The 30 or so Greatest Southern Songs (cont.)

20. My Old Kentucky Home

Like many songs written in the 19th century, “My Old Kentucky Home,” shares conflicting stories of its origin, along with a few lyric changes that have been passed down through history. The song was written by (presumably) America’s first professional songwriter, Stephen Foster. Foster (1826-1864) is credited with writing such standards as “Oh Susanna,” “Suwanne River,” and “Camptown Races.” While all of these songs have been sung for generations and have had countless references within pop culture entertainment, “My Old Kentucky Home” remains his lasting legacy.

As the official state song of Kentucky, “My Old Kentucky Home” was originally called, “Poor Uncle Tom, Good Night.” The song describes life on a slave plantation, and in the 1850s was widely seen as being sympathetic to slaves. As legend has it, the song was inspired while Foster was traveling from his native Pennsylvania to New Orleans. Along the way he stopped to visit his cousins, the Rowan family, at their Bardstown, Ky., home, Federal Hill. However, documentation of Foster’s trip does not support claims that he actually visited Bardstown and references in the song point to a small log cabin instead of a stately mansion. Also, Foster’s trip took place in 1852, after the first draft of the song had been penned.

Some theories point to letters from Foster’s sister, who actually lived at Federal Hill for a while, as the inspiration for the song. Another clue to the song’s inspiration can be found in the song’s original title, “Poor Uncle Tom, Good Night.” This was around the time that another “Uncle Tom” was becoming famous, thanks to an 1851 novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Set on a Kentucky plantation, the best-selling novel of the 19th century brought to life the realities of slavery.

Regardless of the song’s inspiration, Foster’s legacy as the father of American songwriting lives on through an almost daily tribute within the Bluegrass State. The revised lyrics of the song, changed in 1986 to become more politically correct, can today be sung and heard at both University of Louisville and University of Kentucky football and basketball games, as well as at the Kentucky Derby, where every year since 1930 the song is played while horses are led to the post at Churchill Downs.

19. Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man

Both Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn were major forces in country music before they recorded their first song together in 1971. “After The Fire Is Gone” is a somber song about the heartaches of a loveless marriage. Twitty and Lynn would go on to record 14 hits together, cementing them as one of the all time best country music duet acts. But it was their third release together that will forever be the signature song of their vocal collaboration.

Becki Bluefield and Jim Owen wrote “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man,” and in 1973, Twitty and Lynn made it a No. 1 hit. The fun, light-hearted song is an upbeat tale of a guy in Mississippi that falls for a Louisiana girl. The song centers around the Mississippi River obstructing the ability for them to get together. (In real life Twitty grew up on the banks of the river in Friars Point, Miss.)

The hit would be one of four No. 1 hits the two would share together. The year of the song’s release, Twitty and Lynn won the CMA vocal duo award.

18. Rocky Top

At age 18, Georgia-born classically trained violinist Diadorius Boudleaux Bryant decided he would rather play a fiddle in a western band than play with the Atlanta Philharmonic Orchestra. Seven years later, while performing at a Milwaukee hotel he met Matilda Genevieve Scaduto (nicknamed ‘Felice’ by Bryant). The two married and became one of the greatest husband-wife songwriting teams in history.

In the early years of their marriage the couple struggled. It wasn’t until 1948 when Little Jimmy Dickens recorded “Country Boy” that the couple received their first break as songwriters. What followed would be a string of legendary hits, including “Bye Bye, Love,” Wake Up, Little Susie,” “Love Hurts,” and “All I Have To Do Is Dream.” However, their most notable contribution to Southern culture came in 1967 while working on a collection of slow-tempo songs for Archie Campbell and Chet Atkins. Working in Gatlinburg, Tenn., the duo needed a break from writing those slow-tempo songs; ten minutes later they had penned “Rocky Top”

