“Tennessee Bird Walk”
Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan
Written by Jack Blanchard
Billboard
#1 (2 weeks)
April 4 – April 11, 1970
Country music has its fair share of novelty songs, and they’re usually very much of their era. Humor doesn’t always translate over time, as references become less familiar to newer audiences.
That’s not much of a problem with “Tennessee Bird Walk,” which is just nonsensical. It’s awfully fun to listen to, though, with Misty Morgan giving the most memorable line reading from the husband-and-wife duo: “Chirp chirp.”
They knew they struck gold there, because they have her whispering it again as the song fades out. I don’t know why it’s so funny and endearing, but any novelty song that can still crack a smile 55 years after it topped the chart was built to last.
Blanchard & Morgan only had one other top ten country hit – “Humphrey the Camel” – but they continued to record throughout the seventies and resurfaced a few times over the decades to come with new material and live performances.
“Tennessee Bird Walk” gets a B+.
Every No. 1 Single of the Seventies
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I did not know this song existed for the longest time. Imagine my shock when I discovered not only its existence, but that it topped the charts. Utterly ridiculous, the epitome of a novelty song, but a funny listen nonetheless.
Just wondering, will Radio and Records charts lead to this column covering any songs that didn’t reach #1 on Billboard like with the 80s and 90s?
Yes, starting in 1973.
I thought I was pretty familiar with the hits of the 1970s, but I can’t recall ever hearing this song before. Love it!
Bonus Beats:
Later in 1970, Buck Owens and Susan Raye recorded a cover of “Tennessee Bird Walk” for their album “The Great White Horse.” Here’s Buck and Susan performing it live:
https://youtu.be/P5MMVNj_bks
There’s also this video that claims to be of people dancing to “Tennessee Bird Walk” on Soul Train. It’s almost certainly fake, but it’s entertaining, and it would make sense due to the heavy presence of wah-wah guitars:
https://youtu.be/NWD83yLacSY
I saw Jack & Misty perform many times at the Langford Hotel in downtown Winter Park from 1985 until its closing in 2000. While their label Mega pushed them toward country music, neither of them regarded themselves as country artists. Aside from their admittedly quirky sense of humor (more Jack than Misty) both regarded themselves as a classic pop/jazz standards act rather than as a country act. The first time I saw them perform at the Langford I sat through two sets in which they stuck to pop standards. At the break I bought them drinks at the bar and chatted with them. Jack said I was the first person in a long while to request “Tennessee Bird Walk”, but they played it and “Somewhere in Virginia in The Rain” to open their third set then reverted to cocktail lounge mode. They were an excellent cocktail lounge act – Misty was an excellent keyboard player and vocalist and their lounge act focused on her vocals with Jack mostly doing harmony vocals. Jack & Misty would be sure to do “Tennessee Bird Walk” and other of their other songs whenever I walked in but otherwise would stay away from their “country” material. After the Langford closed, they moved abo90 minutes away from the Orlando area. We continued to communicate via email. Misty died of cancer in January 2021 – by then she and Jack had been largely retired for about five years.
Although “Tennessee Bird Walk” was one of the oddest and silliest songs ever to grace the Country charts, as strange as this song is, I can assure you it was not the oddest part of their repertoire.
Jack is still alive and maintains a website https://www.jackandmisty.net/
Unfortunately, he no longer has an inventory of CDs for sale. Amazon has one of their albums available in mp3 format. I liked the song and would give it an A- but it is really difficult to give something like this a grade since it is really out there and not really comparable to anything else.
I completely support how early and deeply the seventies have leaned into a playful sense of fun and absurd silliness between David Houston’s “Baby,Baby” and now this chart topper. Jack and Misty had to have been paying attention to what Roger Miller Ray Stevens were doing in the sixties.
Much of what made the Bro-Country era so insufferable was how seriously so many of the artists took their stupidity, along with the tough guy posturing from artists like Jason Aldean and Brantley Gilbert.
Give Toby Keith, Trace Adkins, and Blake Shelton credit for the knowing nod-and-wink that accompanied their greatest atrocities.
Regardless of the reasons, music is working if it makes you smile.