"Walk Right In" is the title of a popular song from 1962 by the
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
folkThe term folk music originated in the 19th century as a term for musical folklore. It has been defined in several ways; as music transmitted by word of mouth, music of the lower classes, music with no known composer...
trio
The Rooftop SingersThe Rooftop Singers were an American progressive folk singing trio in the early 1960s, best known for the hit "Walk Right In".The group was composed of Erik Darling and Bill Svanoe with former jazz singer Lynne Taylor...
. The song was written by
bluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre created within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
singer and musician
Gus CannonGus Cannon was an American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands in the 1920s and 1930s.-Career:...
and originally recorded by Cannon and His Jug Stompers in the late 1920s.
In the U.S., the song spent two weeks at #1 on the
Billboard Hot 100The 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...
chart in early 1963. It spent five weeks atop the
Easy Listening chartThe Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...
, which would later become known as the Adult Contemporary chart.
"Walk Right In" is the title of a popular song from 1962 by the
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
folkThe term folk music originated in the 19th century as a term for musical folklore. It has been defined in several ways; as music transmitted by word of mouth, music of the lower classes, music with no known composer...
trio
The Rooftop SingersThe Rooftop Singers were an American progressive folk singing trio in the early 1960s, best known for the hit "Walk Right In".The group was composed of Erik Darling and Bill Svanoe with former jazz singer Lynne Taylor...
. The song was written by
bluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre created within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
singer and musician
Gus CannonGus Cannon was an American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands in the 1920s and 1930s.-Career:...
and originally recorded by Cannon and His Jug Stompers in the late 1920s.
In the U.S., the song spent two weeks at #1 on the
Billboard Hot 100The 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...
chart in early 1963. It spent five weeks atop the
Easy Listening chartThe Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...
, which would later become known as the Adult Contemporary chart. In addition, "Walk Right In" reached both the
R&B chartR&B/Hip-Hop Songs, formerly the Black Singles Chart, 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...
(peaking at #4) as well as the
country music chartHot 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...
(peaking at #23). The song reached #1 in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
on the
Kent Music ReportThe Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent from May 1974 through to 1998...
in 1963, and it made the Top 10 on the
UK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record industry. The full chart contains the top 200 singles based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 of this list...
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, peaking at #10.
The album containing this song was also called
Walk Right In and was nominated for a
Grammy AwardThe Grammy Awards —or Grammys—are presented annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States for outstanding achievements in the music industry...
in the category
Best Folk RecordingThe Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording was awarded from 1960 to 1986. During this time the award had several minor name changes:*From 1960 to 1961 the award was known as Best Performance - Folk...
.
Group member Erik Darling recruited two friends to record a folk version of "Walk Right In" after hearing the original Cannon recording. Darling wanted the record to have a distinctive sound, so he and group member Bill Svanoe both played
twelve string guitarThe twelve-string guitar is an acoustic or electric guitar with 12 strings in 6 courses, which produces a richer, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar...
s on the song, although they had some difficulty in acquiring the instruments. Darling is quoted as saying that prior to the making of this record, "you couldn't buy a 12-string guitar...I ordered one from the
Gibson CompanyThe Gibson Guitar Corporation, of Nashville, Tennessee, USA, is a manufacturer of acoustic and electric guitars. Gibson also owns and makes guitars under such brands as Epiphone, Kramer, Valley Arts, Tobias, Steinberger, and Kalamazoo. In addition to guitars, the company makes pianos through its...
, but in order to record [the song] with two 12-strings, we had to wait for the company to build a second one for Bill!" The success of the song was a boon to Cannon, who was in his late 70s and had been forced to pawn his banjo the previous winter in order to pay his heating bill; he received royalties as a songwriter and saw renewed interest in his music, which led to a recording contract of his own.
Other acts who have recorded or performed "Walk Right In" include
Chet AtkinsChester Burton Atkins , better known as Chet Atkins, was an American guitarist and record producer who created, along with Owen Bradley, the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country's appeal to adult pop music fans as well.His picking style, inspired by...
,
Ella FitzgeraldElla Jane Fitzgerald , also known as "Lady Ella", and the "First Lady of Song", was an American jazz vocalist....
,
Earl GrantEarl Grant was an American easy listening pianist, Hammond organist, and vocalist popular in the 1950s and 1960s.-Career:...
,
Janis JoplinJanis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter and music arranger, from Port Arthur, Texas. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist...
, Sammy Davis Jr. and
Dr. Hook & the Medicine ShowDr. Hook and the Medicine Show was a pop-country rock band formed around Union City, New Jersey in 1969.-History:The founding core of the band consisted of four friends—George Cummings, Dennis Locorriere, Ray Sawyer, Billy Francis—who had played up and down the East Coast and into the Midwest,...
. The Rooftop Singers' version appears on the
soundtrackForrest Gump is the soundtrack album based on the Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning film, Forrest Gump, and contains such artists as Elvis Presley, Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Joan Baez, Aretha Franklin, Randy Newman and many more...
to the
Tom HanksThomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title role in Forrest Gump, Commander James...
film
Forrest GumpForrest Gump is a American comedy-drama film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. The film, directed by Robert Zemeckis, stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright Penn, and Gary Sinise...
. Roger Branigin's campaign adapted the song en route to his eventual victory in the 1964
IndianaIndiana is a U.S. state, the 19
th admitted to the Union. It is located in the Great Lakes region, and with approximately 6.3 million residents, is ranked 16
th in population and 17
th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38
th in land area, and is the...
gubernatorial race.
See also
External links