Background
"Rocky Top" was written by married songwriting duo Boudleaux Bryant (1920–1987) and Felice Bryant (1925–2003) in 1967. At the time, the Bryants were working at the Gatlinburg Inn in Gatlinburg, Tennessee on a collection of slow-tempo songs for a project for Archie Campbell and Chet Atkins. Writing the fast-paced "Rocky Top," which took about 10 minutes to write, served as a temporary diversion for them.
While the song became a staple of the Osborne Brothers concerts in the late 1960s, the song did not achieve mass popularity until the early 1970s, when Lynn Anderson's version reached number seventeen on the Billboard Country Top 100. In 1972, the University of Tennessee's Pride of the Southland Band first played the song as part of one of its drills, the idea and arrangement being primarily the work of band arranger Barry MacDonald. The song was officially adopted as the fifth Tennessee state song in 1982. In the 1970s, the song achieved such popularity among bar crowds that the Chapel Hill, North Carolina, old-time band the Red Clay Ramblers' national tours included a crowd-pleasing satire informally titled "Play 'Rocky Top' (or I'll Punch Your Lights Out.)" The Bryants' children currently own the rights to the song under the corporate name "House of Bryant," and the song's original sheet music is on display at the Rocky Top Village Inn in downtown Gatlinburg.
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