‘A Little Unfair’ song was pretty good to Lefty Frizzell
This week in 1965: The United States suspended military aid to India and Pakistan; President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill creating The Deptartment Of Housing & Urban Development; The News Guild ended a 25-day strike at The New York Times and a singer from Corsicana, Texas, was about to have his 25th hit record.
A lot of songs have been written from a chance remark in a conversation and according to Hank Cochran, Lefty Frizzell’s 1965 Top 40 hit “A Little Unfair” was one of those tunes.
Hank commented, “A friend of mine was living in Ohio. And I called him one day and asked him what the weather was like. He told me the weather was great and asked me to come up there. He was playing in some place that night and he said he would pick me up in the “big L” and I could go out there with him. So I wasn’t doing anything at the time so I went to Ohio. Well I thought when he said the “big L,” he was talking about a Lincoln, but when I got up there I found out that the “big L” was a Lancer. Besides that, we had to catch a cab over to a garage where he was having his “big L” worked on. And I told him, “Boy—you talking about being unfair.” And he said, “Well it may have been a little unfair.”
And I told him, “Well ain’t we supposed to be writers?” He said that we were supposed to be, so I asked him why didn’t we write that idea? So he said OK, so we started working on it and “A Little Unfair” was written from that.”
Frizzell’s Columbia Records single “A Little Unfair” came on the country music charts Oct. 16, 1965, and peaked at No. 36. It was his 25th charted song and was on the charts for 5 weeks.
Frizzell placed 39 songs on the country music charts between 1950 and 1975 including 6 No 1s.
He joined The Grand Ole Opry in 1951 and was inducted into The Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1982. Frizzell died in 1975.
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Doug Davis & The Good Ole Boys will perform at 10 a.m. today at Opportunities Inc. Adult Center.