"Don't Let Me Cross Over" is a song made famous as a duet by Carl Butler and Pearl

Carl Butler and Pearl

Carl Butler and Pearl was an American country music husband-and-wife duo. Between 1962 and 1969, the duo released several singles and charted thirteen times on the U.S. country charts, reaching #1 in 1962 with their first single, "Don't Let Me Cross Over"....

, a husband-and-wife country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 duo. Originally released in November 1962, the song needed just four weeks to reach the number-one spot on the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Country Singles

Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

 chart. The song eventually spent 11 (non-consecutive) weeks at number one, and has become a country-music standard.

Honky-tonk singer Carl Butler is best remembered for "Don't Let Me Cross Over," which Allmusic writer Jim Worbois described as a "country heartbreak song." The song was one of several in which Butler's wife, Pearl, joins him on harmony.

Deborah Allen

Deborah Allen

Deborah Allen is an American country music singer. Since 1976, Allen has issued 12 albums and charted 14 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, most notably the 1983 crossover hit "Baby I Lied" which reached #4 on the country charts and #26 on the Billboard Hot 100. Allen has also...

 and Jim Reeves

Jim Reeves

James Travis Reeves , better known as Jim Reeves, was an American country and popular music singer-songwriter. With records charting from the 1950s to the 1980s, he became well-known for being a practitioner of the Nashville sound...

 recorded a cover in 1979, reaching number ten on the country chart. In 1996, Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton

Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...

, who'd worked with the Butlers early in her career, covered "Don't Let Me Cross Over".

It was later covered in December 1969 By Irish Country singer Larry Cunningham

Larry Cunningham

Larry Cunningham is an Irish country music singer, who was one of the leading figures of the showband scene in the 1960s and 1970s.-Life and career:...

, and peaked #4 at the Irish charts.

Carl Butler and Pearl

Chart (1962–1963)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	1
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	88

Jerry Lee Lewis and Linda Gail Lewis

Chart (1969)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	9

Deborah Allen and Jim Reeves

Chart (1979)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	10