Songwriting Career
During the first years of their marriage, the Bryants struggled financially, living in a mobile home, where they wrote upwards of 80 songs. They solicited a number of country music artists in an attempt to sell their compositions but were either ignored or politely rejected until singer Little Jimmy Dickens recorded their "Country Boy". The song went to No. 7 on the 1948 country charts and opened the door to a working relationship with Fred Rose at Acuff-Rose Music in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1950, the Bryants moved to Nashville to work full-time at songwriting. Some of their compositions from the early 1950s included the swinging "Sugar Beet" (recorded by Moon Mullican) and the bluesy "Midnight" (recorded by Red Foley).
The Bryants wrote more songs for Dickens as well as for popular country artist Carl Smith, and at the same time released four 45 rpm singles of their own to modest success. Beginning in 1957 the Bryants came to national prominence in both country music and pop music when they wrote a string of hugely successful songs for the Everly Brothers and hits for others such as Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly. Their compositions were recorded by many artists from a variety of musical genres, including Tony Bennett, Sonny James, Eddy Arnold, Bob Moore, Charley Pride, Nazareth, Jim Reeves, Leo Sayer, Simon & Garfunkel, Sarah Vaughan, The Grateful Dead, Elvis Costello, Count Basie, Dean Martin, Ray Charles, Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan (Dylan's Self Portrait album has one of Felice's tracks and one co-written with her husband), and others.
In 1962, The Bryants wrote "Too Many Chicks", a song that became a hit for Leona Douglas, the first African-American woman to record as a country and western singer. Leona was discovered by Fred Foster of Monument Records. Fred Foster also noticed that Boudleaux had a secretary, a woman named Bobby McKee, and he suggested that Kris Kristofferson use her name in a song, which became Me and Bobby McGee.
The Bryants eventually moved to a home not far from Nashville on Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville, Tennessee, near friends Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash. In 1978, they moved to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where they purchased the "Rocky Top Village Inn" in the Great Smoky Mountains. In 1979 they released their own album called A Touch of Bryant. "Rocky Top", one of their more than 1,500 recorded songs, was adopted as a State song of Tennessee in 1982 and the unofficial fight song for the University of Tennessee sports teams.
During their career, the Bryants earned 59 BMI country, pop, and R&B music awards. In 1972 they were inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, in 1986 into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, in 1991 into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.
Boudleaux Bryant is the third most successful songwriter of the 1950s on the UK charts, Felice the 21st.
Read more about this topic: Felice And Boudleaux Bryant
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)