Texarkana Baby

About Texarkana Baby

"Texarkana Baby" is a song written by Fred Rose and Cottonseed Clark. It was made popular by Eddy Arnold and Bob Wills in 1948. Eddy Arnold and his Tennessee Plow Boys and his Guitar recorded it in New York City on January 6, 1947. It was released by RCA Victor Records as catalog number 20-2806 in the United States and by EMI on the His Master's Voice (HMV) label as catalog numbers BD 1234 and IM 1399. "Texarkana Baby" was the B-side of Arnold's version of "Bouquet of Roses" and made it to number one on the Best Selling Retail Folk Records chart for one week in between the nineteen weeks "Bouquet of Roses" stayed at number one. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys recorded their version of "Texarkana Baby" on December 30, 1947, during the so-called "Tiffany Transcriptions" sessions in California; this version peaked at number fifteen on the Billboard chart on July 24, 1948. On March 31, 1949, "Texarkana Baby" was among the first seven-inch 45 rpm records issued by RCA in the United States. Often given credit as the very first release, or the first-ever Country record to be released in this format, it was just one of several 45s available on the very first day of sale. The first 45 rpm record created was "PeeWee the Piccolo" RCA 47-0146 pressed Dec. 7, 1948, at RCA's Sherman Avenue plant in Indianapolis, Indiana. more »