A lot of hit songs were written while the writer or artist was on the road, many times while sitting in a dressing room waiting to go on stage. According to Carl Perkins, such was the case for “Daddy Sang Bass,” a song he wrote in 1968, which became a number one hit for Johnny Cash.

Carl said, “We were on the road in Kansas and I was sitting in the dressing room waiting to go on stage. I picked up my guitar and began strumming some chords. And I started thinking of back home when I was a kid growing up on a cotton farm in Jackson, Tennessee.  My mother and dad didn’t sing much but my brothers, Clayton, Jay and I, we sang all time while we were working in those cotton fields.”

“I was working on “Daddy Sang Bass” when Johnny Cash came down the hall. He heard me singing and stuck his head in the door and said, ‘Did you write that?’ I told him I was working on it and he said, ‘I want that song.’ Carl added, “I finished it and gave it to John and he did record it.”

Johnny Cash’s Columbia records single, “Daddy Sang Bass” entered the country music charts December 7^th, 1968 and made it to number one where it stayed for six weeks.  It was on the country music charts for 20 weeks.

The record also scored a #42 on the pop music charts. It was Cash’s 63^rd chart single.

Doug Davis
Country Music Classics