Sometimes, the B-side song becomes the hit
I have mentioned several times that quite a few hit songs came to be written under unusual circumstances or were recorded because of unusual situations.
David Houston’s 1966 No. 1 “Almost Persuaded” was one of those tunes.
As the story goes, Houston made the trip to Nashville, Tennessee, from his home in Shreveport, Louisiana, for his scheduled recording session with record producer Billy Sherrill. He was scheduled to record a song titled “We Got Love”, but did not have a song to record for the flip side. So his songwriter-producer Sherrill called another writer, Glenn Sutton and the pair worked overnight to come up with a song for Houston’s next day recording session.
Sherrill and Sutton finished “Almost Persuaded” just in time for Houston to record at his 8 a.m. recording session along with “We Got Love.”
The record was shipped to radio stations with “We Got Love” clearly marked as the “A” side but disc jockeys followed Atlanta, Georgia, WPLO Radio d.j. Mac Curtis who began flipping it over and playing “Almost Persuaded.”
The Epic Records single entered the country music charts June 25, 1966, made it to No. 1 and stayed there for nine weeks. It was his 9th charted song and was on the charts for 28 weeks. The Epic Records single also scored a No. 24 on the pop charts.
David Houston placed 61 songs on the country music charts between 1963 and 1989 – including seven No. 1s.
Seven of his 61 country charted singles also charted on the pop charts.
His 61 charted country recordings included duets with Tammy Wynette and Barbara Mandrell.
David Houston joined The Grand Ole Opry in 1972.
He died in 1993.