Texarkana Baby (song)

"Texarkana Baby" is a song written by Fred Rose. It was made popular by Eddy Arnold and Bob Wills in 1948. Eddy Arnold and his Tennessee Plow Boys and his Guitar recorded it in New York City on January 6, 1947. It was released by RCA Victor Records as catalog number 20-2806 in USA)^[1] and by EMI on the His Master's Voice label as catalog numbers BD 1234 and IM 1399. "Texarkana Baby" was the B-side of Arnold's version of "Bouquet of Roses" and made it to number one on the Best Selling Retail Folk Records chart for one week ^[2] in between the nineteen weeks "Bouquet of Roses" stayed at number one. Later in the year, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys recorded their version which peaked at number fifteen on the chart.^[3] On March 31, 1949, "Texarkana Baby" was among the first 7-inch 45 rpm records issued by RCA in the United States. Often given credit as the very first release, it was just one of several 45's available on the very first day of sale. The first 45 rpm record created was "PeeWee the Piccolo" RCA 47-0146 pressed Dec. 7, 1948 at the Sherman Avenue plant in Indianapolis, Indiana.

A cover of this song by Duke Special is included as a bonus track on the Deluxe Edition of their album I Never Thought This Day Would Come

References

1. RCA Victor Records in the 20-2500 to 20-2999 series
2. Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits: 1944-2006, Second edition. Record Research. p. 29.
3. Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits: 1944-2006, Second edition. Record Research. p. 54.