Texan Cindy Walker already was a well-established songwriter in the fall of 1955 when she attended Nashville’s annual disc jockey convention.
By then, she had worked with Bing Crosby, not to mention Gene Autry and Bob Wills. She had even scored her own hit in 1944 with her recording of Wiley Walker and Gene Sullivan’s "When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again."
But Cindy Walker’s greatest contribution to American pop music was only now about to happen.
How the Song Came to Be
Years later, Walker would recall that day. She was leaving the Nashville conference when she was approached by country singing star Eddy Arnold.
“He said, 'I've been wanting to see you. I've got a song title,’” she remembered. “He said, ‘I've showed it around a little bit and I haven't had any luck, but I know it's a good title.’”
Walker liked the title Arnold suggested — “You Don’t Know Me” — but at first she couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Back home, though, “I was just sitting there and all of a sudden, here comes, 'You give your hand to me and then you say hello’.”
"But I couldn't find any way to finish it,” she told a writer decades later during her Grammy Foundation Living History interview. “Maybe two or three weeks went by and nothing happened. Then one day, I thought, 'You give your hand to me and then you say goodbye' and when I said that, I knew exactly where it was going. I couldn't wait to get to the phone to call Eddy."
Crossover Gold
Walker’s resulting song was a definitive crossover hit. The first rendition of “You Don’t Know Me” was released by pop singer Jerry Vale, who in early 1956 carried it to #14 on Billboard’s pop chart. Two months later, it entered the country music world when Eddy Arnold’s version made it to #10.
Then along came Brother Ray. In 1962, Ray Charles included the tune on his #1 pop album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. His single of “You Don’t Know Me” (the song’s overall biggest-selling version ever) went all the way to #2 on Billboard’s “Hot 100.” That same year it also topped the Easy Listening chart for three weeks.
Later the song was used in the 1993 comedy film Groundhog Day, and it was the 12th No. 1 country hit for Mickey Gilley in 1981.
Walker’s fellow Texan Willie Nelson honored her with his album You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker in 2006, the year she died at age 88. In her obituary, The New York Times noted that Walker had Top 10 hits in every decade from the 1940s to the 1980s.
Our Take on the Tune
Michelle Hoge brought her band mates this song about a decade ago. It immediately found a place on the next album they were working on and it became a standard feature in most of The Flood’s shows.
These days, the guys don’t see Michelle so often — she and her husband Rich live more than two hours away — but whenever she rambles back this way, as she did last week, this enduring classic is sure to make an appearance.
More from Michelle
Finally, if you would like to fill your Friday with little more from the one whom the late Joe Dobbs lovingly dubbed “The Chick Singer,” tune in the Michelle Channel in the free Radio Floodango music streaming service.
Share this post