The Yellow Rose of Texas · Mitch Miller · 1955

  Play the song.  

This song was one of the first 45s that I ever owned. I was five years old and received it as a Christmas gift along with my first record player. It is interesting that “The Yellow Rose of Texas” by Mitch Miller is considered by many to be the second #1 hit single of the Rock era.

“The Yellow Rose of Texas” topped the chart in September, 1955, staying there for six weeks. It certainly is not a rock and roll song. In fact, Mitch Miller was not an advocate of rock and roll music at all. Miller was the head of artists and repertoires for Columbia Records, and was responsible for the successful careers of Frankie Laine, Rosemary Clooney, Johnny Ray, Patti Page, Tony Bennett, Doris Day, Johnny Mathis, Guy Mitchell, and the Four Lads.

The song that had previously occupied the top spot in the Billboard™ Best Sellers chart was Bill Hailey’s “Rock Around The Clock,” and it is that song that has been arbitrarily designated as the first number one hit single.

“The Yellow Rose of Texas” was written by an anonymous writer in the 1850s and had been a popular song in both the North and the South during the Civil War.

In 1955, a Cleveland disc jockey, Bill Randle, suggested to Don George that the song had potential as a pop hit. George adapted it, giving it a marching beat. The song appeared in an album of Civil War songs, where Miller discovered it. He gave it a new arrangement, adding snare drums (one of the first times they had been featured in a pop record). Miller liked the finished product so much, he ordered 100,000 singles to be pressed. A shocked Columbia Records executive protested the large order, so Mitch offered to buy back all the unsold copies at cost—15 cents apiece.
      Mitch never had to lay out a penny. The record sold over a million copies. Source: The Billboard Book of #1 Hits

Lyrics

  The Yellow Rose · Johnny Lee With Lane Brody · 1984  

In 1984, the song was recorded by Johnny Lee and Lane Brody for the theme song for an NBC night-time soap, “The Yellow Rose”. NBC wanted it to appear on an album, and Brody and Lee agreed, but only if they could rewrite the lyrics. Neither took credit for their part, but they worked on it, and recorded it. Eventually released as a single, “The Yellow Rose” was a chart-topper on the Country singles chart in April.

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