Originally recorded by the Osborne Brothers in 1967, it wasn’t until Lynn Anderson recorded the song three years later that it became a hit. The song is about a place named Rocky Top, which is located along the Appalachian Trail in part of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. The lyrics speak of a failed love affair with a mountain girl and East Tennessee’s heritage of moonshining. Though the hit only reached as high as No. 17 on the Billboard charts, its national attention created a regional pride for the area. The song is one of seven official state songs for the state of Tennessee, and today its perhaps best known as the unofficial fight song at the University of Tennessee. “The Pride of the Southland” marching band has been granted a perpetual license to perform the song on the field as often as the team’s success dictates. UT legend Peyton Manning is well-remembered for leading the band in “Rocky Top” following a come-from-behind game-winning drive against Auburn in the 1997 SEC Championship game during his senior season. Tennessee fans have come to embrace the song as University of Alabama fans have begrudgingly had to deal with the fact that the fight song all Bama fans hate the most was actually written by two people with the last name of “Bryant!”

17. Chattahoochee

Y’all columnist and best-selling author Ronda Rich once wrote of the Alan Jackson hit “Chattahoochee,” that “it established Jackson as a songwriting genius on the grounds that he was able to find something that rhymed with the word ‘Chattahoochee.’”

By the song’s debut in ‘93, Jackson had already established himself as a lasting power in country music. Prior to the release of “Chattahoochee,” the third release from Jackson’s third album, he had experienced near unprecedented success. Eleven of the first twelve releases from Jackson charted in the Top 5, including “Chattahoochee” and six other No. 1 singles. But perhaps it was not the success of those first three albums that would establish Jackson as a country music legend-in-waiting; instead it may have been the relationships established with Nashville insiders Jim McBride and Keith Stegall that lifted Jackson to superstardom.

By the time “Chattahoochee” was released, Jackson had already co-written songs with both McBride and Stegall, with Stegall producing all but one song on Jackson’s third album, A Lot About Livin’ (And A Little About Love), which took its name from a verse in the “Chattahoochee” song. Jackson and McBride, who enjoyed prior songwriting success together with “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow,” co-penned “Chattahoochee.” The song is a mild-hearted tribute to Jackson’s formative years growing up near the famous river in his hometown of Newnan, Ga. It not only serves as a nostalgic reminder of the guilty-pleasures of misspent youth, but more importantly it gives validation to the innocence and freedom from responsibility that is too often stripped from modern adolescence.

The single spent four weeks at No. 1 and was the CMA single of the year in 1993. Country music video fans will remember the video, which featured Jackson waterskiing in his signature torn blue jeans and white cowboy hat. The video and the song still receive considerable airtime today. Despite the later successes of the 9/11 tribute single, “Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning),” and the Jimmy Buffett duet, “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” the song “Chattahoochee” remains Alan Jackson’s signature song.

16. Midnight Train To Georgia

In 1964, the Ole Miss Rebels’ all-SEC Quarterback Jim Weatherly completed his senior season in Oxford with a 5-5-1 record. While never leaving football behind completely, the Pontotoc, Miss., native chose to focus his time on songwriting. Almost a decade would pass until Weatherly began to make his mark on music history.

One night while living in Los Angeles, Weatherly called a friend and flag football teammate only to have his friend’s new girlfriend answer the phone. The friend was Lee Majors, and the new girlfriend was a relatively new starlet, Farrah Fawcett. Fawcett told Weatherly that she was packing for a “midnight plane Houston.” Following the telephone call, Weatherly couldn’t get that phrase out of his head. Roughly 45 minutes later Weatherly had penned a song about a girl who goes to L.A. to become a star, fails, moves back home and takes her new boyfriend with her. Weatherly recorded “Midnight Plane To Houston,” as a slow country song that received relatively little success. Less than a year later, an Atlanta-based record producer wanted to pitch the song as an R&B cut to Cissy Houston (Whitney Houston’s mother.) The producer, Sonny Limbo, wanted to make the song more soulful and requested that the title of the song change to “Midnight Train To Georgia.” The song was recorded and barely even charted for Houston, but Gladys Knight heard the new version of the song. By adding some background vocals by The Pips and a little extra groove, Knight went on to record the signature song of her career.

