Little Green Apples
Encyclopedia
"Little Green Apples" is a song written by Bobby Russell
Bobby Russell
Bobby Russell was an American singer and songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, he charted five singles on the Hot Country Songs charts, including the crossover pop hit "Saturday Morning Confusion." Russell was also married to singer and actress Vicki Lawrence from 1972 to 1974.-Career:Russell wrote...

 which was most successful as a 1968 hit single by O. C. Smith
O. C. Smith
O.C. Smith was an American musician. His recording of "Little Green Apples", which went to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968, also sold over one million records.-Biography:...

.

According to Buzz Cason
Buzz Cason
Buzz Cason is an American rock singer, songwriter, producer and author....

, who partnered Bobby Russell in the Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

-based Rising Sons music publishing firm, Russell wrote both the songs "Honey
Honey (Bobby Goldsboro song)
"Honey," also known as "Honey ," is a song written by Bobby Russell. He first produced it with former Kingston Trio member Bob Shane...

" and "Little Green Apples" as "an experiment in composing", anticipating a potential market for true-to-life story songs...with more 'meat' in the lyrics [than was] standard" for current hits. Russell wrote "Little Green Apples" for Roger Miller
Roger Miller
Roger Dean Miller was an American singer, songwriter, musician and actor, best known for his honky tonk-influenced novelty songs...

 to record and Miller made the first recording of the song on January 24, 1968 in a session at Columbia Recording Studio Nashville produced by Jerry Kennedy. Released as the lead single from the album A Tender Look at Love, "Little Green Apples" afforded Miller his final Top Ten C&W
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

 hit at #6 and also his final Top 40 crossover reaching #39 on the Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 in Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

. In the UK Miller's "Little Green Apples" reached #19 in the spring of 1968 – when it also reached #46 in Australia – and in the spring of 1969 the track returned to the UK chart reaching #39.

Patti Page
Patti Page
Clara Ann Fowler , known by her professional name Patti Page, is an American singer, one of the best-known female artists in traditional pop music. She was the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, and has sold over 100 million records...

 recorded "Little Green Apples" for her C&W
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

-oriented album Gentle on My Mind whose title cut shared the Easy Listening Top Ten with Roger Miller's "Little Green Apples". Page's version of the latter was released as a single in June 1968 reaching #11 Easy Listening and affording Page the final Hot 100 appearance of her career at #96.

O. C. Smith had recorded "Little Green Apples" at Columbia Studios LA for Hickory Holler Revisited the parent album of his Top 40 hit "Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp". The track "Main Street Mission" was issued as the followup single but as Buzz Cason recalls "a disc jockey in Detroit played the album cut [by O. C. Smith] of 'Little Green Apples' one morning"; that single spin triggered "such a reaction and rash of phone requests [as to] prompt [the deejay] to call Steve Popovich, head of promotion for Columbia
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 in New York [City]" with "Little Green Apples" resultantly replacing "Main Street Mission" as Smith's current single. "Little Green Apples" afforded Smith a #2 hit on both the Hot 100 and the R&B chart
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,...

 in Billboard and was certified Gold
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...

 for domestic sales of one million units.Little Green Apples" won its composer Bobby Russell the 1969 Grammy Award for Song of the Year
Grammy Award for Song of the Year
The Song of the Year is one of the four most prestigious awards in the Grammy Awards ceremony, if not in all of the American music industry. It has been awarded since 1959 and unlike the Record of the Year award, which goes to the performer and production team of a single song, Song of the Year...

 and the Grammy Award for Best Country Song
Grammy Award for Best Country Song
The Grammy Award for Best Country Song has been awarded since 1965. The award is given to the writer of the song.There have been several minor changes to the name of the award:...

.

