‘Letter’ song was pure fiction
This week in 1944: meat rationing ended in the U.S.; the U.S. blacklisted 68 Irish firms; James Vincent Forre s t a l was named Secretary Of The Navy; and a singer from Crisp, Texas, had his second hit record.
A lot of songs are wr itten from personal experience, but according to Henry “Redd” Stewart, Ernest Tubb’s 1940’s hit “Soldier’s Last Letter” was not such a song.
Stewart commented, “That song wasn’t written from any personal experience. The idea just came to me after seeing so many soldiers who did not come home from the war. It was written back in the early days of World War II.” Ernest Tubb’s Decca Records single “Soldier’s Last Letter” entered the country music charts May 27, 1944 and made it to No. 1, where it stayed for four weeks.
It was his second charted song and was on the charts for 29 weeks.
Tubb placed 92 songs on the country music charts between 1944 and 1969.
He joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1943 and was inducted into The Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1965. Ernest Tubb died in 1984.
Stewart was a member of Pee Wee King’s Golden West Cowboys, but is best known for co-writing “Tennessee Waltz” with King and appeared in several western movies with King. In 2004, “The Tennessee Waltz” was awarded BMI’s 3,000,000 Airplay Award. That same year, he was inducted into Country Legends Hall of Fame and the Traditional Country Music Hall of Fame.
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Doug Davis & The Good Ole Boys will perform at Alzheimer’s Alliance at 10 a.m. today.