By the Numbers - "Heartaches by the Number"

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I’ve given you some hip hop and some Milli Vanilli so far in this series. Now we take a really sharp exit into surprise territory with something you’d anticipate coming from @FourWalls, but probably not from me. We’re harkening back to the days of actual, real country music (these legends must be in the other realm shaking their collective heads at the foundation they laid turning into bro country. Tears are probably being shed each time someone listens to that stuff.) “Heartaches by the Number” was written in 1959 by Harlan Howard (he wrote over 4000 songs, 100 of which ended up in the Top 10 of the Country Music charts.) The biggest hit version of this was recorded by Guy Mitchell, but it was Ray Price who recorded it first (both versions were released in 1959.) To put it in perspective, Price’s version reached #2 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart; Mitchell’s version crossed over into the mainstream, peaking at #1 on that magazine’s Hot 100 chart. The sheet music for “Heartaches by the Number” was the best-seller in both the U.S. and Britain in January, 1960, so a lot of folks were determined to learn how to play the tune. The song has been covered by a Who’s Who of music stars, including, but not limited to: George Jones, Kitty Wells, Buck Owens, Bing Crosby, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Dwight Yoakam, Martina McBride, Roseanne Cash, and Cyndi Lauper. And I didn’t even mention Bill Hayley and His Comets or Jerry Lee Lewis. Proof that when you write a great song, people want to sing it! As a child, I spent an inordinate amount of time hanging out with my grandpa. This is the music he listened to. Therefore, I remember it fondly. I might use it only sporadically in my music series’, but the love is always there. Link is to the Ray Price version of the song, since he recorded it first: