Kentucky Gambler
| "Kentucky Gambler" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Merle Haggard and The Strangers | ||||
| from the album Keep Movin' On | ||||
| B-side | "You'll Always Be Special" | |||
| Released | October 1974 | |||
| Genre | Country | |||
| Length | 2:42 | |||
| Label | Capitol | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Dolly Parton | |||
| Producer(s) | Ken Nelson Fuzzy Owen | |||
| Merle Haggard and The Strangers singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Kentucky Gambler" is a 1974 song written and performed by Dolly Parton. "Kentucky Gambler" was issued as a track from Dolly Parton's The Bargain Store album from 1975.
Content
A classic Dolly Parton story song, "Kentucky Gambler" tells the story of a miner from Kentucky who abandons his wife and children for the bright lights of Reno, where he initially does very well at gambling, "winning at everything he played". Eventually, however, his winning streak comes to a halt, as he loses all of his winnings. Broke, he returns home, only to find that his wife has found someone else and has moved on without him. He concludes that "a gambler loses much more than he wins".
Merle Haggard recording
That same year, Merle Haggard and The Strangers covered "Kentucky Gambler" and it was their nineteenth number one song on the country chart. The Merle Haggard and The Strangers version stayed at number one for a single week and spent a total of eleven weeks on the chart.[1]
Coincidentally, Parton's The Bargain Store album featured a cover of a Haggard composition, "You'll Always Be Special to Me". The following year, Haggard would cover another Dolly Parton song, "The Seeker".
Personnel for Merle Haggard version
- Merle Haggard– vocals, guitar
- Roy Nichols – lead guitar
- Norman Hamlet – steel guitar, dobro
- Tiny Moore – mandolin
- Ronnie Reno – guitar
- Mark Yeary – piano
- Johnny Meeks - bass
- Biff Adam – drums
- Don Markham – saxophone
Charts
Weekly charts
|
Year-end charts
|
References
- ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits: 1944-2006, Second edition. Record Research. p. 147.
- ^ "Merle Haggard Chart History (Hot Country Songs)". Billboard.
- ^ "Hot Country Songs – Year-End 1975". Billboard. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
 | This 1970s country song–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- Articles with short description
- Short description is different from Wikidata
- Articles with hAudio microformats
- Single chart usages for Billboardcountrysongs
- Single chart called without song
- 1974 singles
- Songs written by Dolly Parton
- Dolly Parton songs
- Merle Haggard songs
- Song recordings produced by Ken Nelson (American record producer)
- Capitol Records singles
- 1974 songs
- Songs about Kentucky
- All stub articles
- 1970s country song stubs