Hank Williams (#5, 1949)
Jimmy Dean (#35, 1964)
Hank Williams, Jr. (#1, 1986)
“Mind
Your Own Business” was the culmination of a long-time goal that Warner
Bros. had for Hank Williams, Jr. The label wanted an “event record,” one
that would pair him with one or more name performers and create some
excitement, simply because of the aggregate name value. When it happened
with “Mind Your Own Business, it was strictly an afterthought.
Hank,
Jr.’s legendary father had written the song and recorded it at
Nashville’s Castle Recording Studio (the city’s only recording facility
at the time) on March 1, 1949, three months before his phenomenal June
11th debut on the Grand Ole Opry. Hank, Sr.’s record peaked at #5 on the
Billboard country chart later that summer. No one had planned to use
the song when Hank, Jr. began work on his “Montana Café” album in 1985,
but during one of the sessions he mentioned to producer Jim Ed Norman,
“Hey, I kind of like this one. What do you think about this?” and Hank,
Jr. tore into “Mind Your Own Business.”
After the entire song was
recorded, they all realized that this was the main thing that Hank, Jr.
had been trying to veer away from for years: covering his dad’s old
songs. He had started his singing career in that fashion as a teenager,
and naturally wanted to break free of his iconic father’s shadow and
develop his own sound as an artist. Hank, Jr. successfully did that
without question, but occasionally he would venture back in time and do
one of Hank, Sr.’s classics. He scored big with three of them: “Long
Gone Lonesome Blues,” at the very beginning of his career (his first Top
Five chart placement in 1964), “Kaw-liga” (#12 in 1980) and his #1
version of “Honky Tonkin’” in 1982. Although the new track of “Mind Your
Own Business” sounded good enough, Norman thought it didn’t have the
hit-making potential to warrant a single release. It was then that Jim
Ed suggested they turn the song into the “event record” that Warner
Bros. had been asking for.
Hank, Jr. named some people that he
would like to have join him on the record. Two of them were real
mind-blowers: Reverend Ike, a black evangelist from New York and rock
singer (and personal friend of Hank’s) Tom Petty. The others made more
sense: Willie Nelson (who has recorded at one time or another with just
about everyone on the planet) and Reba McEntire. Reverend Ike was,
needless to say, surprised by the request. He agreed to do the project,
but begged off the verse he was assigned about preaching. Instead,
Willie took that particular verse, recording it with Norman in Chicago’s
Universal Studio. Co-producer Barry Beckett traveled to other parts of
the country to record the other special guests: Reverend Ike (at New
York’s Atlantic Studios), Reba McEntire (at RMS in Las Vegas) and Tom
Petty (at Schnee Studios in North Hollywood).
Beckett says that
Reverend Ike was the most fun to work with on the project, being
particularly energetic on his lone verse. Barry also loved what Petty
did with his part, giving it a “funky” sound, as he put it, and Beckett
proclaimed that he had never heard Reba in such high voice. The
technicians effectively blended it all together for a seamless
five-voice recording of “Mind Your Own Business,” which reached #1 on
December 27, 1986 marking Hank Williams, Jr.’s ninth of his ten
chart-toppers. It stayed at Billboard’s summit for two weeks and helped
propel the “Montana Café” album to gold status. To thank them for their
assistance, Hank sent a gold record to each of his four special guests.
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