Nine years ago I featured Mac Davis, who died last week, at Reelin’ in the Years 22.

I suppose, though, that the song he wrote that most people will recognise would be In the Ghetto which was a hit for Elvis Presley who also recorded Davis’s A Little Less Conversation and Don’t Cry Daddy.

It wasn’t just Elvis who had success with Davis songs. Kenny Rogers and the First Edition had a hit with his song Something’s Burning (see Reelin’ in the Years 173) as well as Everything a Man Could Ever Need, a hit for Glen Campbell.

I see from his Wiki page Davis also wrote Rock And Roll (I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life) which was a hit in the UK for Kevin Johnson and I had as Reelin’ in the Years 32.

Here is Davis himself singing In the Ghetto.

Scott Mac Davis: January 21/1/1942 – 29/9/2020. So it goes.

In my mind this is a kind of companion piece to Albert Hammond’s The Free Electric Band which also dealt with the attractions of a popular music career but this one is more about the frustrated dream.

Kevin Johnson: Rock And Roll (I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life)

Edited to add:- the original video I had here is no longer available. The version above is not the one that was a single in the UK; this one contains a series of “doo-doo-doos” that was mercifully cut from that 45. Re-edited: the above is now a third version.