Gladys Knight and The Pips had a No. 1 hit with the single in 1973, and won a Grammy for the release in 1974. That same year, Weatherly was named Nashville Songwriter of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI). In 1999, “Midnight Train To Georgia” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

15. Mississippi Girl

2005 was a big year for country music star John Rich. His Nashville-based movement, MuzikMafia, owned that year. It was hard to find any one week in 2005 that John Rich or a member of the Mafia wasn’t on the charts as either a performer or a songwriter. Even though Rich’s own album, Horse Of A Different Color, with duet partner Big Kenny, enjoyed great success, Rich will also be remembered for a song he specifically wrote for Star, Miss., native Faith Hill.

Hill was already a household name in ‘05. She enjoyed success on the country and pop charts as well as Hollywood fame following the release of the motion picture The Stepford Wives in 2004. Rich recognized that with all of her newfound success that she might be looking for a way to reestablish herself as a country artist as opposed to a pop music and movie star. He, along with songwriter Adam Shoenfield, then penned an instant classic, “Mississippi Girl.”

The song not only serves as a short biography of Hill’s life, but also it presents a defense to all who have accused her of losing her roots. It was Hill’s first No. 1 country single in six years, taking the top spot on September 3, 2005, just five days after Hurricane Katrina destroyed and devastated the Gulf Coast of Hill’s home state. In the wake of the worst natural disaster in American history, the song became an anthem for state pride, perseverance, and success. Just weeks later, on October 1, Hill performed a live version of her hit song during a nationally televised Katrina Relief fundraiser that was broadcast from the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford, Miss.

Representing a shift in the way in which we purchase music, “Mississippi Girl” will forever hold the designation as being the 500-millionth song download within Apple iTunes file-sharing application.

14. You Are My Sunshine

The 1944 Louisiana governor’s race featured one of the era’s most notable country music singers. Jimmie Davis was known for singing his hit song from 1940, “You Are My Sunshine,” at campaign rallies and political stump speeches throughout the state—often times from the back of his horse, aptly named “Sunshine.” Claiming he had written the song while in grad school at LSU, research later determined that Davis actually bought the song from another songwriter and placed his name on it, a practice common during that time.

The original songwriter is still a mystery. Some people believe that Davis bought the song from brothers Paul and Hoke Rice, who had recorded the song a year before Davis did. A month prior to the Rice’s recording, the song was recorded by the Pine Ridge Boys, making Davis the third person to put the single on vinyl. Some say the song was adapted from a poem, others claim the original song was written by a guy named Oliver Hood. Regardless of the confusion, Davis and his long-time sidekick, Charles Mitchell, are credited as songwriters and hold the 1940 copyright. Davis claimed to be the original songwriter all the way up to his death in 2000.

“You Are My Sunshine” has been recorded hundreds of times since the ‘40s, with the most popular version being that of Ray Charles, which peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard charts in 1962. B.B. King to this day incorporates the song into his live performances. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and is listed as one of the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) Songs of the Century. “You Are My Sunshine” was made the official state song of Louisiana in 1977. In addition to countless movies and television shows, the song can also regularly be heard at Southern political events.

13. Jackson

In 1967, Johnny Cash and June Carter won a Grammy for their duet hit, “Jackson.” The song is about a married couple whose “fire went out.” Both the husband and the wife talk about going to Jackson and taking part in the lively nightlife–each pledging to have more fun than the other. It is unclear if the song is talking about Jackson, Miss., or Jackson, Tenn. Generally speaking, people from Mississippi assume the song is about the Jackson on I-40 in Tennessee; while people from Tennessee assume the song is making reference to the capital of the Magnolia State. Regardless, the song has deep associations to Southern culture and country music history.

As depicted in the 2005 motion picture Walk The Line, “Jackson” was the duet that Carter and Cash were singing onstage in Canada when Johnny asked June to marry him. After refusal to answer the questions, after begging Johnny to keep singing and after the band refused to continue playing without Johnny’s blessing, June gave in and said “yes.” The two married a week later in Kentucky.

