Today in Country Music, July 26, featuring Haper Valley P.T.A.
Today in country music, July 26.
On this day in 2011, Eric Church released his album Chief - it has since gone platinum, gave Eric his first chart topper and the opportunity to headline his first tour.
Today in 2002, Brooks & Dunn's album, Hard Workin' Man, was certified quintuple platinum… now separate solo acts, both Brooks and Dunn are being considered for the songwriters hall of fame.
Alan Jackson started a four-week stay at #1 with "Chattahoochee" today in 1993.
And on this day in 1968, Jeannie C. Riley recorded the classic "Harper Valley P.T.A."
"Harper Valley PTA" was written by Tom T. Hall and was a major international hit single for country singer Jeannie C. Riley in 1968. Riley's record sold over six million copies as a single. The song made Riley the first woman to top both Billboard's Hot 100 and the U.S. country single's charts with the same song, a feat that would go unrepeated until Dolly Parton's "9 to 5 " in 1981.
The song tells the story of Mrs. Johnson, a widowed mother of a teenage girl, who becomes outraged when one afternoon her daughter brings home a note from her school's PTA decrying Mrs. Johnson's supposedly scandalous behavior by small-town standards, which, according to the PTA, is setting a bad example for her daughter. In retaliation, Mrs. Johnson decides to attend the next PTA meeting (which, coincidentally, was being held that very evening), where (wearing a miniskirt, to the horror of the PTA members) she exposes various episodes of misbehavior on the part of several members of the PTA establishment, concluding with, "This is just a little Peyton Place / And you're all Harper Valley hypocrites." In the final line of the song the singer reveals herself as Mrs. Johnson's daughter, with the memorable line: "The day my mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA", referring to the popular phrase of that period "sock it to me" from the sketch comedy TV series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. According to Riley's autobiography, this line was ad libbed at the recording session at the suggestion of someone at the session.