According to Buzz Cason, who partnered Bobby Russell in the Nashville-based Rising Sons music publishing firm, Russell wrote both the songs "Honey" (a #1 hit for Bobby Goldsboro in 1968) and "Little Green Apples" as "an experiment in composing", anticipating a potential market for true-to-life story songs...with more 'meat' in the lyrics [than was] standard" for current hits.[2] Russell wrote "Little Green Apples" for Roger Miller to record and Miller made the first recording of the song on January 24, 1968, in a session produced by Jerry Kennedy at Columbia Recording Studio Nashville.[3] Released as the lead single from the album A Tender Look at Love, "Little Green Apples" afforded Miller his final Top Ten C&W hit at #6 and also his final Top 40 crossover reaching #39 on the Hot 100 in Billboard. In the UK, Miller's "Little Green Apples" reached #19 in the spring of 1968 – when it also reached #46 in Australia – and in the spring of 1969 the track returned to the UK chart reaching #39.[4]
Easy Listening
Top Ten with Roger Miller's "Little Green Apples". Page's version of the latter was released as a single in June 1968, reaching #12 Easy Listening and affording Page the final Hot 100 appearance of her career at #96.
O. C. Smith had recorded "Little Green Apples" at Columbia Studios LA for Hickory Holler Revisited, the parent album of his Top 40 hit "
Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp". The track "Main Street Mission" was originally issued as the follow-up single, but as Buzz Cason recalls "a disc jockey in Detroit played the album cut [by O. C. Smith] of 'Little Green Apples' one morning". That single spin triggered "such a reaction and rash of phone requests [as to] prompt [the deejay] to call Steve Popovich, head of promotion for Columbia in New York [City]",[5] and "Little Green Apples" replaced "Main Street Mission" as Smith's then current single. Smith's version was a #2 hit on the Hot 100, behind "Hey Jude" by the Beatles,[6] and likewise peaked at #2 on the R&B chart in Billboard and was certified Gold for domestic sales of one million units.[7] The song won its composer Bobby Russell the 1969 Grammy Award for Song of the Year and the Grammy Award for Best Country Song.[8]
Monica Zetterlund in 1969 as Gröna små äpplen, with Swedish lyrics written by ABBA's manager Stig Anderson. Both the performance and the lyrics won Swedish Grammy awards.