Best College Bands

Kaysa Carpenter performing “Rocky Top” at the Centennial Rodeo Opry in okc’s Historic Stockyards City on the November 9th, 2008 “Rocky Top” is one of seven official state songs of the state of Tennessee, as well as the unofficial fight song for the University of Tennessee Volunteers. The two best-known versions of the song are by the Osborne Brothers and Lynn Anderson. The Osborne Brothers first had a regional hit with the song in 1967, however, it was Lynn Anderson’s version that was the mainstream country hit in 1970. The song was written by a married couple, songwriters Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. They wrote “Rocky Top” in only ten minutes in 1967. The Bryants were working in Gatlinburg on a collection of slow-tempo songs for a project for Archie Campbell and Chet Atkins. Writing the fast-paced “Rocky Top” served as a temporary diversion for them. Recorded by the Osborne Brothers in 1967, the song was a top 40 hit on the country music charts in early 1968. Although a staple of their concerts, the song did not achieve mass popularity until Lynn Anderson had a hit with it in 1970, and when the “Pride of the Southland” University of Tennessee marching band used it for one of their drills in 1972. The song was very popular and was officially adopted as a state song in 1982. In the 1970s, the song achieved such popularity among bar crowds that the Chapel Hill, North Carolina, old-time band the Red Clay Ramblers national tours included a crowd-pleasing satire informally …