One of this year’s selections is a song so sad that George Jones was initially reluctant to record it. Yet it became one of the most popular songs in country music.
The Sons of the Pioneers’ 1934 song “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” was written by a Canadian by birth who fell in love with the American West when his family moved to Tucson.
In the 1950s, the Swan Silvertones turned the old spiritual “Mary, Don’t You Weep” into a recording that has inspired everyone from Paul Simon to Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.
