Song of the Week 12: Sweet Amarillo
The 1973 movie western “Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid” was the genesis of this song, lauded as one of the Top 25 country songs of 2014 by Rolling Stone magazine. Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, who scored and starred in the film, recorded it in February of 1973, but the song didn’t make it into the final cut of the movie. Backup singer on the session, Donna Weiss, added new lyrics to it, performing the song on Dylan’s Rolling Thunder tours in the mid 1970’s.
Another song from the same 1973 recording sessions, “Rock Me Mama”, was reworked by old-time music group Old Crow Medicine Show, retitled “Wagon Wheel”, and released in 2004. When a cover of their version by Darius Rucker reached Number 1 on the U.S. country charts in 2014, Dylan sent Old Crow the track “Sweet Amarillo” to see if they could work their magic again. They did and it was released on their 2014 album “Remedy” which hit No. 1 on the U.S. Americana music charts.
That is why “Sweet Amarillo”, with a more than 40-year evolution, has its composers listed as Bob Dylan, Donna Weiss, and Ketch Secor and Critter Fuqua, both of Old Crow. A Little Farther West’s version debuted on our second album “Mountain Storm” in 2017.
