Ernest Tubb endured a false begin to his recording profession, after a pre-war contract with RCA proved lower than fruitful. A transfer to Decca didn’t appear to be enhancing his fortunes, with 5 unsuccessful singles. However on April 26, 1941, the person they referred to as the “Texas Troubadour,” by then 27, went into the Biggs Studio in Dallas with a few of his newest compositions. His luck was about to vary dramatically.
The 5 songs that Tubb recorded that day included one which grew to become 1,000,000 vendor, a signature music, and a rustic staple that attracted dozens of covers. There have been readings by a few of the greatest names in nation and past, to not point out 5 extra variations by the author himself. It was the irresistible “Walking The Floor Over You.”
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So certain had been Decca that this was the music to lift Tubb’s profile that they’d it out as a 78rpm single inside a month. The nation jukebox charts weren’t launched by Billboard till 1944, and the one-week displaying of “Walkin’ The Floor” on the journal’s pop-oriented listings, at No.23, did scant justice to its widespread recognition.
Certainly, so dramatically did “Floor” enhance Tubb’s field workplace enchantment that in September of the identical 12 months, he was included in a Decca commercial in Billboard that proclaimed: “All the greatest stars of the entertainment world are on Decca!” There was Ernest, sitting proudly alongside such artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, and Fred Astaire.
Covers from Crosby to Campbell
Crosby was one of many first artists to cowl “Walking The Floor Over You,” in a 1942 recording with brother Bob Crosby’s Bob Cats. Amongst many others, it was reduce by a younger Glen Campbell. As you hear above, took it at a a lot slower lick on his second album Too Late To Fear, Too Blue To Cry in 1963. Merle Haggard did it in 1965, Jerry Lee Lewis in 1968, and Asleep At The Wheel in 1988. Tubb himself revisited it in 1944, 1959, 1963 and 1977. In 1979, it gave him a ultimate nation Prime 40 hit, credited to Ernest Tubb & Mates, who included Haggard and Charlie Daniels.
Purchase or stream “Walking The Floor Over You” on Ernest Tubb’s The Definitive Assortment.
