This week in 1973: The U.S.S.R. and Occidental Petroleum signed the largest private contract in the history of Soviet-U.S. trade; The U.S. bombed a village in Laos, while claiming Hanoi broke the truce; President Richard Nixon offered a plan to avert an energy crisis; and a singer from Sabinal, Texas, was about to have his first No 1 hit.
The ideas for a lot of hit songs came from other songs, and according to Johnny Rodriguez, the idea for his 1973 No 1, "You Always Come Back to Hurting Me" came while he was writing down lyrics on paper for Tom T. Hall.
Rodriguez said, "I was sort of the secretary for Tom T. Hall when we were on the road. I was playing guitar in his band at the time. He'd get an idea for a song and I would write the lyrics down on paper for him. He was working on a song at the time, I don't remember which one, and I got the idea for "You Always Come Back to Hurting Me" while he was writing the song."
"Later he helped me finish the song and it was the first song that we co-wrote together and it turned out to be a hit!"
His Mercury Record single "You Always Come Back To Hurting Me" came on the country charts March 31, 1973 and made it to No 1 on June 9th.
It was his second charted song and his first No 1. The single was produced by Jerry Kennedy.
Rodriguez placed 45 songs on the country music charts from 1972 through 1989-including six No 1s.
Join me for "Roots Of Country" from 6 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 20th on "The Pig"-98.5 and 103.9, feature artist will be Hank Williams, and 6 a.m. to noon on Sunday from 6 a.m. to noon for "Sunday Country."