One evening in 1970, songwriter Jim Weatherly called up a friend from his college years, the actor Lee Majors. Weatherly and Majors played in a flag-football league together. But the actor was not home, and his girlfriend Farah Fawcett answered the phone, saying something that would inspire Weatherly to write the song “Midnight Train to Georgia.”
After reporting that Majors was not home, Fawcett said she was packing for a trip. More specifically, she said she was preparing to take a midnight plane to Houston to visit her parents. Weatherly, who had a songwriter’s ear, immediately recognized a great phrase for a song.
Weatherly’s “Midnight Plane to Houston”
As Weatherly explained in the book Anatomy of a Song: The Inside Stories Behind 45 Iconic Hits
Below is Weatherly’s own recording of “Midnight Plane.”
Cissy Houston’s Changes
Cissy Houston, the mother of Whitney Houston, was the first to want to record “Midnight Plane.” But because she was from Georgia, and because people she knew took trains instead of planes, she asked to change to title. Weatherly agreed, and the title about a train going to Georgia was born.
Houston recorded the song as “Midnite Train to Georgia” in Memphis in 1972 (released with spelling “Midnight” in the UK). But without much support from the label, the song went nowhere. Houston’s version has more strings than the later hit recording, but it is still a very good recording.
Gladys Knight & the Pips Create a Classic
But then, Weatherly’s manager-publisher sent the song to Gladys Knight, who also was from Georgia. She loved the song.
Although she loved Houston’s version, she wanted a different sound. She also made some tweaks to Weatherly’s lyrics with his permission. Her producer added several horn players, including saxophone player Michael Brecker, while putting less emphasis on the rhythm section.
When Gladys Knight & the Pips recorded their vocal tracks in Detroit, she thought of problems in her own marriage. Her husband at the time was unhappy because she was on the road so much. They would eventually divorce in 1973. But, as Knight explained in Anatomy of a Song, “I was going through the exact same thing that I was singing about when recording — which is probably why it sounds so personal.”
During the recording session, the leader of the Pips, Merald “Bubba” Knight asked her to ad-lib some gospel phrases at the end of the song. Gladys had trouble coming up with good lines, so Bubba, who also was her brother, fed her lines through her headset. The improvised lines included “My world, his world, our world” and “I’ve got to go, I’ve got to go.”
The song was finally completed.
After “Midnight Train to Georgia” was released in August 1973, it became the group’s first number-one hit song on October 27, 1973. It also won the 1974 Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance By A Duo, Group Or Chorus.
And that is the story behind the song.
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(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
Brilliant post. I love song stories.
Me too. It’s interesting to hear the stories behind the songs (check out more stories here). Thanks for the comment!
Interesting. I knew about Weatherly’s “plane” original but didn’t know that Cissy Houston did an interim version. A version which isn’t bad, but does seem to make Gladys Knight’s version seem even more definitive.