the time.

The album reached No. 50 on the country albums chart. Whiskey Myers later covered the song on its album Early Morning Shakes.

Jack Daniels If You Please is a down-and-out barroom song that David Allan Coe wrote for his 1978 album Human Emotions, a record inspired by his divorce.

The album was split into a “Happy Side” and a “Su-I-side,” and Billy Sherrill produced it for Columbia. In the song, the narrator talks to the whiskey like a close friend and asks it to get him drunk after a woman has left him. It was the album’s third single, released in early 1979, and peaked at No. 72 on Billboard’s country chart.

Columbia reissued it in 1982 with “Tennessee Whiskey” on the flip side, a song Coe was the first to record.

The Ride is a ghost story about a young guitarist who is hitchhiking from Montgomery, Alabama, to Nashville when he is picked up by a mysterious driver in an old Cadillac, who turns out to be Hank Williams.

Gary Gentry and J.B. Detterline Jr. wrote it after meeting on a Hank Williams tribute film in 1982. Gentry says he lit candles and summoned Hank’s spirit to finish the song, and he credited Hank “in spirit” as a co-writer. David Allan Coe’s recording was released on February 28, 1983, as the lead single from Castles in the Sand.

It spent 19 weeks on Billboard’s country chart, peaking at No. 4, and reached No. 2 in Canada. Hank Williams Jr. and Tim McGraw later covered it.

I'm Gonna Hire Me A Wino is a comic honky-tonk story from David Frizzell, the younger brother of country legend Lefty Frizzell.

Dewayne Blackwell, who later co-wrote Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places,” wrote it about a husband who keeps coming home drunk, so his fed-up wife decides to turn the house into a bar.

Released in April 1982 as the first single from the album The Family’s Fine, But This One’s All Mine, it reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart on August 14, 1982. It was Frizzell’s only solo No. 1, and it spent 14 weeks in the country top 40. It also earned Blackwell a Grammy nomination.

Every Time I Roll The Dice is one of Delbert McClinton’s best-known songs, even though he didn’t write it.

Nashville songwriters Max D. Barnes and Troy Seals wrote it. McClinton has said Barnes first had it as a country song, but he heard it differently and reworked it into a bluesy rock and roll tune. It was the first single from his 1992 album Never Been Rocked Enough and his biggest hit single in more than a decade.

The story is told in the first person by a man who feels he hit the jackpot with a woman whose love comes with no strings attached. It reached No. 13 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, and Chris LeDoux and Albert Lee later recorded it.

Two More Bottles Of Wine was written by Delbert McClinton, who recorded it in Nashville in March 1975 for his solo debut album, Victim of Life’s Circumstances, on ABC Records.

The song tells of a couple who move to Los Angeles, 1,600 miles from home, chasing success, only for the lover to leave. The narrator ends up sweeping out a warehouse in West L.A. but decides it’s all right because there are still two more bottles of wine.

McClinton’s own recording wasn’t a hit, but Emmylou Harris recorded it in 1978 as the first single from her album Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town, with Brian Ahern producing, and took it to No. 1 on the country chart in both the U.S. and Canada.

Big Spike Hammer is a hard-driving bluegrass tune written by Pete Goble and Bobby Osborne for the Osborne Brothers, who made it a staple of their live shows.

The Osbornes, from Hyden, Kentucky, joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1964 and are best known for their 1967 hit “Rocky Top.” Doc Watson recorded his own version at his family’s North Carolina home in 1967, with his son Merle on banjo and Doc on vocals and guitar.

That recording appears on the 2013 compilation The Definitive Doc Watson, where one reviewer praised it as one of two great versions of Osborne Brothers hits. Bobby Osborne died in 2023.

Blues Stay Away From Me was written by brothers Alton and Rabon Delmore with harmonica player Wayne Raney and pianist-producer Henry Glover.

The Delmore Brothers recorded it on May 5, 1949, at King Records’ studio in Cincinnati. Alton wrote the song with Rabon’s help on the lyrics, and Glover helped shape the melody. It became their signature song and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2007. Artists as different as the Everly Brothers, Merle Haggard, Bob Dylan and Les Paul and Mary Ford have recorded it.

Doc Watson, a master of country blues who recorded many Delmore songs, gave it a bluesy treatment built on his powerful guitar playing and emotional vocal.

Tennessee Stud is a story song about a man and his courageous, sun-colored, green-eyed stallion, written by Arkansas schoolteacher Jimmy Driftwood, who also wrote “The Battle of New Orleans.”

Driftwood recorded it in 1959, and Eddy Arnold’s cover that year reached the country top five and earned Grammy nominations in both the country and folk categories. It is Driftwood’s most-recorded song. Doc Watson first cut it with his son Merle on his 1966 album Southbound, and his version became a favorite after he sang it on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s landmark 1972 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken.

He re-recorded it for Doc and the Boys in 1976, and a 2003 compilation takes its name from the song.

What'll You Do About Me was written by Dennis Linde and recorded by several artists before Doug Supernaw took it to No. 16 on Billboard’s country chart in early 1995.

McGuffey Lane and Steve Earle recorded it in 1984, and Randy Travis and the Forester Sisters cut it later. Supernaw’s version, from his album Deep Thoughts from a Shallow Mind, was released on January 9, 1995. The song is sung by an obsessive stalker, and with the O.J. Simpson trial in the news, some radio stations refused to play it.

BNA Records sent out an edited version, but the song fell quickly from No. 16, and the label soon dropped Supernaw.

My First Taste Of Texas is a song about Texas that Ed Bruce wrote with Ronnie Rogers. It opens his 1982 album I Write It Down, which Tommy West produced for MCA Records.

MCA released it on January 17, 1983, as the second single from the album, following the No. 4 hit “Ever, Never Lovin’ You,” and it climbed to No. 6 on Billboard’s country chart and No. 33 in Canada.

The flip side was “One More Shot at Old Back Home Again.” The album also includes Bruce’s own recording of “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” which he wrote with his wife Patsy, and which became a No. 1 hit for Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.

Old Wore Out Cowboys is a bittersweet song for aging drifters that Ed Bruce wrote with Ron Peterson. Bruce recorded it for his 1978 album Cowboys & Dreamers, produced by Buddy Killen for Epic Records and recorded in July 1978 at Soundshop Studio in Nashville.

The song asks whether there is some place left for old wore out cowboys and broken-down pickers and dreamers: a place with straight cue sticks, cold beer and a jukebox playing Hank Williams for free. Only two singles came from the album, and this wasn’t one of them.

It found new life in 2015 when Ward Davis recorded it as a duet with Willie Nelson and Jamey Johnson, and Cody Jinks later performed it with Davis.

You're The Best Break This Old Heart Ever Had  was Ed Bruce’s only No. 1 hit, and it took him almost 25 years to get there.

His first single came out in 1957, and this was his 22nd chart hit. Wayland Holyfield and Randy Hatch wrote the song, and Tommy West produced it for MCA. Released in November 1981 as the third single from the album One to One, it spent one week at No. 1 in March 1982, stayed on the chart for 21 weeks and reached No. 10 in Canada.

Bruce is also remembered for writing “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” a No. 1 for Waylon and Willie, and “Texas (When I Die),” a hit for Tanya Tucker.

Drivin' My Life Away was Eddie Rabbitt’s breakthrough crossover hit. He wrote it with Even Stevens and producer David Malloy, and Elektra released it on June 9, 1980, as the lead single from his album Horizon.

A breezy road song, it reached No. 1 on the country chart in the summer of 1980, spent four weeks at the top of the Radio & Records country survey and climbed to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

It was the first of four pop top-10 hits for him. Rabbitt followed it with “I Love a Rainy Night,” which hit No. 1 on both charts. Aaron Tippin, Tom Jones and Rhett Akins have all recorded it, and Rabbitt mentioned it in his own 1990 hit “Running with the Wind.”

Pour Me Another Tequila opens Eddie Rabbitt’s 1979 album Loveline, the same record that gave him the No. 1 hits “Suspicions” and “Gone Too Far.”

Rabbitt wrote it with his regular co-writers Even Stevens and David Malloy, who also produced the album. Elektra released it as a single on October 22, 1979, and it climbed to No. 5 on Billboard’s country chart and No. 3 in Canada.

It sat between two chart-toppers, and it showed how Rabbitt’s smooth, pop-flavored sound could still carry a country barroom theme. Loveline was recorded with top session players, including keyboardists Randy McCormick and Barry Beckett.

Two Dollars In The Jukebox was the third single from Eddie Rabbitt’s 1976 album Rocky Mountain Music, released on November 6, 1976.

Rabbitt wrote it alone, and David Malloy produced it. It was one of the most traditional country songs of his early career, built on bouncy energy and thick vocal harmonies that Rabbitt mostly overdubbed himself. It followed his first No. 1, “Drinkin’ My Baby (Off My Mind),” and the title song “Rocky Mountain Music,” which reached No. 5.

“Two Dollars in the Jukebox” climbed to No. 3 on Billboard’s country chart in early 1977 and No. 2 in Canada. A few years later, Rabbitt moved to a smoother pop-country sound and became a major crossover star.

I Got Mexico gave Eddy Raven his first No. 1 country hit. He wrote it with Frank J. Myers, and RCA released it in early 1984 as the first single from his album I Could Use Another You.

The song is a breakup story with a twist: the narrator is living well in Mexico, but only because he’s trying to heal a broken heart, and he admits he still loves the woman who left him for someone else. It reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart on June 16, 1984, and was the first No. 1 produced or co-produced by Paul Worley, who had mostly been known as a session guitarist and songwriter.

Raven also wrote “Thank God for Kids,” a hit for the Oak Ridge Boys.

I Shot Your Dog is a darkly funny confession song by Canadian songwriter Fred Eaglesmith, who wrote it himself for his 2003 album Balin, made with his band The Flathead Noodlers.

A man goes next door to admit a secret that has been keeping him awake: he thought the neighbor’s dog was a coyote after his chickens, and he pulled the trigger. He apologizes, offers to make it right and promises his neighbor the pick of the litter from his old coon hound.

Eaglesmith, born Frederick Elgersma in Ontario to a Dutch immigrant family, is known for short-story-style songs with unreliable narrators and for long, funny stories between songs.

Easy Loving was the breakthrough hit that rescued Freddie Hart’s career.

Hart wrote it and first recorded it in 1969 for his Capitol album California Grapevine, but the label was ready to drop him after an earlier single stalled at No. 68. In mid-1971 a disc jockey at Atlanta’s WPLO began playing it, listeners responded, and it hit No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart on September 11, 1971.

It also reached No. 17 on the Hot 100, his only pop hit, and went gold. The song won Song of the Year at both the Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association awards, and the CMA honored it again in 1972. It was the first of six straight No. 1 hits for Hart.

Before The Next Teardrop Falls was written in 1967 by Vivian Keith and Ben Peters at Fingerlake Music in Nashville. Keith, a publishing-company secretary, came up with the title, and Peters added the word “drop” and finished the lyrics in about a night.

