Billboard #1 Hits: #304: “Delta Dawn”- Helen Reddy. September 15, 1973. #1 for 1 week in Billboard Hot 100.
- Single: “Delta Dawn”- Helen Reddy
- Record Company- Capitol
- Genre: Pop
- Written by Larry Collins and Alex Harvey
- Time:3:11
- B-side:” If We Could Still Be Friends”
- Album- Long Hard Climb
- Grade: B
- Peaked at #1 1 week in Billboard Hot 100. #1 in Australia and Canada.
“Delta Dawn” was first a top 10 hit for Tanya Tucker on the country singles chart a year earlier in 1972 but it had also been earlier recorded by Bette Midler as an album cut. “Delta Dawn” was the first of six singles in a row that Helen Reddy took to the top of the adult contemporary singles chart.
“Delta Dawn” was co-written by a rockabilly star named Larry Collins- it was about his mother who died of suicide when Collins was a teenager growing up in Tennessee. Collins and co-writer Alex Harvey wrote it together in twenty minutes and Harvey released it in 1971. Back to Bette Midler he single came out a few days after Helen Reddy’s and Reddy’s version had already gotten traction- so Midler’s version went nowhere. It was Helen Reddy’s second #1- her first was “I Am Woman” in 1972.
I always liked Tanya’s version of this…I guess because of her gritty voice.
I am ridiculously fond of this song, and will turn it up and sing along every time I hear it, no matter whose recording it is!
Its one of those songs that gets stuck in my head.
Great tune! Always liked it. Now, does any ‘Friends’ fan not think “Monica” when they hear it?
I have never seen an episode of Friends.
Oh man…you’ve missed out on a lot of Jennifer Aniston in miniskirts & tight shirts! Anyway, in one Monica ( Courteney Cox) sings that song in karaoke but she’s in a seethrough top w/o a bra (though we can’ t really see that) & the men are whooping it up and she thinks it’s because she’s doing great singing…
Have you heard Dianne Davidson’s version? She pre-dates the other three.
Alex Harvey just died back in April.