Harlan Howard was a country singer who wrote more than 100 Top 10 hits, including "I Fall To Pieces", "I've Got a Tiger By the Tail", "Call Me Mister In-Between", "Mary Ann Regrets" and "Heartaches By the Number." Artists who sang his songs include Kitty Wells, Patty Loveless, Patsy Cline, Buck Owens, Waylon Jenning, Dolly Parton, Glen Campbell, Conway Twitty, Ray Charles, Brenda Lee, Burl Ives and The Kingston Trio.

This song was a hit for Johnny Cash (1963), and has since been recorded many times, some notable renditions being by Ray Charles (1963), John Conlee (1982) and Patty Loveless. The story goes that Loveless's husband (and producer), Emory Gordy Jr. had once said to Howard that "Busted" was such a great song, it would have been a nice twist if it had been about coal miners. Howard replied, 'You're not even going to believe this, but the original lyrics were about coal miners." He had actually rewritten the lyrics for Johnny Cash, removing the references to coal-mining as Johnny Cash knew more about cotton than coal.

Patty Loveless, then, was the first to record Howard's original coal-mining song.

You can see a playlist of my mining songs here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CF909DA14CE415DF

For lyrics and chords of my songs, see my website: http://www.raymondcrooke.com