Country Music Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

#1 Country hits of 1946

Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys

These are the #1 country hits of 1946. Unlike the pop charts, which had 20 songs covering 96 weeks, there is only a handful here. That’s the function of the fact that in 1946, there was only one chart showing the most popular country songs.

In 1944, the chart called Most Played Juke Box Folk Records was established. It wasn’t until 1948 that Billboard tracked best-selling records, and not until 1949 that they followed the disc jockey’s most-played records. So in the 50s, you may see a lot more records, unless juke box, sales, and radio play agree.

That is, until 13 October 1958, when they consolidated all the charts into what became Hot Country Singles/Songs/Airplay.

Guitar Polka – Al Dexter and His Troopers (Columbia), 16 weeks at #1. “Recorded back in 1942, this instrumental… remained on the shelf for several years before its eventual release and 29-week run on Billboard’s country chart in 1946.” He shows up a lot on these lists, yet I had never heard of him before I started looking at these lists. See here.

Western Swing

New Spanish Two Step – Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, with Tommy Duncan, vocals. (Columbia), 16 weeks at #1. Compare with Spanish Two Step (Vocalion, 1935), also by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.

I remember him well from the 1960s, even though he had very few hits after 1950. It must have been from oldies country stations such as WWVA in Wheeling, WV. “Bob Wills was the driving force behind Western Swing, a form of Country & Western that fuses Jazz, Hillbilly, Blues, Big Band Swing, and many more rhythm forms together, creating a truly Unique, Diverse, and Unforgettable sound. Wills’ shrewd mix of horns, fiddles, and steel guitar made for a swinging sound that grabbed the public’s ear during the mid 1930s and 1940s.”

Divorce Me C.O.D. – Merle Travis with his cowboy band (Capitol), 14 weeks at #1

Wine, Women and Song – Al Dexter and His Troopers, 5 weeks at #1

You Will Have To Pay (for Your Yesterday)- Tex Ritter (Capitol), 3 weeks at #1. Yes, John Ritter’s dad and Jason Ritter’s granddad, though Jason never knew Tex

White Cross on Okinawa – Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, with Tommy Duncan, vocal, 1 week at #1

Black country music landscape

DeFord Bailey

From the Greene County, OH library page: “Black artists have been part of the country music landscape since the beginning, with elements of African-American music, like blues, rock and roll, and southern gospel music, woven in. The banjo, an essential Appalachian music instrument, was introduced to the region by black slaves in the early 19th century (source: Smithsonian Music).”

It was probably in 2005, the year he was posthumously inducted, that I first learned about Country Music Hall of Fame member DeFord Bailey (1899-1982). “An influential harmonica player in both country and blues music, … Bailey was one of the Grand Ole Opry’s most popular early performers and country music’s first African American star… He grew up in a musical family that played what he called ‘Black hillbilly music,’ a tradition of secular string band music that drew upon the same core repertoire shared by rural Black and white musicians alike.”

From Opry.com: “Harmonica wizard DeFord Bailey wasn’t merely one of the Opry’s first stars — he was the first musician to perform the Saturday that announcer George D. Hay coined the name of the world’s longest-running radio show that would become famous – the Grand Ole Opry. Bailey, whose tunes helped popularize his instrument in the United States, boasted another first, as well: He was the first musician to hold a recording session in Nashville, setting the stage for a scene that would change the world.”

Listen to Pan American Blues and an album

Ray

The multifaceted Ray Charles released an album in 1962, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, which became his first album to top the Billboard 200 charts, and it did so for 14 weeks. The follow-up release, Volume Two, got to #2.

Doug Freeman of the Austin Chronicle wrote of Charles’s influence through the album, stating:

Country and soul have always had a tenuous connection, undoubtedly exacerbated by the racial identifications of their respective fanbases. Yet despite the perceived disconnect between the two genres, the populist formats of both have always been more fluid and contiguous than is traditionally recognized. Elvis‘ melding of country and R&B may even arguably be considered the genesis of rock & roll, though that middle ground has largely only served to allow soul and country to remain segregated. With his 1962 Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Ray Charles created the benchmark for crossing the line, highlighting the similarities in sentiment often overshadowed by sound

Ray Charles (1930-2004) was posthumously inducted into the Country Hall of Fame in 2021.

Modern Sounds In Country and Western Music

Charley Pride

The black country artist I remember best growing up was Charley Pride. “During the peak years of his recording career (1966–1987), he had 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 30 of which reached number one.

“In the late summer of 1966… he was booked for his first large show, in Detroit’s Olympia Stadium. Since no biographical information had been included with those singles, few of the 10,000 country fans who came to the show knew Pride was Black and discovered the fact only when he walked onto the stage, at which point the applause trickled off to silence. ‘I knew I’d have to get it over with sooner or later,’ Pride later remembered. ‘I told the audience: ‘Friends, I realize it’s a little unique, me coming out here – with a permanent suntan – to sing country and western to you. But that’s the way it is.'”

Charley Pride (1934-2020) was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.

Listen to Greatest Hits

Others

There are many more black country artists, such as Darius Rucker, formerly of Hootie and the Blowfish. Here are 12 Black artists shaping country music’s future (2021) and 13 Black country artists you need to know (2024). There is some overlap; the latter group includes Shaboozy, whose A Bar Song (Tipsy) dominated both the pop and country charts for weeks.

Beyoncé’s album Cowboy Carter did not receive any nominations at the 58th Annual Country Music Association Awards, presented in November 2024. Still, it won Best Country Album and Album of the Year at the Grammys in February 2025.

Listen to Texas Hold ‘Em

#1 Hot Black Singles for 1984

what about Country?

Here are the #1 Hot Black Singles for 1984. The word Hot wasn’t added until October 20, the same week Billboard added it to the Adult Contemporary nomenclature.

As noted, two songs appeared on the pop, AC, and Black Singles that year. Hello by Lionel Richie (2 weeks pop, 6 weeks AC, 3 weeks RB) and I Just Called To Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder (3 weeks each on all three charts).

Also, When Doves Cry by Prince was #1 for 8 weeks RB and for 5 weeks pop. Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run) by Billy Ocean was #1 for 4 weeks RB and for 2 weeks pop. Let’s Hear It For The Boy by Deniece Williams was #1 for 3 weeks RB and for 2 weeks pop. Ghostbusters by Ray Parker, Jr. was #1 for 2 weeks RB and for 3 weeks pop. Let’s Go Crazy – Prince and the Revolution was #1 for 1 week RB and 2 weeks pop.

Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell, 5 weeks at #1; also #2 for three weeks pop. He was born Kennedy Gordy, a son of Berry Gordy. Michael Jackson sang background vocals, though he denied his involvement for YEARS, not wanting to upstage Rockwell.

Operator – Midnight Star, 5 weeks at #1; also #18 pop

If Only You Knew – Patti LaBelle, 4 weeks at #1; also #46 pop

She’s Strange – Cameo, 4 weeks at #1; also #47 pop, which explains why it was unfamiliar to me

I Feel For You – Chaka Khan, 3 weeks at #1. It was written and recorded by Prince five years earlier. A Grammy-winning song featuring Grandmaster Melle Mel (rap) and Stevie Wonder (harmonica); also #3 for three weeks pop. VERY familiar.

Joanna – Kool & The Gang, 2 weeks at #1; also #2 pop

A single week at #1 RB

Encore – Cheryl Lynn; also #69 pop

Don’t Waste Your Time – Yarborough & Peoples; did not chart on the pop charts

Lovelight – O’Bryan; also #101 pop. Very dancable.

Cool It Now – New Edition; also #4 pop

Country

I was also going to list the #1 country songs of 1984 – Billboard had used the term Hot Country since the 1960s. However, there are 50 – FIFTY! – of them! I ain’t doing that.

The only songs charting #1 for even two weeks:

Why Not Me – The Judds; the Grammy-winning song did not chart on the pop charts

To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before – Julio Iglesias & Willie Nelson; also #5 pop

Hot Country Singles of 1964

Roger Miller

Billboard dropped the W designation, as in Western, from its charts in late 1962. So it was the Hot Country Singles of 1964. These topped the charts but did not cross over to lead the pop, RB, or nascent adult contemporary charts.