More than two dozen artists recorded it, including Duane Dee, whose 1967 version reached No. 44, and Linda Martell, who took it to No. 33. In 1974, producer Huey Meaux persuaded Freddy Fender to sing over an instrumental track, adding a Spanish-language verse.

Released in January 1975 on ABC-Dot, it spent two weeks at No. 1 on the country chart and one week at No. 1 on the Hot 100, went gold and won the CMA’s Single of the Year award.

Secret Love was written by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster for the 1953 film Calamity Jane, where Doris Day introduced it and took it to No. 1. Slim Whitman took it to No. 2 on the country chart in 1954.

Freddy Fender recorded his version in the summer of 1975 at SugarHill Studios in Houston with producer Huey P. Meaux, and it was released that October as a single from his album Are You Ready for Freddy?. It reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart on December 6, 1975, his third country chart-topper, and also climbed to No. 20 on the Hot 100 and No. 10 on the adult contemporary chart.

The album went to No. 1 on the country albums chart.

Wasted Days And Wasted Nights is a blues ballad that Freddy Fender wrote with club owner Wayne Duncan and first recorded in 1959 for Duncan Records. Fender’s career stalled for years, but after “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” became a smash in 1975, producer Huey P. Meaux had him record the song again.

ABC-Dot released the new version in June 1975 as the second single from Before the Next Teardrop Falls. It reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart in August 1975 and No. 8 on the Hot 100, and it was certified gold.

It was also a No. 1 hit in New Zealand, and Fender recorded a Spanish version, “Noches y Días Perdidos.”

Past The Point Of Rescue was written by Irish songwriter Mick Hanly, who recorded it on his album No Frontiers.

Hal Ketchum made it the title track of his 1991 debut album on Curb Records, produced by Allen Reynolds and Jim Rooney. Released as the third single on February 10, 1992, it reached No. 2 on Billboard’s country chart in May 1992 and No. 1 on Canada’s RPM country chart. Steve Boyle directed the music video.

It was the highest-charting single from the gold-certified album, and the Dixie Chicks also recorded it on their 1992 album Little Ol’ Cowgirl. Ketchum never topped the U.S. country chart, but this song gave him a No. 1 in Canada.

Satisfied Mind is a song written by Tony Arata, the Nashville songwriter behind Garth Brooks’ “The Dance.”

It should not be confused with the 1955 country classic “A Satisfied Mind,” made famous by Porter Wagoner. Hal Ketchum recorded Arata’s song in 1996 as one of three new tracks on his greatest-hits collection The Hits, released on May 7, 1996, by MCG/Curb Records. The other new songs were “Wings of a Dove” and “Hang in There Superman.”

Allen Reynolds and Jim Rooney produced the album, which peaked at No. 43 on Billboard’s country albums chart. Ketchum, born in Greenwich, New York, joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1994.

Small Town Saturday Night was Hal Ketchum’s debut single and the song that introduced him to country fans. Pat Alger and Hank DeVito wrote it, and Allen Reynolds and Jim Rooney produced it for Curb Records.

Released on April 16, 1991, it is an upbeat picture of a Saturday night in a small town, inspired by New Braunfels, Texas. It reached No. 2 on Billboard’s country chart in August 1991 and No. 1 on the Radio & Records chart. The music video mixed in footage from the 1938 western film The Terror of Tiny Town, ending with a horse dancing with the singer.

It led off the gold-certified album Past the Point of Rescue, and the single itself was certified gold in 2024.

Gotta Sell Them Chickens is a playful western swing duet between Hank Thompson and guit-steel wizard Junior Brown. Thompson wrote it, and its full title is “Gotta Sell Them Chickens (Before They Die, and the Eggs Before They Hatch).”

Bill Millet produced it for Curb Records, which released it in 1997 as the first single from Hank Thompson and Friends, an album that teamed the then 72-year-old Thompson with younger stars such as Vince Gill, David Ball and Lyle Lovett. A Country Standard Time review called it classic Thompson, with witty lyrics and impeccable musicianship.

The single didn’t make the country chart, but it introduced the Country Music Hall of Famer, known for “The Wild Side of Life,” to a new generation.

Two Six Packs A Day is a classic-sounding drinking song from Los Angeles country-rock singer J.D. King. It opens his 2008 album Here’s J.D. King, runs about three minutes and fifty seconds, and is credited to songwriter Jordon Matthew Davis.

One review called it a timeless drinking tune that conjures the honky-tonk ghosts of Bakersfield’s heyday, and described the album as following the vintage California sound of Merle Haggard, Buck Owens and the Byrds. King also released the song as a download single in August 2010, and its Bandcamp page says it was written while he was drinking.

He later put out a 2021 single, “Two Six Packs a Day Jam.”

You're Only Lonely was the biggest solo hit for songwriter JD Souther, who also co-wrote Eagles classics such as “New Kid in Town” and “Heartache Tonight.”

He wrote the title song of his 1979 Columbia album, and it was released in August 1979. It climbed to No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100, his only pop top-10 hit, and held No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart for five weeks. Critics hear a lot of Roy Orbison in it, and Souther has said he borrowed the rockabilly beat from Orbison’s “I’m Hurtin’.”

Friends Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Don Felder, Jackson Browne and Phil Everly sang backing vocals. Souther died in 2024 at age 78.

All I Ever Need Is You was written by Jimmy Holiday and Eddie Reeves, and Ray Charles recorded it first in 1971. Sonny & Cher turned it into a pop hit later that year, reaching No. 7 on the Hot 100 and spending five weeks at No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart.

