Ten Favorite Hills and Mountains Songs: Wolverton Mountain (#8)

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Up that hill and down! It's time to scale the list of my favorite songs that mention "hill" or "mountain" in the title. For today's song, I'm going with just about as obvious a song as I can possibly use. Here's the next song. #8: Wolverton Mountain - Claude King One of those "everyone knows this one" songs. I didn't know Nat "King" Cole had covered this (and his version didn't change a thing from this rendition). But that's how big this song was. It's easily the biggest hit in the career of Claude King. It made him an "overnight sensation" (after he'd been on the Louisiana Hayride for a decade, thank you), going to #1 on the country charts for nine weeks and making the pop top ten. This song tells the story of Clifton Clowers, the jealous father of the narrator's girl, and their home on Wolverton Mountain. And, to a degree, it's true. Clifton Clowers was a real person (1891-1994), and he spent most of his life (save for his time serving in World War I) on Woolverton (actual spelling) Mountain, Arkansas. And for a little more trivia for you, this song was co-written by Merle Kilgore, who had another marginally successful co-writing credit that year: Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire." Claude King continued performing pretty much up until the end of his life, dying at the age of 90 in 2013. He did have other hits, but he'll always be remembered for this classic song. Wolverton Mountain Written by Merle Kilgore and Claude King Recorded by Claude King From Meet Claude King, 1962 The bears and the birds: