1940–1997 · American country singer · United Artists Records
Johnny Darrell was born in Hopewell, Alabama on 23 July 1940 and came to United Artists Records after Bobby Bare recommended him to the producer Kelso Herston. He had an unusual gift for finding a song before anyone else did: his debut single was the first recording of “Green, Green Grass of Home”, and he was also first to cut Mel Tillis’s “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town”, a top-10 country hit for him in 1967, and Dallas Frazier’s “The Son of Hickory Holler’s Tramp” in 1968. All three became far bigger records for somebody else. He died on 7 October 1997.