Born on This Day in 1942, One Half of the Husband-Wife Duo Who Scored a No. 1 Hit With One of the Quirkiest Songs in Country Music

In April 1970, the husband-and-wife duo Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan topped the country charts with “Tennessee Bird Walk”, a delightfully quirky ditty that invites the listener to forget everything they know about these feathered creatures. The song also enjoyed success in the pop realm, peaking at No. 23 on the Hot 100. Although the couple never quite matched the success of “Tennessee Bird Walk”, they continued making music together until Morgan’s death in 2021. Today (May 8) we’re looking back at the career of Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan as Blanchard celebrates his 84th birthday.

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About Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan

Blanchard was born on May 8, 1942, in Buffalo, New York—at the same hospital where his future wife would enter the world three years later, on May 23, 1945.

Although both lived in Ohio as children, their paths wouldn’t cross until adulthood.

Jack Blanchard’s music career began while he was still working in factories in Buffalo, when he formed a group called the Dawn Breakers with a co-worker.

They performed in New York, Pennsylvania, and Canada, and once those gigs dried up, Blanchard moved to Miami. While working at the King of Hearts Club as a comedian and musician, he also produced songs for Starday Records.

In Florida, his path crossed with Misty Morgan, who had also moved there to work as a pianist. They married in 1967 and soon began writing and performing songs together.

 “For the first year that we performed together, Misty and I never even thought of doing duets,” Blanchard recalled in a 2020 interview. “But all the connections I made in Nashville while doing stuff for Starday helped us when we finally started recording together.”

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The Surprise Success of “Tennessee Bird Walk”

In 1969, the couple signed with Wayside Records. Their first single, “Big Black Bird (Spirit of Our Love)”, peaked at No. 59 on the country singles chart.

They followed up with their greatest success, “Tennessee Bird Walk”. The song earned a Grammy nomination and helped Blanchard and Morgan win Billboard’s Country Duet of the Year in 1970, beating out the likes of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. It also made Morgan one of the first women to ever co-produce a No. 1 country hit.

Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan would enjoy more chart success in the future, including the No. 5 country hit “Humphrey the Camel”, and Somewhere in Virginia in the Rain”, which peaked at No. 15.

Diagnosed with cancer in late 2020, Misty Morgan died on Jan. 1, 2021, in a Florida hospital. She was 75 years old.

Featured image courtesy of Jack Blanchard/Facebook