Cover versions

1968
  • Rex Allen
    Rex Allen
    Rex Elvie Allen was an American film actor, singer and songwriter, known as the Arizona Cowboy, particularly known as the narrator in many Disney nature and Western film productions. For contributions to the recording industry, Allen was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.-Family...

     album The Smooth Country Sound of Rex Allen
  • Glen Campbell
    Glen Campbell
    Glen Travis Campbell is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.During his 50 years in show...

     and Bobbie Gentry
    Bobbie Gentry
    Roberta Lee Streeter , professionally known as Bobbie Gentry, is a former American singer-songwriter notable as one of the first female country artists to compose and produce her own material...

     album Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell
    Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell
    Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell is a 1968 album by Glen Campbell and Bobbie Gentry. Gentry and Campbell's harmonies resulted in a gold record and three hit singles, including a cover of the Everly Brothers' hit "All I Have to Do Is Dream", which rose to #3 on the U.K. Top 40 and #27 on the...

  • Gene Chandler
    Gene Chandler
    Gene Chandler also known as "The Duke of Earl" or simply "The Duke", is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter, producer and record executive. He is one of the leading exponents of the 1960s Chicago soul scene...

     and Barbara Acklin
    Barbara Acklin
    Barbara Jean Acklin was an American soul singer and songwriter who was most successful in the 1960s and 1970s. Her biggest hit as a singer was "Love Makes a Woman" in 1968...

     non-album single – included on 1999 Gene Chandler compilation The Brunswick Years: 1966–1969
  • John Gary
    John Gary
    John Gary was an American singer and a technically accomplished vocalist.-Early life:John Gary Strader started singing at the age of 5. He joined his older sister, Shirley Strader. At the age of 9, he won a 3-year scholarship to the prestigious Cathedral School of St John in Manhattan. He...

     album Holding Your Mind
  • Bobby Goldsboro
    Bobby Goldsboro
    Bobby Goldsboro is an American country and pop singer-songwriter. He had a string of Pop and Country hits during the 1960s and 1970s, including his signature #1 classic "Honey," which sold well over one million copies in the United States.-Early life:Goldsboro was born in Marianna, Florida...

     album Honey
  • Burl Ives
    Burl Ives
    Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....

     album The Times They Are A-Changin'
    The Times They Are A-Changin' (Burl Ives album)
    The Times They Are A-Changin' is a 1968 album by Burl Ives, produced by Bob Johnston. It was probably recorded at Columbia Studios in Nashville, with local session musicians...

  • Frankie Laine
    Frankie Laine
    Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio , was a successful American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005...

     album Take Me Back to Laine Country
  • Leapy Lee
    Leapy Lee
    Leapy Lee is an English singer, best known for his 1968 single "Little Arrows", which reached Number 2 in the UK Singles Chart and was a Top 40 country and pop hit in the United States.-Career:The song "Little Arrows", written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazelwood, was also...

     album "Little Arrows"
  • AJ Marshall album There's A Lot Of Lovin' In This Old Boy Yet
  • Johnny Mathis
    Johnny Mathis
    John Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...

     album Those Were the Days
  • Ray Price
    Ray Price (musician)
    Ray Price is an American country music singer, songwriter and guitarist. His wide-ranging baritone has often been praised as among the best male voices of country music...

     album She Wears My Ring
  • Frank Sinatra
    Frank Sinatra
    Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

     album Cycles'
  • Tony Joe White
    Tony Joe White
    Tony Joe White is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known for his 1969 hit "Polk Salad Annie"; "Rainy Night in Georgia", which he wrote but was first made popular by Brook Benton in 1970; and "Steamy Windows", a hit for Tina Turner in 1989...

     album Black and White
    Black and White (Tony Joe White album)
    Black and White was the first album released by Tony Joe White. It contained the single "Polk Salad Annie" which was a staple of Elvis Presley's live sets in the 1970s. It was recorded at RCA Victor Studios, Nashville and produced by Billy Swan....