Once A Day – Connie Smith, eight weeks at #1. Her name is the only one I don’t recognize from the list.

I Guess I’m Crazy – Jim Reeves, seven weeks at #1

My Heart Skips A Beat – Buck Owens, seven weeks at #1. I never owned any of his music, but I knew he was on Capitol Records because the inner sleeves of my Beatles albums featured him, Nat Cole, Al Martino, and several others.

Understand Your Man – Johnny Cash, six weeks at #1. I didn’t own this at the time, only in the late 1990s, when I was getting his American Recordings did I purchase the greatest hits of his Columbia recordings.

“Sugar is sweet and so is maple syrple”

Dang Me – Roger Miller, six weeks at #1. When I was a member of the Capitol Record Club, c. 1966, I failed to return the negative option card in time. I received his Golden Hits on Smash Records. It included the 1965 crossover hit King of the Road, but also a bunch of other songs I grew to love. I think it was the Roger thing. BTW, the first two videos I found were versions he rerecorded for stereo; it’s not as good.

I Don’t Care (Just As Long as You Love Me) – Buck Owens, six weeks at #1. Owens was considered one of the most successful artists of the Bakersfield sound, “defined by its influences of rock and roll and honky-tonk style country, and its heavy use of electric instrumentation and backbeat. It was also a reaction against the slickly produced, orchestra-laden Nashville sound, which was becoming popular in the late 1950s.”

Saginaw, Michigan – Lefty Frizzell, four weeks at #1

Begging To You – Marty Robbins, three weeks at #1. I got a Robbins greatest hits CD from my late FIL’s CD collection.

Together Again – Buck Owens, two weeks at #1. The only time I regularly watched the country-laden variety show Hee Haw, which he co-hosted with Roy Clark from 1969 to 1986, was in the spring of 1975 when I was shivering in my grandmother’s old house and had only one channel, WNBF, Channel 12 on the VHF dial.

B.J. the D.J. – Stonewall Jackson, one week at #1

Country Best Sellers of 1954

Wake Up, Irene

The odd nature of the Billboard charts is that, for most of the 1950s, there were three different charts each for pop, country, and rhythm and blues categories.

So there was a Country Best Sellers of 1954 roster; the category (BS) began in May 1948. But there were also ones for JukeBox (JB), starting in January 1944, and Jockeys (JY- radio play) starting in December 1949.

As it turns out, the three biggest hits for the year spent multiple weeks in each category. These are all familiar names, probably from the nights listening to WWVA in Wheeling, WV.

I Don’t Hurt Anymore – Hank Snow, the Singing Ranger, and the Rainbow Ranch Boys, b20 weeks at #1 (BS 20, JB 20, JY 18)

Slowly – Webb Pierce, 17 weeks at #1 (BS 17, JB 17, JY 15) , co-written by Pierce

More And More – Webb Pierce, 10 weeks at #1 (BS 10, BS 9, JY 8)

The rest of the #1s topped the chart in only one metric.

Bimbo – Jim Reeves, 3 weeks at #1 (JY). In this usage, the title doesn’t mean what you might think it does.

Wake Up, Irene – Hank Thompson and His Brazos Valley Boys, 2 weeks at #1 (JB)

(Oh Baby Mine) I Get So Lonely – Johnny & Jack, 2 weeks at #1 (JY). The duo was composed of Johnnie Wright (1914–2011) and Jack Anglin (1916–1963). “Johnny was married to Kitty Wells and the duo’s 25-year career together ended in 1963 when Jack was killed in a car wreck while going to Patsy Cline’s funeral.”

Even Tho – Webb Pierce, 2 weeks at #1 (JY). Webb was the lyricist.

A single week at #1

I Really Don’t Want To Know – Eddy Arnold, the Tennessee Plowboy and his guitar (JB)

One by One – Kitty Wells and Red Foley (JB)

Interestingly, there is no overlaps in terms of the #1s on the pop, country and RB charts in 1954. This would prove to be untrue when we get to 1956. You can blame Elvis Presley and the wave of musicians who charted with him.

But the seeds were planted in ’54, as Elvis made his first Sun Records recording, and Johnny Cash made his move from Sun.