George Strait Was Pitched “Tennessee Whiskey” and Passed
If “Tennessee Whiskey” wasn’t a country music standard before, it is now. Written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, it was first recorded by David Allan Coe for his 1980 album of the same name, and released as a single. Unfortunately for Coe, the song didn’t go that far at the time, faltering at #77 on the country charts. It wasn’t until George Jones did the song in 1983 that it finally found success. At the time Coe and Jones shared the same producer in Billy Sherrill. The George Jones version of the song reached #2 on the country charts, and a country hit was born.
But that wasn’t before another country star passed on the song, regrettably. In a recent interview with Kacey Musgraves on Facebook Live ahead of her opening for George Strait in Las Vegas, Strait said “Tennessee Whiskey” was one of the songs he most regrets punting on when it was first pitched to him early in his career.
“There was a couple, but the biggest one was probably ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ that Dean Dillon wrote, and I think it’s up for Song of the Year this year at the ACM’s,” says Strait. The Chris Stapleton version from his 2015 album Traveller is an ACM Song of the Year contender after it shot to #1 when Stapleton performed it on the CMA’s with Justin Timberlake.
“Dean pitched me to that in the 80’s … and I missed it,” George Strait continues. “It was a record for … George Jones cut it. A lot of people cut that record. Chris Stapleton just nailed it.”
As long-time George Strait fans know, “Tennessee Whiskey” co-writer Dean Dillon has been one of George Strait’s go-to songwriters throughout his career and has written more than 50 of Strait’s tunes. The two names are virtually synonymous with each other in songwriting circles.
“There’s only been one album that I’ve done that he didn’t have a cut on,” Strait explained to Musgraves. “The reason he didn’t have a cut on that album is because he brought me this song in the studio some friends of him had written called ‘Baby’s Gotten Good At Goodbye.’ I was actually working on a Dean Dillon song and I heard this song, so I went in and cut it, and it bumped his off the record. So it’s his fault (laughing).”
“Baby’s Gotten Good At Goodbye” written by Tony and Troy Martin also became a #1, so that wasn’t a terrible choice by Strait. Meanwhile “Tennessee Whiskey”—a song first released some 37 years ago and re-recorded numerous times—continues to be one of the most important and resonant songs in country music today. We’ll see if they’re saying that about Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” in 2054.
February 20, 2017 @ 12:07 pm
I for one am glad he didn’t cover it.
March 24, 2017 @ 2:32 pm
Me too. The Lyrics don’t seem like something King George would sing. His style doesn’t really match the lines. It was good for George Jones because it matched his image. It doesn’t match George Strait’s because he just seems like a squeaky clean kind of guy and the I stay stoned line doesn’t seem to fit with him.
February 20, 2017 @ 12:17 pm
The final sentence of this article is priceless.
For what it’s worth, “Baby’s Gotten Good at Goodbye” is probably my favorite Strait song.
February 20, 2017 @ 12:34 pm
Wow. See that’s one of those nuggets of country music history that I just love to learn. Thanks for sharing. I’m trying to imagine how Tennessee Whiskey would sound with a similar production to Strait’s Fool Hearted Memory, etc, that sound he had in the early 80’s.
February 20, 2017 @ 12:40 pm
The Coe version is still the best.
February 20, 2017 @ 1:30 pm
That’s my favorite version as well, but it was also the first version I heard, which tends to be my favorite of any song.
February 20, 2017 @ 1:51 pm
Hmmm. I don’t tend to have that bias. I heard 20 versions of Why You Been Gone so Long before I heard Eleven Hundred Springs’ version. But, their version is best. Pretty much every cover of Dylan is better than the original….
February 20, 2017 @ 2:23 pm
I think it may depend on how many times a person hears the original and maybe how radically different the versions may be. Plus as you implied the talent of the vocalist is very important.
It’s also kind of like that TV slogan of a few years ago ‘it’s new to me’. If you had never heard the Coe version when the Jones version came out then for that person it was the original.
February 20, 2017 @ 4:25 pm
I know, I heard that many versions of “Why You Been Gone So Long” too, and theirs is the only acceptable one 🙂 excellent song.
February 21, 2017 @ 3:24 am
Why You Been Gone So Long is a Mickey Newbury Song and I love his version(s).
February 21, 2017 @ 7:20 pm
I heard 20 versions of Why You Been Gone so Long before I heard Eleven Hundred Springs’ version. But, their version is best.
I’m ashamed to admit my country knowledge is lacking, as I only remember hearing Jessi Colter’s version, but Matt Hillyer and the boys nailed that song out of the park. It was very, VERY well done.
(I bought that Eleven Hundred Springs album, Bandwagon, because I was curious to hear the original version of “Hank Williams Wouldn’t Make It Now in Nashville, Tennessee.” I still prefer Jason Boland’s version, but the original’s no slouch.)