1969
  • Ed Ames
    Ed Ames
    Ed Ames is an American popular singer and actor. He is best known for his pop and adult contemporary hits of the 1960s like "When the Snow is on the Roses" and the perennial "My Cup Runneth Over." He was part of a popular 1950s singing group called The Ames Brothers.-Early life:Born in Malden,...

     album
    Love of the Common People
  • Bill Anderson album Wild Weekend
  • Eddy Arnold
    Eddy Arnold
    Richard Edward Arnold , known professionally as Eddy Arnold, was an American country music singer who performed for six decades. He was a so-called Nashville sound innovator of the late 1950s, and scored 147 songs on the Billboard country music charts, second only to George Jones. He sold more...

     album
    Songs of the Young World
  • Ray Conniff
    Ray Conniff
    Joseph Raymond Conniff was an American bandleader and arranger best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the 1960s.-Biography:...

    , His Orchestra and Chorus album
    I Love How You Love Me
  • Bing Crosby
    Bing Crosby
    Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....

     album
    Hey Jude/Hey Bing!
  • Vic Damone
    Vic Damone
    Vic Damone is an American singer and entertainer.- Early life :Damone was born Vito Rocco Farinola in Brooklyn, New York to French-Italian immigrants based in Bari, Italy—Rocco and Mamie Farinola. His father was an electrician; and his mother taught piano. His cousin was the actress and singer...

     album
    Live in Las Vegas
  • John Davidson
    John Davidson
    John Davidson may refer to:* John Andrew Davidson , Canadian politician* John Davidson , American actor* John Davidson , Australian admiral...

     album
    John Davidson
  • Tom Jones
    Tom Jones (singer)
    Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

     album
    This Is Tom Jones (reached #49 in Italy)
  • Siw Malmkvist
    Siw Malmkvist
    Siw "Siwan" Gunnel Margareta Malmkvist is a Swedish singer who is popular in Scandinavia and Germany...

     album
    Today (as "Garten Eden")
  • Dean Martin
    Dean Martin
    Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...

     album
    I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am
  • George Morgan
    George Morgan (singer)
    George Thomas Morgan was a mid-20th century American country music singer. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and a former member of the Grand Ole Opry.-Biography:...

     album
    Sings Like a Bird
  • Jim Nabors
    Jim Nabors
    James Thurston "Jim" Nabors is an American actor and singer. Born and raised in Sylacauga, Alabama, Nabors moved to Southern California because of his asthma. While working at a Santa Monica nightclub, The Horn, he was discovered by Andy Griffith and later joined The Andy Griffith Show, playing...

     album
    Galveston
  • The O'Jays
    The O'Jays
    The O'Jays are an American R&B group from Canton, Ohio, formed in 1963 and originally consisting of Eddie Levert , Walter Williams , William Powell , Bobby Massey and Bill Isles. The O'Jays were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004, and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005...

     album
    The O'Jays in Philadelphia ("Medley
    Medley (music)
    In music, a medley is a piece composed from parts of existing pieces, usually three, played one after another, sometimes overlapping. They are common in popular music, and most medleys are songs rather than instrumental. A medley which is a remixed series is called a megamix, often done with tracks...

    :Little Green Apples/Something
    Something
    "Something" is a song by The Beatles, written by lead guitarist George Harrison in 1969. It was featured on the album Abbey Road, and was also the first song written by Harrison to appear on the A-side of a Beatles' single...

  • Ginette Reno
    Ginette Reno
    Ginette Reno, OC, CQ is a French-Canadian author, composer, singer, and actress. She is known by the nickname .Born as Ginette Reynault in Montreal, Quebec, she played the role of Maria Barberini in the independent film Mambo Italiano and played the mother in Léolo.She has recorded in both...

     album
    Ginette Reno
  • Dinah Shore
    Dinah Shore
    Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...

     album
    Country Feelin
  • Josephine Siao
    Josephine Siao
    Josephine Siao Fong-Fong MBE is a Hong Kong movie star who became popular as a child actress and continued her success as a mature actress, winning numerous awards including Best Actress at the 1995 Berlin Film Festival...

     album L.O.V.E. From Fong Fong (as a duet with Michael Kwan
    Michael Kwan
    Michael Kwan Ching-kit is a Hong Kong based Cantopop singer previously with the Philips label , and later with EMI. His back catalogue continues to be published by Universal Music Group. He now works as an architect.-Biography:Kwan was born in 1949 in Hong Kong, he attended St...

