Room Full of Roses
"Room Full of Roses" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Single by Mickey Gilley | ||||
from the album Room Full of Roses | ||||
B-side | "She Called Me Baby" | |||
Released | April 1974 | |||
Recorded | 1973 | |||
Genre | Country | |||
Length | 2:50 | |||
Label | Astro 10003 Playboy 50056 | |||
Songwriter(s) | Tim Spencer | |||
Producer(s) | Mickey Gilley | |||
Mickey Gilley singles chronology | ||||
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"Room Full of Roses", written by Tim Spencer, is a song first recorded in 1949 by country music singer George Morgan. The original George Morgan version was released in the summer of 1949, and reached No. 4 on the Billboard country chart that August. A Sons of the Pioneers version reached #10 on the country charts in the same year. It was famously covered in 1974 by up-and-coming singer Mickey Gilley. The Gilley version was his first major hit and broke open his career.
Background
In 1973, Mickey Gilley was enjoying brisk business with his nightclub,
Gilley never intended to have a hit with "Room Full of Roses," as it was designated the B-side for "She Called Me Baby." In fact, Gilley was not even happy with the final product of that recording. "I liked 'She Called Me Baby,' and thought to myself, well, I finally got something." Gilley once told Country Music magazine. "Then I flipped the record over. All I could hear was that damn steel guitar. The echo was just bounding off the walls.'"[citation needed]
Country music writer Tom Roland also noted that Gilley got lost during the piano interlude during the middle portion of the song, but "somehow managed to come out of it in sync with the studio band." Other flaws pointed out included muffled lyrics and excessive "echo" (to conceal the song being recorded out of tune).[2]
Gilley was resigned, however, to the song being "terrible," as he saw the record being distributed only in the
Released in April 1974, the song was Gilley's first of seventeen No. 1 hits on the
Chart performance
Release date | Artist | Chart Positions | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
U.S. C&W | U.S. | CAN C&W | CAN | AUS[6] | ||
1949 | George Morgan | 4 | 25 | — | — | — |
1949 | Dick Haymes | — | 6 | — | — | — |
1949 | Don Cornell & Sammy Kaye | — | 2 | — | — | — |
1949 | The Sons of the Pioneers
|
10 | 26 | — | — | — |
1974 | Mickey Gilley | 1 | 50 | 6 | 57 | 9 |
References
- ISBN 0-82-307553-2)), p. 115
- ISBN 0-312-15121-7)
- ^ Roland.
- ^ "Country Music: The Encyclopedia."
- ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits: 1944-2006, Second edition. Record Research. p. 136.
- ISBN 0-646-11917-6.