On This Day in 1981, Ronnie Milsap Was at No. 1 With a Major Crossover Hit That Was Almost Recorded by Alabama

On this day (September 4) in 1981, Ronnie Milsap was on a two-week run at No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart with “(There’s) No Gettin’ Over Me.” Released as the lead single from the album of the same name, it became one of his biggest career hits. It peaked at No. 5 on the Hot 100, giving Milsap his highest-charting crossover hit. The song also reached No. 2 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

Milsap became one of the most successful artists in country music in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He notched a dozen chart-toppers in the 70s. Near the end of the decade, he leaned into the pop crossover sound that typified the genre in the 80s. With “(There’s)No Gettin’ Over Me,” he embodied the urban cowboy sound that dominated the charts and airwaves with saxophone solos and vocal delivery that would have been at home in the previous decade’s soft rock singer/songwriter scene.

It was Milsap’s biggest crossover hit. The song also helped launch the career of one of its writers.

Ronnie Milsap Changed Walt Aldridge’s Life

Walt Aldridge co-wrote “(There’s) No Gettin’ Over Me” with his friend and mentor Tom Brasfield. It became his first hit and helped him gain traction in Nashville as a songwriter.

Brasfield, a song plugger at the time, worked with Aldridge to hone his songwriting skills. “We would write, and it seemed like we wrote for almost a year every week. We would write these songs, and I was kind of like the puppy dog. ‘Is this one good enough?’ And Tommy would say, ‘No, we’re not quite there,’” he told Billboard ahead of his induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

After they finished this song, Brasfield said, “I think we’ve got something here.” He shopped the song around Nashville. Within a week, Ronnie Milsap, Alabama, and another artist called to ask about cutting the song. Milsap was the first to claim it, though.

“It kind of became a game to me. We’d get in the car, and I’d press the scan button and see if I could go all the way across the radio dial without hearing the song on some format,” Aldridge recalled. “When it was at its peak, it was hard to do because it was playing on so many different formats,” he added. Aldridge said that this song was more than his first hit. It was his ticket into Nashville’s country music industry. He has since written hit songs for Reba McEntire, Tim McGraw, Conway Twitty, and John Anderson, among others.

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