the charles ford singers

Tune Tuesday: Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me 1974

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Gladys Knight & The Pips Image One
Photo Credit: pilotonline.com

Forty-five years ago, today, the #1 song on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart was Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me by Gladys Knight & The Pips. Written by Jim Weatherly, a former quarterback for the University of Mississippi, is the same songwriter that penned what became known as Midnight Train to Georgia, a previous hit for Gladys & her Pips. The song was originally recorded in 1973 by country music artist Ray Price.

Gladys Knight & The Pips Image Two
Image Credit: 45cat.com

From Wikipedia:

Weatherly told Tom Roland in The Billboard Book of Number One Country Hits that he wrote the song in 1971 and let his father-in-law first record it as a Christmas present for the latter’s wife. “I thought it was really strange that nobody’d written a song with that title — possibly somebody had but, I’d never heard it — so, I just sat down and let this stream of consciousness happen. I basically wrote it in a very short period of time, probably 30 minutes or an hour.”

Other artists to cover the song were Dean Martin, Steve Lawrence, Andy Williams, The Persuaders and, James Cleveland & The Charles Fold Singers.

The song made it to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Lyrics