    )
  • Joe Simon
    Joe Simon
    Joseph Henry "Joe" Simon is an American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Simon created or co-created many important characters in the 1930s-1940s Golden Age of Comic Books and served as the first editor of Timely Comics, the company that would evolve into Marvel Comics.With his...

     album The Chokin' Kind
  • The Temptations
    The Temptations
    The Temptations is an American vocal group having achieved fame as one of the most successful acts to record for Motown Records. The group's repertoire has included, at various times during its five-decade career, R&B, doo-wop, funk, disco, soul, and adult contemporary music.Formed in Detroit,...

     album Puzzle People
    Puzzle People
    Puzzle People is a 1969 album recorded by The Temptations for the Gordy label. Entirely produced by Norman Whitfield, Puzzle People takes the next step along the path that Cloud Nine started, and takes the Temptations further away from a classic soul sound, and more towards the realm of...

  • B. J. Thomas
    B. J. Thomas
    Billy Joe "B. J." Thomas is an American popular singer known for his chart-topping hits in the 1960s and 1970s—appearing on the pop, adult contemporary, country and Hot 100 charts.-Career:...

     album Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head
  • Peter Tosh
    Peter Tosh
    Peter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh , was a Jamaican reggae musician who was a core member of the band The Wailers , and who afterward had a successful solo career as well as being a promoter of Rastafari.Peter Tosh was born in Grange Hill, Jamaica, an illegitimate child to a mother too young...

     non-album single included on the 2001 compilation Can't Blame The Youth
  • Jerry Vale
    Jerry Vale
    Jerry Vale is an American singer.-Career:In high school, in order to make some money, he took a job shining shoes in a barbershop in New York City. He sang while he shined shoes, and his boss liked the sound so well that he paid for music lessons for the boy...

     album Till
  • Dionne Warwick
    Dionne Warwick
    Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....

     album Promises, Promises
  • Nancy Wilson album Son of a Preacher Man
  • Andy Williams
    Andy Williams
    Howard Andrew "Andy" Williams is an American singer who has recorded 18 Gold- and three Platinum-certified albums. He hosted The Andy Williams Show, a TV variety show, from 1962 to 1971, as well as numerous television specials, and owns his own theater, the Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri,...

     album Happy Heart
  • Faron Young
    Faron Young
    Faron Young was an American country music singer and songwriter from the early 1950s into the mid-1980s and one of its most successful and colorful stars...

     album Wine Me Up
  • Monica Zetterlund
    Monica Zetterlund
    Eva Monica Zetterlund was a Swedish singer and actress.-Biography:Zetterlund was a singer particularly noted for her jazz work. She began by learning the classic jazz songs from radio and records, initially not knowing the language and what they sang about in English...

     as Små gröna äpplen, with Swedish lyrics by Stig Anderson
    Stig Anderson
    Stig 'Stikkan' Erik Leopold Anderson was born in Hova, Sweden, and is best known as the manager of the pop group ABBA.- Polar Music:Anderson was the founder of the Polar Music record label in 1963...

    . Both the performance and the lyrics won Swedish Grammy
    Grammis
    The Grammis Awards are the Swedish equivalent of the Grammy Awards. The awards ceremony is generally held each year in February in Stockholm.The awards were established in 1969 and awarded until 1972 when they were cancelled....

     awards.

1970
  • Tony Bennett
    Tony Bennett
    Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....

     album Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today!
    Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today!
    Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today! is a 1970 album by American classic pop and jazz singer Tony Bennett. Done under pressure from his record company for more marketable material, it featured misguided attempts at Beatles and other current songs and a ludicrous psychedelic art cover...