February 20, 2017 @ 7:41 pm
To you
February 20, 2017 @ 12:45 pm
the song is not that great,,average “you’re like whiskey” country song
February 20, 2017 @ 1:53 pm
I’ve always thought that, too. It’s one of my least favorite George Jones hits.
February 21, 2017 @ 4:00 pm
Yeah, I love Possum, but I actually wasn’t a fan of Tennessee Whiskey until Stapleton covered it. I’m not even a big fan of Chris Stapleton, but I really enjoy his rendition of that song.
February 20, 2017 @ 12:58 pm
This is one of those songs that is all in the delivery.
February 20, 2017 @ 2:13 pm
One of the things that used to happen so much more was songs becoming hits by the second or third performer that had recorded them. Sometimes they would even be hits by two different performers (‘Make The World Go Away’ by Ray Price and then Eddy Arnold for example). Several of Strait’s Dean Dillon hits were recorded by Dillon first and appear on his albums.
I guess the songwriting royalty racket has contributed to this going away nowadays.
February 21, 2017 @ 12:44 am
It’s always been that way, and I don’t know that it’s gone away.
Any time a country star has a hit with a song written by some independent artist with a record deal–i.e Chris Knight, or Kevin Fowler, or Matraca Berg, or Robert Earl Keene–chances are that the writer issued it first on one of his own albums, but the original version didn’t do anything.
February 21, 2017 @ 8:13 am
Yes, but I sense that it happens less because as has been pointed out here before the labels and producers almost require that the artist and producer have writing credits more often. So yeah the occasional Isbell song will make it on a ZBB album but it seems to me that it’s pretty rare. Maybe I’m wrong and it would be hard to measure but that’s just my sense.
February 20, 2017 @ 2:17 pm
product placement, people
better drinking songs are as plentiful as supermarket beer
February 20, 2017 @ 7:15 pm
I am glad George Strait didn’t record the song but he might do good with the song but my favorite version of the song is George Jones.
February 20, 2017 @ 8:08 pm
There was a time after his daughter was killed by a drunk driver George Strait did not sing about drinking AT ALL. Go back and look at all his hits in the 80’s and 90’s – no references to drinking. He won’t last on todays radio. That changed 2002 (maybe). I think his first drinking song was Designated Drinker with Alan Jackson. I don’t know if that played in him turning down Tennessee Whiskey song or not not sure where that fell in that timeline of events.
February 20, 2017 @ 8:29 pm
I looked it up and his daughter was killed in 1986. I’m assuming he was pitched Tennessee Whiskey before Jones recorded it. So, this probably wasn’t the reason he turned it down. However, it’s still interesting that from 1986-2002 Strait didn’t sing about drinking and had a HUGE career in country music.
February 21, 2017 @ 1:02 am
Without Googling it, I can think of one GS hit from the ’80s-’90s with references to drinking: “Drinking Champagne.” But I’ll admit that Strait did not generally sing songs on that subject.
Webb Pierce is KNOWN for singing drinking songs–but he, in fact, hardly sang any, apart from his huge hit “There Stands the Glass.” The Mell Tillis penned “Honky Tonk Song” may be Pierce’s only other hit on the subject.
February 21, 2017 @ 6:12 am
I never knew that was released as a single! But, yeah, that cover is the only exception I could find.
February 22, 2017 @ 4:21 pm
“Well thank you, could I drink you a buy, oh listen to me, what I mean is can I buy you a drink”.
Granted it came out in ’85 so a year before his daughters death.
February 23, 2017 @ 6:05 pm
Search youtube you will find Strait singing “There Stands The Glass” at live shows from the late 80’s and 90’s. In one show Strait was in Canada and gets introduced by Ian Tyson. He does really good on it
May 13, 2018 @ 12:25 am
You ever heard the song, “Chill Of An Early Fall”? Lyric in the song says, “and I’ll be drinking again…” That was 1991. Lol. You’re just flat out wrong.
Also, alcohol was not a contributing factor to his daughter’s death.
February 21, 2017 @ 5:06 pm
“We’ll see if they’re saying that about Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” in 2054.” I’ve been saying this for the last few years. What is a classic country station playlist gonna look like in 20 years? Is it gonna be full of the bros or the artists that were actually playing country music that never got their due. I think when we look back years from now a lot of our current favorite artists will be held in a higher regard than those that are popular now. While it sucks that they don’t get the recognition now I’d rather have legacy over current popularity.
February 21, 2017 @ 10:10 pm
I’m glad he did pass on it the song doesn’t fit his voice.
February 25, 2017 @ 9:47 am
David Allan Coe is probably on a stage somewhere singing that song and claiming he wrote it and that he got the award for song of the year. In fact, he’s responsible for teaching the world what a songwriter is. He’s also probably performing it without a bass player…
March 3, 2022 @ 4:53 pm
>”…David Allan Coe is probably on a stage somewhere singing that song and claiming he wrote it ”
David Allan Coe has never claimed he wrote the song, and he would never do that in the future. Instead, he has always given credit to Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, the actual authors of the song.