Jerry Reed and Chet Atkins recorded an all-instrumental version for their 1972 duet album Me & Chet, trading guitar lines in about two minutes and five seconds. The album reached No. 24 on the country albums chart and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance.

This version was never released as a single. Kenny Rogers and Dottie West later made the song a No. 1 country hit in 1979.

Amos Moses is a funky country-rock story song written and recorded by Jerry Reed, with Chet Atkins producing. It tells of a one-armed Cajun alligator poacher named Amos Moses, the son of Doc and Hanna Milsap, who lives about 45 minutes southeast of Thibodaux, Louisiana.

The song follows his rough upbringing and his run-ins with the law, including the sheriff who snuck into the swamp to catch him and never came out again. Released on October 19, 1970, as the fourth single from Georgia Sunshine, it reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100,

Reed’s highest-charting pop single, and No. 16 on the country chart. It was also No. 2 in Canada, went gold and became a favorite line dance.

East Bound And Down is the theme song of the 1977 movie Smokey and the Bandit, in which Jerry Reed also co-starred as the trucker Cledus “Snowman” Snow.

Reed wrote it with his longtime songwriting partner Dick Feller, who is now known as Deena Kaye Rose and is credited under that name on current listings. The song was written for the film and essentially tells its story of hauling a load across the country fast, with a long way to go and a short time to get there.

RCA released it as a single on August 1, 1977, and it reached No. 2 on Billboard’s country chart. Truckers still use phrases like “east bound and down” as a CB radio sign-off.

Broad Minded Man was written by Jim Owen and recorded by Jim Ed Brown in 1973 for RCA Victor, with Bob Ferguson producing. RCA released it as a single that summer, and it reached No. 15 on Billboard’s country chart and No. 11 in Canada.

It was added to the album The Best of Jim Ed Brown later that year, which peaked at No. 21 on the country albums chart. Brown first became famous in the 1950s as part of the vocal trio The Browns with his two sisters.

He scored solo hits such as “Pop a Top” and later teamed up with Helen Cornelius for a string of popular duets. Brown died in June 2015.

Waitin' For A Train is one of the most famous songs by Jimmie Rodgers, the “Singing Brakeman.” Rodgers is credited as the writer, but it grew out of older folk songs, including “Danville Girl” and an earlier hobo tune.

He recorded it on October 22, 1928, at Victor’s studio in Atlanta, backed by cornet, clarinet, steel guitar, guitar and bass, and the fourth take became the master. Victor released it on February 8, 1929, as the flip side of “Blue Yodel No. 4 (California Blues).”

Rodgers opens with a train whistle, sings the first verse and follows with his signature yodel. He later performed the song in the 1930 short film The Singing Brakeman.

Big Bad John is a story song about a mysterious six-foot-six miner who holds up a collapsing mine roof so 20 men can escape, giving his own life in the process.

Jimmy Dean wrote the beginnings of it on a flight from New York to Nashville because he needed a fourth song for a recording session, and Roy Acuff later helped him polish it. Dean recorded it on August 18, 1961, and pianist Floyd Cramer suggested the hammer-on-steel sound heard in the background.

It started as the B-side of “I Won’t Go Huntin’ with You Jake,” then spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 and two weeks at No. 1 on the country chart. It reached No. 2 in the UK and won the 1962 Grammy for Best Country & Western Recording.

Walk On Boy was written by Mel Tillis and Wayne Walker, and Jimmy Dean recorded it on October 18, 1961, at the Bradley studio in Nashville, famously known as the “Quonset Hut.” Columbia released it in 1962 as the B-side of “P.T. 109,”

Dean’s tribute to John F. Kennedy’s wartime heroism, which reached No. 3 on the country chart, No. 8 on the pop chart and No. 2 on the adult contemporary chart.

Tillis also wrote “Detroit City” and “Honey (Open That Door),” and Doc Watson later recorded “Walk On Boy” on his 1966 album Southbound.

I'll See You In My Dreams is a 1924 standard composed by Isham Jones with lyrics by Gus Kahn, first recorded in December 1924 by Isham Jones and Ray Miller’s Orchestra. It was a huge hit in 1925, spending seven weeks at No. 1, and it became the title song of the 1951 film about Kahn’s life.

Pat Boone took it to No. 32 on the Hot 100 in 1962. Joe Brown, the English guitarist and singer, made it famous to a new generation when he closed the 2002 Concert for George, the tribute to George Harrison, playing it on the ukulele at the request of Harrison’s widow Olivia and Eric Clapton.

Harrison loved the song, and it’s now a favorite among ukulele players.

Sold  (The Grundy County Auction Incident)  is a fast-talking novelty love song that John Michael Montgomery made one of the biggest country hits of 1995.

Richard Fagan and Robb Royer wrote it, reportedly after a conversation at the Boardwalk Café in Tennessee, at a time when Nashville was looking for songs like Montgomery’s earlier hit “Be My Baby Tonight.”

The narrator spots a woman at a county auction and “auctions off” his heart in rapid-fire auctioneer rhythm. Released on May 1, 1995, as the second single from his self-titled album, it debuted at No. 71, spent three weeks at No. 1 in July and was Billboard’s top country single of 1995. It also hit No. 1 in Canada, and Cledus T. Judd later spoofed it twice.

Lookin' For Love was Johnny Lee’s first No. 1 hit and the song most closely tied to the 1980 movie Urban Cowboy. T

wo school teachers, Wanda Mallette and Patti Ryan, wrote it about a classroom of second graders, and songwriter Bob Morrison then helped reshape it into a love song. More than 20 artists reportedly turned it down before Lee, at the request of Full Moon Records owner Irving Azoff, recorded it for the film’s soundtrack in spring 1980.

Released on June 30, 1980, it spent three weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart and reached No. 5 on the Hot 100, and it was certified gold. Lee made it the title track of his October 1980 album and also recorded a Spanish version, “Buscando Amor.”

Ridin' My Thumb To Mexico is the signature song of Johnny Rodriguez, the first country star of Mexican American descent. Rodriguez wrote it himself and recorded it in May 1973 at Mercury’s studio in Nashville, just as he was becoming Music Row’s newest star after his No. 1 hit “You Always Come Back (To Hurting Me).” Released in August 1973 as the first single from his second album, All I Ever Meant to Do Was Sing, it is a two-minute hard-luck tale that mixes wanderlust with heartbreak. It was his second No. 1, staying on top for two weeks, and it reached No. 70 on the Hot 100, his biggest pop crossover.

We All Get Lucky Sometimes is the title track of Lee Roy Parnell’s fourth album, released on August 1, 1995, and the first for Career Records, a newly formed label of Arista Nashville.

Gary Nicholson and Jimmy Scott wrote the song, and Scott Hendricks, Bill Halverson and Parnell produced the record. The title track was the album’s final single, released in 1996 after “A Little Bit of You” and “Heart’s Desire,” which topped the Radio & Records chart. It reached No. 46 on Billboard’s country chart.

The album also featured guest vocals from Trisha Yearwood, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Tex-Mex accordionist Flaco Jiménez.

Baby Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me began as a joke. When producer Rick Hall asked Mac Davis for a song with a strong hook for his first solo album,

Davis took the request literally and came up with the line “Baby, don’t get hooked on me.” Hall heard the potential right away and told him to finish the song, and it was recorded the day after Davis wrote it. A restless narrator warns a woman not to fall for him because he isn’t ready for family ties.

Released in mid-1972, it spent three weeks at No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the adult contemporary chart, ranked No. 8 for the year and was Davis’s only Hot 100 chart-topper. Davis, who also wrote Elvis Presley’s “In the Ghetto,” died in 2020.

Mrs Steven Rudy is a playful story about a man who covets his neighbor’s wife. Mark McGuinn wrote it with Shane Decker, and the two also produced it for the small independent label VFR Records.

The label first planned to release “That’s a Plan” as McGuinn’s debut single, but after a DJ at KPLX in Dallas started playing “Mrs. Steven Rudy,” listeners responded so strongly that it became the first release in January 2001. McGuinn, who had a jazz background and a beatnik image, was called a dark horse on the country scene.

The song reached No. 6 on Billboard’s country chart and No. 44 on the Hot 100, and it was the top-selling country single for five straight weeks in 2001.

Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On is a light-hearted song about a woman turning heads in her blue jeans, and it was Mel McDaniel’s only No. 1 hit.

Bob McDill, who was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2023, wrote it, and it was reportedly first pitched to Conway Twitty before McDaniel recorded it on August 23, 1984. Jerry Kennedy produced it for Capitol, which released it on October 12, 1984, as the first single from the album Let It Roll. It debuted at No. 75, reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart in early 1985 and also topped Canada’s country chart.

It earned Grammy and CMA nominations, and Sammy Kershaw covered it in 2006.

It Was Always So Easy (To Find an Unhappy Woman) was written by Whitey Shafer and Doodle Owens, and Moe Bandy released it on the GRC label in November 1974.

It became the title track of his second album, produced by Ray Baker, with Charlie McCoy playing on the sessions. The title sets up a barroom joke: the narrator says it was always easy to find an unhappy woman, until he started looking for his own. It reached No. 7 on Billboard’s country chart, following his first charting single, “I Just Started Hatin’ Cheatin’ Songs Today,” and the album reached No. 9.

A year later he moved to Columbia Records, where “Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life” became a top-three hit.

My Silver Lining was written by Roger Murrah and Tina Murrah and released by Mickey Gilley on July 9, 1979, as the lead single from his album Mickey Gilley. Jerry Foster and Bill Rice produced the track, and Bill Justis wrote the arrangement.

At only about two minutes long, it is a short, tuneful song. It climbed to No. 8 on Billboard’s country chart and No. 62 in Canada, and it was followed by “A Little Gettin’ Used To.”

Gilley, who died in 2022, charted more than 40 top-40 country singles, including “Room Full of Roses” and “Don’t the Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time.”

Stand By Me is a soul classic written by Ben E. King with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and King’s version was a hit in 1961.

Mickey Gilley recorded his own country version in 1980 for the film Urban Cowboy, which was shot at his Texas nightclub, Gilley’s, in Pasadena. He has said he was hesitant to record it. Released on May 31, 1980, it appears on both the movie soundtrack and his album Encore.

It reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart in August 1980, No. 3 on the adult contemporary chart and No. 22 on the Hot 100, his only pop top-40 hit. Gilley, who had 17 No. 1 country singles in all, died on May 7, 2022, at age 86.

No Doubt About It was Neal McCoy’s breakthrough hit and his first No. 1 country single.

John Scott Sherrill and Steve Seskin wrote it, and Atlantic Records released it on December 6, 1993, as the first single and title track from his third album. Barry Beckett produced the album, which came out in February 1994 and was later certified platinum.

The song reached No. 1 on both Billboard’s country chart and Canada’s RPM country chart in early 1994, and it also crossed over to No. 75 on the Hot 100. The same writing team also wrote McCoy’s later top-three hit “For a Change.” McCoy followed it with another No. 1, “Wink.”

Wink was the second No. 1 hit from Neal McCoy’s breakthrough album No Doubt About It.

Bob DiPiero and Tom Shapiro wrote the uptempo, playful song, and Barry Beckett produced it for Atlantic Records, which released it on April 11, 1994. It reached No. 1 on both Billboard’s country chart and Canada’s country chart, and it also reached No. 91 on the Hot 100.

The song runs only 2 minutes and 42 seconds. Shapiro, who also co-wrote Rhett Akins’ “That Ain’t My Truck,” was named BMI’s Country Songwriter of the Year in 2002, and DiPiero co-wrote McCoy’s 1995 hit “They’re Playin’ Our Song.”

For The Good Times is one of the saddest songs in country music. Kris Kristofferson wrote the first verse and chorus in 1968 while driving from Nashville to the Gulf of Mexico, and he has said it grew out of the end of a real relationship.

Bill Nash recorded it first in 1968, and Kristofferson put it on his own 1970 debut album. Ray Price recorded it with an orchestra on March 16, 1970, at Columbia Studio A in Nashville, and it gave him his first No. 1 country hit in nearly 11 years. It reached No. 1 in September 1970 and No. 11 on the Hot 100, his only pop top-40 hit.

It won the Academy of Country Music’s Song of the Year award, and Price won a Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance.

She Said Yes is a sweet love story from Rhett Akins’ debut album, A Thousand Memories.

Akins wrote it with Joe Doyle, and Mark Wright produced it, with strings arranged and conducted by Bergen White. Released on October 9, 1995, as the fourth and final single from the album, it debuted at No. 63 on Billboard’s country chart and peaked at No. 17, with a No. 20 peak in Canada.

The song follows a shy boy who asks a girl to dance, and the two hold on until the last song, a moment that starts a lifelong romance. The music video, directed by Mary Newman-Said, shows a couple who meet at a high school dance, marry and grow old together.

That Ain't My Truck became Rhett Akins’ signature song. He wrote it with Tom Shapiro and Chris Waters, and the idea came by accident when Akins said the words out loud while talking, and his co-writers told him it would make a great song title.

The up-tempo song’s narrator comes home and finds a strange truck in the driveway, a sign that he has lost his girl to someone else.

Mark Wright produced it for Decca Records, which released it on May 1, 1995, as the third single from A Thousand Memories. It debuted at No. 65, spent 21 weeks on Billboard’s country chart and peaked at No. 3, with a No. 7 peak in Canada.

From A Jack To A King was written and first recorded by Ned Miller in 1957, but it didn’t chart until Miller’s label reissued it in December 1962.

Then it became a hit on both the country and pop charts, reaching No. 2 in the UK and No. 1 in Ireland. Ricky Van Shelton recorded his version on January 19, 1988, at the suggestion of his wife, Bettye Witt, for his second album, Loving Proof. Steve Buckingham produced it, with Mark O’Connor on fiddle.

Released on December 24, 1988, it reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart in March 1989 and was Shelton’s fifth straight No. 1. Elvis Presley and Jim Reeves also recorded the song.

I've Cried My Last Tear For You was written by Chris Waters and Tony King, and Ricky Van Shelton recorded it on May 16, 1988, though it wasn’t released until nearly two years later.

Columbia Nashville issued it on February 27, 1990, as the second single from his album RVS III, produced by Steve Buckingham. It became his seventh No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart and also topped Canada’s country chart.

It was the only chart-topper from RVS III, which itself reached No. 1 on the country albums chart and was certified platinum in the U.S. Waters also co-wrote Rhett Akins’ “That Ain’t My Truck.”

Don't Cheat In Our Hometown was written by Ray Pennington and Roy E. Marcum, and the Stanley Brothers first recorded it in 1963 for the King Records album The Country Folk Music Spotlight, in sessions produced by Pennington.

Ricky Skaggs gave it new life in November 1983 as the first single and title track from his sixth studio album, which he produced himself. It spent one week at No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart, 12 weeks in all, and was also No. 1 in Canada, making it his sixth No. 1 hit.

The album topped the country albums chart and was certified gold in the U.S. and platinum in Canada. Dolly Parton sang harmony on two of its tracks.

Honey (Open That Door) was written by Mel Tillis and first recorded by Webb Pierce, who put it on his 1962 album Hideaway Heart and later released it as a non-charting single in the mid-1970s. Ricky Skaggs turned it into a hit in 1984.

It was released in February 1984 as the second single from his album Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown, which Skaggs produced himself. The song is a comic plea from a man locked out in the cold who begs “honey” to open the door and promises to sleep on the floor if she lets him in.

It was Skaggs’ seventh No. 1 country hit, spending one week at No. 1 and 11 weeks on the chart.

When the Roses Bloom Again is a sentimental war ballad from 1901, written by Will D. Cobb and Gus Edwards and based on an old Irish folk tune. It tells of a soldier and his sweetheart strolling at dusk, then of a dying soldier who asks his captain to carry him to a distant river where roses bloom and a little girl waits.

This version comes from July 28, 2012, when Ricky Skaggs invited Bee Gees star Barry Gibb to make his Grand Ole Opry debut. Backed by Skaggs’ band Kentucky Thunder, Gibb sang the old ballad, then performed the Bee Gees hits “To Love Somebody” and “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.”

Gibb had also given Skaggs his song “Soldier’s Son” for the album Music to My Ears.

Crazy Again is a high-energy honky-tonk song from Roger Creager’s 2012 album Surrender, his first studio album in several years.

