When was chattahoochee written

Well, I think he did. That's why he called. He'd heard some hits I'd written, and cut some of the hits I'd had before. It was actually in a hotel in Tallahassee, Fla. By this time, he was so successful that we couldn't write at 16th Ave. It was like, "If we're going to write, I've got to get on the bus. I told him , "I've got this idea for this upbeat song, and I want to see if you like it.

Well, it was the wildest thing. I had gotten the idea from a magazine. He wrote a famous poem called "Song of the Chattahoochee. I went and got my atlas, and it's like, 'Dang, that's really close to Jackson's hometown Newnan, Ga. At this point, we were writing so well together, I had two notebooks. When I got an idea, I put it down in my notebook.

But I had another one, and that was for Alan. If I even thought it was an idea he might like, I'd put it over there. I got the melody going, and I got those first two lines and I stopped because I was going on the road with him in just a few days.

I showed it to him in Tallahassee, we worked on it some, then we stopped in Pensacola and worked on it a little bit more. And the last show, Thibodaux, La. He showed it to the band on the bus. Alan's a ballad guy. I got a map and found out how close the Chattahoochee was to Newnan, Ga. I stopped right there, and I put the song idea in that notebook. I went out on the road shortly after that with Alan, so I showed the song idea to him.

I sang the first couple lines, and he was all over it. We stared working on it in Tallahassee, Fla. We finished it before sound check, and he showed it to the band. They actually worked it up in sound check and performed it that night! When the song was released as a single, I had never experienced anything like it before. It was amazing what happened and is still happening. The truth is, if Alan's had a bigger impact single than 'Chattahoochee,' I wish someone would tell me what it is.

Here's what that song did: It wasn't the first single. The album had already gone to No. The single sold half a million copies, and Alan sold six million more albums. The album went straight to No.