Walk Right In
Encyclopedia
Walk Right In is the title of a country blues
song written by musician Gus Cannon
and originally recorded by Cannon's Jug Stompers in 1929, released on Victor Records, catalogue 38611. It was reissued on album
in 1959 as a track on The Country Blues
.
In 1962, the American
folk
trio The Rooftop Singers
recorded a version of the song and released it as a single
. The single spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100
chart in early 1963. It spent five weeks atop the Easy Listening chart
, which would later become known as the Adult Contemporary chart. In addition, "Walk Right In" reached both the R&B chart
(peaking at #4) as well as the country music chart
, peaking at #23. The song reached #1 in Australia
on the Kent Music Report
in 1963, and it made the Top 10 on the UK Singles Chart
in the United Kingdom
, peaking at #10. The song was included on the album Walk Right In, and was nominated for a Grammy Award
in the category Best Folk Recording
.
Group member Erik Darling recruited two friends to record a folk version of "Walk Right In" after hearing the original Cannon recording. Darling wanted the record to have a distinctive sound, so he and group member Bill Svanoe both played twelve string guitar
s on the song, although they had some difficulty in acquiring the instruments. Darling is quoted as saying that prior to the making of this record, "you couldn't buy a 12-string guitar...I ordered one from the Gibson Company
, but in order to record [the song] with two 12-strings, we had to wait for the company to build a second one for Bill!". The success of the song was a boon to Cannon, who was in his late 70s and had been forced to pawn his banjo the previous winter in order to pay his heating bill; he received royalties as a songwriter and saw renewed interest in his music, which led to a recording contract of his own.
Other acts who have recorded or performed "Walk Right In" include Chet Atkins
, Sammy Davis, Jr.
, Ella Fitzgerald
, Earl Grant
, Janis Joplin
, Jerry Lee Lewis
, Trini Lopez
, the Johnny Mann
Singers, Otis Taylor
, Carolina Chocolate Drops
, The Ventures
, and Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show
. The Rooftop Singers' version appears on the soundtrack
to the Tom Hanks
film Forrest Gump
. Roger Branigin's campaign adapted the song en route to his eventual victory in the 1964 Indiana
gubernatorial race.
Despite many songs at the time, he seemed doomed to never become famous. But Marche tout droit was one important step for him on the path to success, so one can wonder that without this song, Comme d'habitude, which was later world-famous as My Way, might have never been written.
Country blues
Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...
song written by musician Gus Cannon
Gus Cannon
Gus Cannon was an American blues musician, who helped to popularize jug bands in the 1920s and 1930s. There is doubt about his birth year; his tombstone gives the date as 1874....
and originally recorded by Cannon's Jug Stompers in 1929, released on Victor Records, catalogue 38611. It was reissued on album
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
in 1959 as a track on The Country Blues
The Country Blues
-Side two:...
.
In 1962, the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
trio The Rooftop Singers
The Rooftop Singers
The Rooftop Singers were an American progressive folk-singing trio in the early 1960s, best known for the hit "Walk Right In". The group was composed of Erik Darling and Bill Svanoe with former jazz singer Lynne Taylor ....
recorded a version of the song and released it as a single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
. The single spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
chart in early 1963. It spent five weeks atop the Easy Listening chart
Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks
The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...
, which would later become known as the Adult Contemporary chart. In addition, "Walk Right In" reached both the R&B chart
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,...
(peaking at #4) as well as the country music chart
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...
, peaking at #23. The song reached #1 in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
on the Kent Music Report
Kent Music Report
The Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent from May 1974 through to 1998...
in 1963, and it made the Top 10 on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, peaking at #10. The song was included on the album Walk Right In, and was nominated for a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
in the category Best Folk Recording
Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording
The Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording was awarded from 1960 to 1986. During this time the award had several minor name changes:*From 1960 to 1961 the award was known as Best Performance - Folk...
.
Group member Erik Darling recruited two friends to record a folk version of "Walk Right In" after hearing the original Cannon recording. Darling wanted the record to have a distinctive sound, so he and group member Bill Svanoe both played twelve string guitar
Twelve string guitar
The twelve-string guitar is an acoustic or electric guitar with 12 strings in 6 courses, which produces a richer, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar...
s on the song, although they had some difficulty in acquiring the instruments. Darling is quoted as saying that prior to the making of this record, "you couldn't buy a 12-string guitar...I ordered one from the Gibson Company
Gibson Guitar Corporation
The Gibson Guitar Corporation, formerly of Kalamazoo, Michigan and currently of Nashville, Tennessee, manufactures guitars and other instruments which sell under a variety of brand names...
, but in order to record [the song] with two 12-strings, we had to wait for the company to build a second one for Bill!". The success of the song was a boon to Cannon, who was in his late 70s and had been forced to pawn his banjo the previous winter in order to pay his heating bill; he received royalties as a songwriter and saw renewed interest in his music, which led to a recording contract of his own.
Other acts who have recorded or performed "Walk Right In" include Chet Atkins
Chet Atkins
Chester Burton Atkins , known as Chet Atkins, was an American guitarist and record producer who, along with Owen Bradley, created the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country's appeal to adult pop music fans as well.Atkins's picking style, inspired by Merle...
, Sammy Davis, Jr.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, Earl Grant
Earl Grant
Earl Grant was an American easy listening pianist, Hammond organist, and vocalist popular in the 1950s and 1960s.-Career:...
, Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
, Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis's career faltered after he married his young cousin, and he afterwards made a career extension to country and western music. He is known by the nickname 'The...
, Trini Lopez
Trini Lopez
Trini Lopez is an American singer, guitarist and actor.-Career:Lopez was born in Dallas, Texas, on Ashland Street in the Little Mexico neighborhood. He began his entertainment career in Dallas playing at the Vegas Club, a nightclub owned by Jack Ruby...
, the Johnny Mann
Johnny Mann
Johnny Mann is an American arranger, composer, conductor, entertainer, and recording artist.-Career:...
Singers, Otis Taylor
Otis Taylor (musician)
Otis Taylor is an American blues musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist whose talents include the guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, and vocals. In 2001, he was awarded a fellowship to the Sundance Film Composers Laboratory.-Music:Taylor moved at a young age to Denver, Colorado where he grew up...
, Carolina Chocolate Drops
Carolina Chocolate Drops
The Carolina Chocolate Drops is an old-time string band from Durham, North Carolina, United States. Its 2010 album, Genuine Negro Jig, won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards, and was number 9 in FRoots magazine's top 10 albums of 2010.The Drops are one...
, The Ventures
The Ventures
The Ventures is an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington. Founded by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle, the group in its various incarnations has had an enduring impact on the development of music worldwide. With over 100 million records sold, the group is the best-selling...
, and Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show was an American pop, country and soft rock band, formed around Union City, New Jersey in 1967 as The Chocolate Papers. They enjoyed considerable commercial success in the 1970s with hit singles including "Sylvia's Mother", "The Cover of the Rolling Stone", "A Little Bit...
. The Rooftop Singers' version appears on the soundtrack
Forrest Gump (soundtrack)
Forrest Gump is the soundtrack album based on the Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning film, Forrest Gump, and contains music from many well-known artists.-Charts:...
to the Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
film Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump is a 1994 American epic comedy-drama romance film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Tom Hanks, Robin Wright and Gary Sinise...
. Roger Branigin's campaign adapted the song en route to his eventual victory in the 1964 Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
gubernatorial race.
Curiosity Trivia
The French singer, author and composer Claude François became famous in his debut thanks to this song, that he sang in French (Marche tout droit).Despite many songs at the time, he seemed doomed to never become famous. But Marche tout droit was one important step for him on the path to success, so one can wonder that without this song, Comme d'habitude, which was later world-famous as My Way, might have never been written.
See also
- Hot 100 number-one hits of 1963 (United States)
- List of number-one singles in Australia during the 1960s