  • Julio Iglesias
    Julio Iglesias
    Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva , better known simply as Julio Iglesias, is a Spanish singer who has sold over 300 million records worldwide in 14 languages and released 77 albums. According to Sony Music Entertainment, he is one of the top 15 best selling music artists in history,...

     album Gwendolyne (as "Pequeñas Manzanas Verdes")
  • Kathy Kirby
    Kathy Kirby
    Kathy Kirby was an English singer who was reportedly the highest-paid female singer of her generation. She is best known for her cover version of Doris Day's "Secret Love" and for representing the United Kingdom in the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest, where she came in second place...

     non-album single – included on 2009 compilation The Best of the EMI Years (2009)
  • Ben E. King
    Ben E. King
    Benjamin Earl King , better known as Ben E. King, is an American soul singer. He is perhaps best known as the singer and co-composer of "Stand by Me", a U.S...

     album Rough Edges
    Rough Edges
    Rough Edges is the seventh album and sixth studio album by Ben E. King. After not making any new albums for a few years, King composed this album with Maxwell, another subsidiary of Atlantic Records....

  • Louis Prima
    Louis Prima
    Louis Prima was a Sicilian American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the...

     album Blast Off!
  • Lasse Mårtenson
    Lasse Mårtenson
    Lars Anders Fredrik "Lasse" Mårtenson is a Finnish singer who performed at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1964 with the song "Laiskotellen" . He placed 7th with 9 points. He is best known in his home country as the composer of "Maija from the Storm Skerries", a lyrical tune arranged primarily for...

     album Lasse Mårtenson (as "Vihreät Omenat")
  • Bill Medley
    Bill Medley
    William Thomas Medley is an American singer and songwriter, best known as one half of The Righteous Brothers....

     album Someone is Standing Outside
  • Sue and Sunny
    Sue and Sunny
    Sue and Sunny were a vocal duo and session singers operating in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Although sisters, their full stage names were Sue Glover and Sunny Leslie...

     album Sue & Sunny
  • Helena Vondráčková
    Helena Vondrácková
    Helena Vondráčková is a Czech singer whose career has spanned five decades.- Early life/career :Vondráčková spent her childhood years in the town of Slatinany. She took piano lessons from an early age...

     album Ostrov Heleny Vondráčkové (as "Pochval Strom Za Zelený Listí")

1971
  • Helena Vondráčková
    Helena Vondrácková
    Helena Vondráčková is a Czech singer whose career has spanned five decades.- Early life/career :Vondráčková spent her childhood years in the town of Slatinany. She took piano lessons from an early age...

     album Isle of Helena
  • The Chopsticks – Sandra Lang
    Sandra Lang
    Sandra Lang is a former Taishan Cantopop singer, active in the 1970s. - Career :During the late 1960s Sandra Lang's career began under the HK English pop group named The Chopsticks. The group did not last long, as Lang soon went solo for TVB....

     and Amina – album All Of A Sudden.

1972
  • Bloodstone
    Bloodstone (band)
    Bloodstone is a former American R&B, soul, and funk group, most popular in the 1970s and early 1980s. The band charted thirteen songs between 1973 and 1984.-Biography:...

     album Bloodstone
  • Brendan O'Reilly
    Brendan O'Reilly
    Brendan O'Reilly was an Irish broadcaster, journalist, actor, athlete, singer and songwriter. He is best known as presenter of the long-running Sports Stadium....

     album That's My Boy

1973
  • Vicki Lawrence
    Vicki Lawrence
    Vicki Lawrence is an American actress, comedienne, and Billboard Hot 100 #1 singer, who was frequently a game show panelist in the 1970s and 1980s...

     album The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia

1978
  • Dennis Brown
    Dennis Brown
    Dennis Emmanuel Brown was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a sub-genre of reggae...

    album If I Follow My Heart
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