49 Years Ago Today, Glen Campbell Was at No. 1 With a Song He Knew He Had To Record the First Time He Heard It

49 years ago today (March 31), Glen Campbell was in his second and final week at No. 1 on the country chart with “Southern Nights.” It was also Campbell’s fifth and final song to reach the top of the Hot Country Songs chart. It also brought him crossover success, topping the Hot 100 for a week earlier in the year. Campbell reportedly knew he needed to record “Southern Nights” after hearing it once.

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Allen Toussaint, a highly influential musician, songwriter, and producer in the New Orleans R&B scene, wrote and originally recorded “Southern Nights.” He released his version on his 1977 album of the same name. However, it wasn’t a single. It was, on the other hand, a song he held near and dear to his heart.

Glen Campbell Experiences “Southern Nights”

According to Songfacts, Campbell got the song from the same place he got some of his other major hits: songwriter Jimmy Webb. He penned “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” Webb also introduced him to “Southern Nights.”

“He came over to my house one time and spent some time there, and I remember I was playing an Allen Toussaint record. I like this record, had a real lowdown kind of delta feeling, great piano, syncopated piano chops, and interesting songs on it,” Webb recalled. “I was playing along, and he said, ‘What was that song?’ I said, ‘Southern Nights.’”

Campbell then asked Webb if he owned the record on the turntable. When Webb said he did, he asked if he could have it. Webb said he could take it. “He was gone, man. He had my record, and it was like one of those animated cartoons,” the songwriter recalled. “Within for weeks that record was on the air. He worked at a frightening pace once he got going.”

Allen Toussaint’s Reaction to the Cover

Toussaint wrote the song about the evenings he spent visiting his elders as a child. “I really felt highly, highly inspired and very spiritual doing that song. It’s the only one I felt that much about,” he said. So, when he heard Campbell’s version on the radio, he was blown away.

Toussaint’s original version featured a keyboard and light percussion. Campbell whipped up a full-band version with a Jerry Reed guitar lick at its heart. “I love Glen’s version,” he said. “I had never thought of it as an uptempo and mainstream song before. I first heard it on the radio, and I was delighted,” he added. “It was so good to hear it like that, because I just hadn’t imagined that someone would listen closely enough to it to want to cover such a thing.”

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