Released July 1949 Length 2:47 | Genre Country Label MGM | |
A-side "Mind Your Own Business" Recorded December 22, 1949, E.T. Herzog Studio, Cincinnati | ||
There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight is a song written by Hank Williams and released on MGM Records as the B-side to "Mind Your Own Business" in July 1949.
Contents
Background
According to Colin Escott's 2004 memoir Hank Williams: The Biography, country music disc jockey Nelson King always insisted that he had written "There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight" with Williams, and was surreptitiously credited with a half-share of the song. However, the extent of King's contribution is debatable; songwriter Tillman Franks, who Escott writes "had more or less invented payola in the country record business," later recalled a fishing trip he took with Williams and country singer Webb Pierce:
I'd given Nelson King half of "Three Ways of Knowing" and Hank said, "Franks, you and Pierce have done fucked up business giving these deejays songs." I said, "Hank, I didn't start it. Nelson told me you'd given him half of 'There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight.'" Hank said, "I didn't mean to, I was drunk.'"Williams' session band was composed of Clyde Baum (mandolin), Zeke Turner (electric guitar), Jerry Byrd (steel guitar), Louis Innis (rhythm guitar), Tommy Jackson (fiddle) and Willie Thawl (bass). The session is notable for being held at a Cincinnati recording studio rather than Castle Studio in Nashville, where Hank usually recorded.