ROOTS of Country Music

The Professional Work of Harlan Howard

(Sep. 8, 1927 ~ Mar. 3, 2002) 

Most people knew Harlan Howard by the songs he penned - more than 4,000 of them.  In a career that spanned more than five decades, Harlan was one of Nashville’s greatest and most prolific songwriters. More than 100 of his compositions became chart-toppers for artists such as Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells, Buck Owens and Ray Price. Harlan was the writer behind such standards as, I Fall to Pieces, Heartaches By the Number, I've Got a Tiger By The Tail and I Don’t Know a Thing About Love. 

Harlan Howard was born in Lexington, Kentucky (9/8/1927) and his family moved to Detroit just two years later. Howard only completed nine years of formal education, though he was an avid reader. A devoted fan of the Grand Ole Opry radio show, Harlan began writing songs as a teen. After serving in the United States Army, he moved to California, gravitating towards the Bakersfield area (1955), hoping to sell his music.

At the time, performers including Buck Owens and Wynn Stewart were developing the famed Bakersfield sound. Howard's fledgling compositional skills began maturing and artists like Tex Ritter and Johnny Bond started publishing his songs. After a few minor successes, Wynn Stewart recorded Howard's You Took Her off My Hands and virtually overnight his work was in hot demand.

In 1958 his Pick Me Up on Your Way Down, was cut by Charlie Walker (No. 2, 1958) and in 1959, Kitty Wells scored with Mommy for a Day. However, Howard's big breakthrough came later in the year, when his classic Heartaches by the Number (No. 2, 1959) became a smash for Ray Price. That same year, Guy Mitchell' s pop version of the song went to number one.

Motivated by the success of those major hits, Howard moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1960, bringing along a large portfolio of compositions. He signed a contract with Acuff-Rose Music and as the hits began to chart, the legend of Harlan Howard began to soar. Harlan authored another hit for Ray Price, I Wish I Could Fall in Love Today (No. 5, 1960), as well as a pair of tracks for Buck Owens, Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache) (No. 2, 1960) and Above and Beyond (No.3, 1960). Then, in 1961, Howard and Hank Cochran co-wrote arguably his best-loved song, I Fall to Pieces (No. 1, 1961) for the legendary Patsy Cline.

As his career ignited, he had as many as 15 songs in the country charts top 40 at one time, earning him ten BMI awards. Through the 60s and 70s, he remained one of Nashville's most prolific composers, sparked by a remarkable string of upper-level compositions that ran into the mid-70s. Producers rarely passed up an opportunity to listen to a tune submitted by Howard for fear of missing the next major country classic.

By the 1980s, Howard had settled into semiretirement, although he regularly coached aspiring songwriters and composed a few more hit songs. These Lips Don’t Know How to say Goodbye (Doug Stone, No. 5, 1990) was one of Harlan’s final major compositions. He had forty top-twenty country music hits during his writing career.

Howard was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1973) and the Country Music Hall of Fame (1997).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------Howard, Harlan: Song Catalog 

Partial list: 

1. Above and Beyond
2. Blame It on Your Heart
3. Blizzard, The
4. Busted
5. Chokin’ Kind, The
6. Don’t Tell Me What to Do: (W/Max Barnes)
7. Evil on Your Mind
8. Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got a Heartache) (Alvis Owens, Jr., Harlan Howard)
9. Foolin’ Around (W/Buck Owens)
10. He Called Me Baby
11. He’s Gone, Gone, Gone
12. Heartaches By the Number
13. Heartaches Fo a Dime
14. Heartbreak USA
15. Hurtin’s All Over, The
16. I Don’t Believe I’ll Fall in Love Today
17. I Don’t Know a Thing About Love
18. I Don’t Remember Loving You (R. Braddock)
19. I Fall to Pieces (W/Hank Cochran)
20. I Wish I Could Fall in Love Today (W/Winn Stewart)
21. I Won’t Forget You
22. I’ll Catch You When You Fall
23. I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail (W/Buck Owens)
24. Keeper of the Key
25. Key’s in the Mailbox, The
26. Life Turned Her That Way
27. Mommy For a day (W/Buck Owens)
28. No Charge
29. Odds and Ends, Bits and Pieces
30. Pick Me Up on Your Way Down
31. Second Hand Rose (W/Grant Clarke, James Hanley)
32. She’s a Little Bit Country
33. Somebody Should Leave (W/Chick Rains)
34. Somewhere Tonight (W/Rodney Cromwell)
35. Streets of Baltimore (W/Tompall Glaser)
36. The One You Slip Around With
37. These Lips Don’t Know How to say Goodbye
38. Too Many Rivers
39. Under the Influence of Love (W/Buck Owens)
40. Why Not Me (Brent Maher, Sonny Throckmorton, Harlan Howard)
41. You Comb Her Hair (W/Hank Cochran)
42. You Took Her off My hands (Skeets McDonald, Wynn Stewart, Harlan Howard)
43. Your Heart Turned Left (and I Was on..)
44. Yours Love

---------------------------------------------------------------------------Researched, compioled and written by Richard Bell, Roors of Country Music, Jul. 25, 2010.