‘Fifteen Years Ago’ started at a concert
This week in 1970: The World Trade Center was under construction in New York City to become the world’s tallest buildings; the U.S. agreed to sell 180 tanks to Israel; a Federal Court barred the U.S. from publishing a list of radicals; and a singer from Friar’s Point, Miss., had his 13th hit record.
Songs have been written in about every place you can imagine—perhaps some of them written in places you can’t imagine—but according to Raymond Smith—he started writing Conway Twitty’s 1970 hit “Fifteen Years Ago” while attending a Jack Greene concert.
According to Smith, he began writing country songs as a teenager—but then got away from country music and wound up managing a “beautiful music” radio station.
He commented, “I stood there on that hill watching and listening to a Jack Greene concert and his vocals with that moaning steel guitar just did something to me. And I immediately started working on “Fifteen Years Ago.” I finished most of the song the very next day. I can’t say just where the idea for the song came from, but the idea of writing country songs came from that concert.”
Smith even recorded the song himself, but his record failed to make the grade.
Later, a Knoxville, Tenn., disc jockey mentioned the song to Conway Twitty backstage at one of his concerts. Twitty listened to the song, liked it and recorded it. He even called Smith early one morning to ask his permission to record the song.
Twitty’s MCA Records single “Fifteen Years Ago” came on the country music charts Oct. 10, 1970 and was in the No. 1 slot on November 21st.
It was Twitty’s 13th charted song and was on the charts for 18 weeks.
Twitty placed 98 songs on the country music charts between 1966 and 2004, including duets with Anita Cochran and Loretta Lynn.
Conway Twitty died in 1993.
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Doug Davis & The Good Ole Boys will perform at 10:30 a.m. today at Edgewood Manor.