Bobby Braddock

Country songwriter Bobby Braddock was one of the more prolific hitmakers of the '70s, and also made a few of his own recordings toward the end of the decade. Born in Lakeland, FL, in 1940, Braddock first entered the music industry as a keyboard player for <a href="spotify:artist:0Xi59sEw38vRvwleSAVqoo">Marty Robbins</a>, whose backing band he joined in 1964. Two years later, <a href="spotify:artist:0Xi59sEw38vRvwleSAVqoo">Robbins</a> recorded the Braddock-penned "While You're Dancing," and had a chart hit with it. Building on that foundation, Braddock joined the songwriting staff at Tree International Publishing, where he replaced <a href="spotify:artist:1RP2UpEaRzkF0Id3JigqD8">Roger Miller</a>. He also found work as a session musician, and began making his own recordings, charting with the 1967 single "I Know How to Do It." That same year, <a href="spotify:artist:3XnO697XIus1M0cMuxZjos">the Oak Ridge Boys</a> had a Top Ten hit with Braddock's "Would They Love Him Down in Shreveport," and his career was on its way. Two Top Tens for <a href="spotify:artist:5PSWc8Y94zFsAtZlTe7ipI">the Statler Brothers</a> arrived in 1968, plus Braddock's first number one hit in <a href="spotify:artist:1LFKKuzn302wp15dYH28id">Tammy Wynette</a>'s "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," which he co-wrote with <a href="spotify:artist:2DzMnX2411uUpptuy9LU8d">Curly Putman</a>. Over the next ten years, Braddock kept cranking out hits for countless artists, the biggest of which included "I Believe the South's Gonna Rise Again" (<a href="spotify:artist:7dmeVSH4lJqxXU7C87dKIB">Tanya Tucker</a>), "Come on In" (<a href="spotify:artist:2zyz0VJqrDXeFDIyrfVXSo">Jerry Lee Lewis</a>), "Womanhood" (<a href="spotify:artist:1LFKKuzn302wp15dYH28id">Wynette</a> again), and the duet "Something to Brag About" (recorded by <a href="spotify:artist:5W5bDNCqJ1jbCgTxDD0Cb3">Willie Nelson</a> with <a href="spotify:artist:3DwDtspV8qe9LiXiGOix5U">Mary Kay Place</a>, as well as <a href="spotify:artist:1LFKKuzn302wp15dYH28id">Wynette</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:2OpqcUtj10HHvGG6h9VYC5">George Jones</a>).

Braddock landed a recording deal with <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Elektra%22">Elektra</a> in his own right in 1979, and scored a chart hit that year with the title track of his first full-length album, Between the Lines. The 1980 follow-up, Love Bomb, was a semi-concept album filled with witty, Southern-fried social commentary, and was followed in 1983 by the mini-album Harepore Cornography. The same year, Braddock teamed with <a href="spotify:artist:3tet9aJudN4LsqHAxcA4O9">Matraca Berg</a> to write <a href="spotify:artist:23C7hNBr8GRdsk3VoTSZXh">T.G. Sheppard</a>'s number one hit "Faking Love." Braddock's songwriting career began to slow down a bit during the '80s, but he still came up with periodic successes, penning hits for <a href="spotify:artist:2BQVRw9md4UKcGUrDXABCD">Tracy Lawrence</a> ("Time Marches On," "Texas Tornado") and <a href="spotify:artist:2cNV8vNe2fPFf6OfGOBbSS">Mark Chesnutt</a> ("Old Flames Have New Names"), among others, during the '90s. And his hitmaking continued into the new millennium with "I Wanna Talk About Me," a <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Billboard%22">Billboard</a> country chart-topper for <a href="spotify:artist:2bA6fzP0lMAQ4kz6CF61w8">Toby Keith</a> in 2002. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi