Loretta Lynn wasn’t the only musical one in her family. The “Coal Miner’s Daughter” trailblazer was the second of eight children born to Clara and Ted Webb in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. Of those eight siblings, five pursued careers in the music industry. In 1970, Lynn helped her youngest sister, Crystal Gayle, ink a contract with Decca Records. Struggling to break out of her elder sibling’s shadow, Gayle pivoted to a more country-pop sound. And on Aug. 31, 1977, she scored the biggest hit of her career with “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.”
When Crystal Gayle first signed with Decca Records, the label seemed interested only in giving her “little Loretta” songs. “It didn’t take me long to realize I was only there because I was Loretta’s sister,” Gayle, now 74, said in a 2019 interview with Forbes.
Eventually, Lynn offered up some career-altering advice, “which was quit singing her songs and don’t record anything she would,” Gayle said. “We have one Loretta Lynn and we don’t need another.”
Taking the 14-time ACM Award winner’s advice to heart, Gayle left Decca for United Artists Records in 1974. She nabbed her first Top 10 hit the next year with “Wrong Road Again.” And in 1977, she released the crossover hit that would come to define her career.
This Crystal Gayle Crossover Hit Was Meant for Shirley Bassey
Richard Leigh, the songwriter responsible for Crystal Gayle’s three Top 10 hits, penned a song called “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.” He sang it for Allen Reynolds, Gayle’s producer. Then, he mentioned that his publisher was preparing to send it to Welsh soul singer Shirley Bassey.
“Shirley Bassey my ass,” Reynolds replied. “I want that song.”
Reynolds played the tune for Gayle. “I said, ‘Whoa!’ And I just fell in love with the song,” recalled the Grand Ole Opry member in 2017.
In October 1976, she recorded it at Jack’s Tracks recording studio in Nashville. “It was just one of those charmed sessions,” Reynolds recalled.
Crystal Gayle released “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” as the lead single off her fourth studio album, We Must Believe in Magic. It spent three weeks at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and won the singer a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.
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