The original songwriters of “Jackson” are Billy Edd Wheeler and Jerry Leiber (Leiber’s wife, German-born actress Gaby Rodgers, is often falsely credited with being a co-writer; however she was not, as Leiber would sometimes use her name as his pseudonym while writing music.) Wheeler played the song for Leiber and Leiber basically said the first half of the song was awful and that it should begin with its last verse. Wheeler was wary about starting the beginning of a song at the climax of its story, but as everyone now knows, it worked. “We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout,” is the song’s opening line. Wheeler recorded the song with Joan Sommer, a friend from Kentucky, singing the female lines. The recording eventually found its way to “The Man In Black.” The hit was one of countless hits for both Leiber and Wheeler, both of whom are in songwriter halls of fame.

12. Almost Every Song Written by Bob McDill (but specifically “Louisiana Saturday Night” and “Good Ole Boys Like Me”)

Walden, Texas, native Bob McDill penned over thirty No. 1 country songs prior to his retirement in 2000. As a young student at Lamar University in the early 1960s, McDill played in a local band and performed in local clubs around Beaumont, Texas. One of his regular “fans” was an unknown Janis Joplin. According to McDill, Joplin would do her homework while the band performed. After leaving Beaumont, McDill served in the Navy before moving to Memphis, Tenn., to pursue his songwriting ambitions.

The publishing company that McDill wrote for in Memphis was purchased by another Beaumont, Texan named “Cowboy” Jack Clement. Clement moved the company to Nashville. The popular thought at the time was that Nashville was going to become the hub of pop and rock music. McDill moved with the company to “Music City” in hopes of taking advantage of the changing trends.

After living on $25 a week for over a year, McDill realized that Rock and Roll was not coming to Nashville, thus forcing him to write songs for country artists. He heard George Jones sing, “A Good Year For The Roses,” and claims it was as if a light went off. McDill started studying country music and began writing, sometimes penning up to one song per week.

His first country hit was “Catfish John” for Johnny Russell. Following that hit he met Don Williams and penned “Good Ole Boys Like Me,” after reading Robert Penn Warren’s A Place To Come To. The song was a big hit for McDill. The lyrics featured a richness not found in other country songs at the time. Lines like “a picture of Stonewall Jackson above my head,” and “I can still hear the soft Southern winds in the live oak trees,” and making reference to both Hank Williams Sr. and Tennessee Williams in the same line, brings the song close to every Southerners’ heart.

McDill also penned Mel McDaniel’s two biggest hits, “Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On,” and the Cajun classic, “Louisiana Saturday Night.” “ Louisiana Saturday Night” is a song about country families and friends getting together on the weekends and having fun. The song, while not likely inspired by any one family or event, was likely loosely based on McDill’s own youth when his family would gather around the piano and play sing-alongs. “Louisiana Saturday Night” is often played at LSU games, and is a standard at every Louisiana piano bar and karaoke outlet.
McDill’s string of top hits include Alabama’s “Song Of The South” Alan Jackson’s “Gone Country,” Dan Seals’ “Everything That Glitters,” and Keith Whitley’s “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” just to name a few.

McDill was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985. The week of his induction, six Bob McDill-written songs were on the Billboard charts. He retired from songwriting in 2000, citing the lack of radio airplay of country music legends as well as the fact that he found today’s newer artists to be less interesting.

11. Carolina Girls

A song doesn’t have to be a smash hit in order to become popular. That is evident from the success of “Carolina Girls.” When the band Chairmen of the Board first came to the Carolinas, they noticed the girls there had a specific style. Band member Danny Woods noticed that New York girls and California girls had their own songs, and that girls from the Carolinas felt left out.

With the release of “Carolina Girls” in the famed mid-Atlantic beach music style, girls from both North and South Carolina had a reason to be prideful. General Johnson and the Chairmen of the Board released the song in 1980, and it would prove to forever be an empowering and endearing song to not only Carolina girls in the ‘80s, but future generations of Carolina girls to come. The song spurned bumper stickers, license plates, and clothing. Girls from both states were proud of the song’s claim that “Carolina Girls (are) best in the world.

The women’s athletic teams at the University of North Carolina use the song as an unofficial fight song. Other schools do similarly, some even having marching band adaptations.