AllMusic credits Creager and Paul Overstreet as the writers. Lloyd Maines produced the record, which came out on January 17, 2012, on Creager’s own Fun All Wrong Records label.

One reviewer described it as one of the rowdy numbers that follow the opening track, “Turn It Up,” and said the album captures the crowd-pleasing feel of Creager’s best live shows. Creager, who was born in Corpus Christi and was a member of the Texas A&M Aggie Band, built his career on the Texas country scene.

Having Fun All Wrong is the title song of Roger Creager’s debut album, Having Fun All Wrong, released in 1998. Creager has said the song comes from the summer of 1996, a wild stretch of his life before he left his accounting career in 1997 to pursue music full time.

He recorded the album at Cedar Creek Studios in Austin and celebrated its release with a CD release party at Shadow Canyon in College Station in September 1998.

The album also includes “The Everclear Song,” which became a Texas country anthem. A live version, titled “Having Fun All Wrong,” appears on his album Live Across Texas.

River Song is the third track on Roger Creager’s 2014 album Road Show, a seven-song collection produced by Lloyd Maines and released on July 22, 2014, on Creager’s Fun All Wrong Records label.

The song runs about three minutes and thirteen seconds, and it was also issued as a promotional single that year. Road Show reached No. 20 on Billboard’s country albums chart.

The album’s credits include outside writers such as Paul Overstreet, Allen Shamblin and Tia Sillers alongside Creager. Creager grew up in Corpus Christi, graduated from Texas A&M in 1993 and remains one of Texas country’s most popular live performers.

Storybook opens Roger Creager’s 2000 album I Got the Guns, which he self-released and Dualtone reissued in 2002. Creager wrote it himself, and he has described it as “day-dreaming out loud.”

A harmonica and acoustic guitar kick it off before a bouncy electric guitar joins in. The narrator sits in his backyard sipping iced tea and imagines life as a ship captain or an old-fashioned sailor at sea, and he hopes that someday people will dream and read about him.

The album was recorded at Cedar Creek Studios in Austin and debuted at No. 1 on the Lone Star Music chart. A live version appears on Live Across Texas.

Any Day Now was written in 1962 by Burt Bacharach and lyricist Bob Hilliard, and it was first a hit for soul singer Chuck Jackson. Ronnie Milsap recorded his version in 1981 for the album Inside, and RCA released it in April 1982.

Producer Tom Collins urged Milsap to make it sound different from the original, so he changed the key and sang it softly. The result topped both the country and adult contemporary charts, reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was Billboard’s top adult contemporary single of 1982.

It was one of three No. 1 country hits from the album. Milsap, born in North Carolina, has been blind since birth.

Happy Birthday Baby was written by Margo Sylvia and her brother Gilbert Lopez, members of the Boston doo-wop group The Tune Weavers, who recorded it on March 7, 1957.

Released that July, it went to No. 5 on the Hot 100 and No. 4 on the R&B chart and was the group’s only hit. Ronnie Milsap revived it in 1986 for his album Lost in the Fifties Tonight, which he co-produced with Rob Galbraith and Tom Collins. RCA released it on March 8, 1986, and it became Milsap’s 28th No. 1 country hit.

BMI honored Sylvia and Lopez with a country songwriting award that year. Sylvia died in October 1991.

Lovers Friends And Strangers  was written by Kent Robbins, who also wrote Milsap’s “(I’m A) Stand by My Woman Man” and Trace Adkins’ “Every Light in the House.”

Ronnie Milsap recorded it for his 1976 album 20/20 Vision, and RCA released it that July as the B-side of “(I’m A) Stand by My Woman Man,” his sixth No. 1 hit. The song looks back on a love in which strangers become friends, friends become lovers and then, when the same fire burns too hot, lovers turn back into strangers, a circle the singer says keeps turning.

Barbara Mandrell also recorded it as the title track of her 1977 album, which Tom Collins produced, just as he did for Milsap.

From Now On All My Friends Are Gonna Be Strangers was written by Liz Anderson around 1964, and its narrator, embittered by a deceitful lover, vows to be through with love and to trust no one.

Merle Haggard recorded it first, releasing it on November 2, 1964, and it became his first Top 10 country hit. Haggard later named his backing band The Strangers after it. Roy Drusky recorded his own version for Mercury Records, produced by Shelby Singleton and Jerry Kennedy, and it was released on January 4, 1965.

Drusky’s record reached No. 6 on Billboard’s country chart and was the bigger hit at the time, though Haggard’s version is the one best remembered today.

Sixteen Tons was written and first recorded by Kentucky guitar legend Merle Travis on August 8, 1946, for the four-disc 78-rpm album Folk Songs of the Hills.

It was based on the hard life of coal-mining families in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, and its famous line about getting “another day older and deeper in debt” came from a letter written by his brother John. Tennessee Ernie Ford recorded it on September 20, 1955, as the B-side of “You Don’t Have to Be a Baby to Cry.”

Disc jockeys flipped the record, it sold a million copies in 24 days, and it topped the country chart for ten weeks and the pop chart for eight. It became Ford’s signature song and the fastest-selling single in Capitol Records’ history.

I Loved 'Em Everyone is a man’s tribute to all the women he has known over the years, and it gave T.G. Sheppard his seventh No. 1 country hit. Phil Sampson wrote it, and Buddy Killen produced it for Warner Bros./Curb Records.

Released in March 1981 as the first single from the album I Love ’Em All, it spent one week at No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart and three weeks at the top of the Radio & Records chart.

