(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)
Helen Reddy - "Delta Dawn"
Hit Number 1: September 15, 1973
Stay at Number 1: 1 Week
"Delta Dawn" has a rather depressing origination. The song was written by Alexander Harvey, and he claimed that the song was really about his mother, who suffered from alcoholism and died by an apparent suicide by crashing her car into a tree when Harvey was just a teenager. Harvey returned back to his house after a TV performance with his band when he found out about his mom's death, and he had asked her to not attend his performance, cause he feared she would drink too much and cause a scene. He felt like crap for years, and he felt like he was to blame for his mom's death.
This was until he was hanging out at Larry Collins' house (a fellow singer-songwriter), and he was with a few other country musicians. Everyone had fallen asleep except for Harvey, who stayed up playing his guitar, and this is where things start to get weird. Harvey could swear he saw his mother in spirit form, rocking in a rocking chair and laughing. He even said, "My mother had come from the Mississippi Delta and she always lived her life as if she had a suitcase in her hand but nowhere to put it down. She was a hairdresser in Brownsville. She was very free-spirited, and folks in a small town don't always understand people like that. She never really grew up." Immediately, Harvey said he knew she wasn't there to scare him, but to let him know everything was okay and that her decisions had nothing to do with him. Harvey felt the least he could do for his mom was to write a song about her, so he woke up Collins and the two got to work on the song, finishing it in just 20 minutes. "Delta Dawn", as you may have guessed, was the song he came up with.
"Delta Dawn" is about a woman searching for a long-lost love that did her wrong, and everyone around her town thinks of her as being crazy. The path of the song is pretty interesting too, and it found its way to other artists before it became a #1 hit for Helen Reddy. Bette Midler first heard the song after country singer Tracy Nelson performed a rendition of it at the Bottom Line in New York City. Midler added it to her live show playlist, and wanted to schedule it for single release, but Reddy and country artist Tanya Tucker beat her to it. Reddy and Tucker were already in the process of producing their versions, so while Midler still recorded the song, it only became the B-side to her cover of an Andrews Sisters' song, the 1973 hit "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", which made it to #8 on the Hot 100. (Midler's version is a 3, and she will eventually appear in this blog) Though Tucker recorded a version of the song before Midler did, she actually recorded the song after her producer, Billy Sherrill at Epic Records, heard Midler sing the song live. He wanted to sign Midler to Epic Records, but since she was already signed to Atlantic Records, he proceeded to work with Tucker on the song.
Nowadays, even with Reddy's eventual #1 version, a lot of people associate "Delta Dawn" with Tucker, and her version became a pretty big country hit, peaking at #6 on the Hot Country Songs chart. (Her version saw some moderate pop success too, peaking at #72 on the Hot 100 in 1972. Her version of the song is a 7) "Delta Dawn" was rejected by Barbra Streisand before it was finally offered to Reddy, who agreed to record the song. I can't say for sure that Reddy was at all familiar with the Tanya Tucker version, as I've found nothing that confirms that, but either way, her agreeing to record the song turned out to be a wise decision. Of course, Reddy's version turned Tucker's country version into a much more pop radio friendly song, taking out the harmonica and instead putting in a more orchestrated sound. She did keep the backing choir though, which honestly is a must for any version of "Delta Dawn".
"Delta Dawn" would become Reddy's second #1 hit after "I Am Woman", though I'm a little more partial to Tucker's version. I feel like the song was written by two country artists, and was always meant to only be a country song. With that being said, Reddy's version still stands as a decent little pop record. Reddy's vocal gives the song a soft touch, and she really lets herself get swept up in everything going on in the chorus. Really though, despite her version being a lot more pop-influenced, Reddy's version is a knock-off of Tucker's. It's basically a reenactment. She hits all the same notes, and the two versions move at almost the exact same pace. There's nothing wrong about that, and since I think Tucker's version is pretty good, it only does favors for the Reddy one. The only knock against Reddy's is that I feel like the song is meant to be country. That's all.
Anyway, there weren't a whole lot of artists that were more successful than Reddy in the early half of the '70s. She'll appear in this blog one more time.
GRADE: 6/10
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