I have seen Rose Garden by Lynn Anderson listed as a One-Hit wonder. While it may be true that this was the only song that may have crossed over to the Pop charts to any one who was listening to Country Music in the late 60′s and early 70′s she sure wasn’t a One-Hit artist.

The song was a Number 1 hit on the country charts for five weeks and managed to reach as high as Number 3 on the Pop charts.

This was also the name of an album she released in 1971. Until Shania Twain’s 1997 album Come On Over, it was the biggest selling album by a country female singer.

Anderson won the Grammy for Best Country Female singer in 1971 for this song.

She was also a horsewoman winning 16 National Championships, eight World Championships and several celebrity championships.

By 1976 Johnny Cash had already been performing for 20 years and for many of those years he was at the top of the Charts.

it was in 1976 that he did the story song One Piece at a Time. It’s the story of an auto assembly line worker built a car with one stolen piece sneaked out of the factory. The song was composed by Wayne Kemp.

There was a car built for the song by Bruce Fitzpatrick, owner of Abernathy Auto Parts and Hilltop Auto Salvage in Nashville, TN. He had all the different models of Cadillacs mentioned in the song when it was released, and built a Cadillac using the song as a model.

The song reach the Number 1 spot on the County charts on May 29, 1976.

To many when they think of the song I will Always Love You, they will think about the version that Whitney Houston sang from the movie My Bodyguard. But long before that it was done by its composer Dolly Parton.

Parton wrote the song in 1973 and released it as one of the songs on her album Jolene and was the follow up single to Jolene. Even though it hit Number 1 on the country charts in a year when many country songs were cross over hits on the Pop charts it was not a big success on the Pop charts.

Parton has re-recorded the song twice. Once in 1982, (this clip may be from 1982) for the movie Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and again in 1995 as a duet with Vince Gill.

The Whitney Houston version released in 1992 is the 6th most successful song in chart history.

1974 was a big year for county singer Charlie Rich, not to say that 1973 wasn’t big too. However in 1974 Charlie, known as the Silver Fox, reached Number 1 on the county charts with 5 different songs.

In March it was There Won’t Be Anymore for 2 weeks, April came with A Very Special Love Song for 3 weeks, in mid June for 1 week I Don’t See Me in Your Eyes Anymore, I Love My Friend in October for 1 week and She Called Me Baby to begin December for 1 week.

It’s no wonder that he won the Country Music Association – Entertainer of The Year and Album of The Year with A Very Special Love Song.

Some may remember Jerry Reed as the Snowman in the Smokey and the Bandit movies.

Others will remember him as the singer of songs such as Amos Moses, When You’re Hot, You’re Hot or Lord, Mr. Ford.

And there are still others who knows that he was a songwriter having written the songs to Smokey and the Bandit, the ones mentioned above and others such as Guitar Man and US Male for Elvis Presley, A Thing Called Love, a song he recorded in the late 60′s.

But he was also a great guitarist as can be seen in this clip from 1977. He may be the greatest county guitarist that ever lived.

He began his career in 1955 and it ended this week when he passed away.

Rest In Peace – Jerry Reed Hubbard (March 20, 1937 – August 31, 2008).

In late 1978 Kenny Rogers recorded what would become his signature song. The Gambler, Kenny Roger as the singer is the narrator and not the Gambler, is an old gambler who sits with Rogers on a ‘train bound for nowhere’.

The song reached Number 16 on the Pop Charts and was a Number 1 Country single. It was the second of 5 consecutive Number 1′s that he had on the country charts during late 78/early 79.

The song was written by Don Schlitz, who had recorded the song earlier.

This version was done on the Muppet Show.

Kenny Roger would play the role of Brady Hawkes, the Gambler, in 5 made for TV movies between 1980 and 1994.