Vernon Dalhart -The Prisoner's Song - 1925 |
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"The Prisoner's Song" is a song copyrighted in 1924 by Guy Massey, but transcribed by his brother Robert Massey. The lyrics were carved into the wall of a cell in the old Early County Jail in Blakely, Georgia by Robert F. Taylor, who was at one time held there. The Prisoner’s Song rates as a 1920s all-time best-seller with a staggering seven million-plus copies sold worldwide in the version by Vernon Dalhart. The Vernon Dalhart recording charted for 32 weeks, twelve at No. 1, during 1925 and 1926. The Vernon Dalhart version was recorded on Victor Records in October 1924 and marketed in the hillbilly music genre. It became one of the best-selling records of the early twentieth century, with at least two million copies sold (sales figures are uncertain; some place the sales at 7 million or more), as well as over a million copies of the sheet music to the tune. "The Prisoner's Song" was later performed by, among others, Hank Snow and Bill Monroe. Background: Dalhart was born Marion Try Slaughter in Marion County, Jefferson, Texas. He took his stage-name from two towns, Vernon and Dalhart in Texas, between which he punched cattle in the 1890s. Dalhart's father, Robert Marion Slaughter was killed in a fight with his brother-in-law, Bob Castleberry, when Vernon was age 10. When Vernon was 12 or 13, the family moved from Jefferson to Dallas, Texas. Vernon, who already could play the jew's harp and harmonica, received vocal training at the Dallas Conservatory of Music. He saw an advertisement in the local paper for singers and applied and was auditioned by Thomas Alva Edison; he would thereafter make numerous records for Edison Records. From 1916 until 1923, using numerous pseudonyms, he made over 400 recordings of light classical music and early dance band vocals for various record labels. He was already an established singer when he made his first country music recordings which cemented his place in music history. Dalhart's 1924 recording of "The Wreck of the Old 97" - a classic American railroad ballad about the September 27, 1903 derailment of Southern Railway Fast Mail train No. 97 near Danville, Virginia - for the Victor Talking Machine Company, became a runaway hit, alerting the national record companies to the existence of a sizable market for country-style vocals. It became the first southern song to become a national success. The double-sided single eventually sold more than seven million copies, a colossal amount for a mid-1920s recording. It was the best-selling single to its time, and was the biggest-selling non-holiday record in the first seventy years of recorded music. Research by Billboard statistician Joel Whitburn determined "The Prisoner's Song" to have been a #1 hit for 12 weeks in 1925-26. In 1998, "The Prisoner's Song" was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and the Recording Industry Association of America named it one of the Songs of the Century. [1]
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Vernon Dalhart -The Prisoner's Song - 1925 Cliff Richard And Vernon Girls - Don't - 1958 |