It crossed over to No. 37 on the Hot 100, Sheppard’s only pop top-40 hit, and reached No. 3 on the adult contemporary chart. The album peaked at No. 7 on the country albums chart.

Which Way To Pray is a gospel-leaning song written by T. Graham Brown, Bill Anderson and Gary Nicholson.

Brown first recorded it for his 2003 album The Next Right Thing, and he revisited it on his 2015 gospel album Forever Changed, where Sonya Isaacs of The Isaacs is credited as a featured artist on the track. Brown, from Arabi, Georgia, scored three No. 1 country hits in the 1980s with “Hell and High Water,” “Don’t Go to Strangers” and “Darlene.”

Both albums reflect the faith-based songs that became a bigger part of his later career.

Every Light In The House Is On .was Trace Adkins’ first top-five hit. Nashville songwriter Kent Robbins wrote it, and Scott Hendricks produced it for Adkins’ 1996 debut album, Dreamin’ Out Loud.

Released on August 20, 1996, as the second single, it debuted at No. 72, spent 21 weeks on Billboard’s country chart and peaked at No. 3 in December 1996. The mid-tempo ballad, built mostly on piano and fiddle, tells of a man whose wife has just left him. He turns on every light in the house and keeps them on in case she decides to come home.

The single was certified gold, and country parodist Cledus T. Judd spoofed it as “Every Light in the House Is Blown.”

This Ain't No Thinking Thing was Trace Adkins’ first No. 1 country hit. Tim Nichols and Mark D. Sanders wrote it, and Scott Hendricks produced it.

Released on January 21, 1997, as the third single from Dreamin’ Out Loud, it spent 20 weeks on the chart and reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart dated April 5, 1997, and on Canada’s RPM country chart later that month. It remained Adkins’ only No. 1 for about ten years, until “Ladies Love Country Boys” in 2007.

In April 1997, Adkins also won the Academy of Country Music’s Top New Male Vocalist award, and Dreamin’ Out Loud was certified platinum.

Wayfaring Stranger is a traditional folk and gospel song, not a Trace Adkins original. Its lyrics are about a weary soul traveling through this world toward a better home in heaven.

The song likely dates to the early 19th century, its lyrics were printed in 1858, and artists from Burl Ives to Joan Baez have recorded it. Adkins and producer Scott Hendricks created their own arrangement for his second album, Big Time, released in October 1997, where it closes the record at 3 minutes and 35 seconds.

It also appeared as the B-side of his 1998 single “Lonely Won’t Leave Me Alone” and on the Sparrow Records compilation Amazing Grace II.

I Can Tell By The Way You Dance (You’re Gonna Love Me Tonight) was written by Sandy Pinkard and Robb Strandlund and first recorded by Gary Morris on his 1982 self-titled album.

Vern Gosdin at first felt the song was too rock and roll for him and didn’t record it for two years. Compleat Records released it on March 26, 1984, as the lead single from his album There Is a Season, produced by Blake Mevis. It became his first No. 1 country hit, topped Canada’s country chart and was Billboard’s No. 2 country single of 1984. One critic noted its Alabama-style groove and guitar solo.

The Los Angeles Times named the album the year’s best in country, and Josh Turner later covered the song.

Is It Raining At Your House is a sad ballad that Vern Gosdin wrote with Dean Dillon and Hank Cochran. The idea reportedly came when Gosdin called Cochran during a Nashville thunderstorm and asked whether it was raining at his house like it was at Gosdin’s.

The song first appeared on Gosdin’s 1988 album Chiseled in Stone, but Columbia didn’t release it as a single until December 1990, when it was included on the compilation 10 Years of Greatest Hits.

It reached No. 10 on Billboard’s country chart and No. 8 in Canada, and it was Gosdin’s last top-10 hit. Brad Paisley, Lorrie Morgan and Jamey Johnson have all covered it.

On A Good Night was the title song and lead single from Wade Hayes’ second album, released on May 7, 1996.

Larry Boone, Don Cook and Paul Nelson wrote it, and Cook produced it. The upbeat song is an ode to everything that makes a good night, including meeting a special woman. It debuted at No. 61 on Billboard’s country chart on May 11, 1996, and peaked at No. 2, with a No. 4 peak in Canada.

Billboard praised how well Hayes’ and Cook’s voices blend on the record. The album arrived on June 25, 1996, and reached No. 11 on the country albums chart. Hayes grew up in Bethel Acres, Oklahoma.

What I Meant To Say showed that Wade Hayes could do more than hell-raising honky-tonk songs.

Don Cook, Sam Hogin and Jim McBride wrote the heartfelt ballad, and Cook produced it. Released at the end of October 1995, it was the fourth and final single from Hayes’ debut album, Old Enough to Know Better, following his No. 1 hit “Old Enough to Know Better.”

The song climbed to No. 5 on Billboard’s country chart in early 1996, reached No. 15 in Canada and also made Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100 at No. 116. Its flip side was “Kentucky Bluebird,” written by Cook and Wally Wilson.

Why Baby Why was written by George Jones and Darrell Edwards, and Jones recorded it first in Houston on August 27, 1955.

His Starday single, released that September, reached No. 4 and was his first hit. Edwards reportedly got the idea after overhearing a couple fighting in a car. Webb Pierce and Red Sovine then recorded a duet cover on October 27, 1955, at the Bradley studio in Nashville, and Decca released it that December.

With Decca’s national distribution, it overtook Jones’ original and reached No. 1 in early 1956, giving Sovine his first No. 1 hit. The song has stayed popular: Hank Locklin took it to No. 9 later in 1956, and Charley Pride had a No. 1 with it in 1983.