Hank Williams country-fied a Tin Pan Alley pop song with his yodeling, twang-heavy delivery. Recorded in Cincinnati in December 1948, it spent 16 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard country chart, and his Grand Ole Opry debut earned unprecedented encores that sealed his stardom.
Linda Ronstadt's live performance on The Johnny Cash Show (1970). She carried the country canon forward in her young voice, recasting its earthy heartache with a swinging groove — a glimpse of the bridge she would build between country and a rock-generation audience.