Top Ten Johnny Horton Songs

Although Johnny Horton is best known for his #1 hit song, "The Battle of New Orleans" that stormed to the top of the music charts in 1959, he had many other hits that still delight fans today. More than forty years after his death in November 1960, Horton's music continues to sell at amazing rates and new generations of fans born long after Horton's music career ended have emerged to keep the rockabilly artist alive if only in memory.

When "The Battle of New Orleans" hit the charts in the spring of 1959, Horton was one of many artists who took advantage of a popular craze for story songs; songs that told a story through music. After his major hit - the tune sold over two million copies and rocketed Horton to major stardom - he recorded other songs with a historical vein.

To rank Johnny Horton's top ten songs of all time, "Battle of New Orleans" must lead the list. In second place, a song that hit the charts and scored high later the same year as "Battle", would be "Johnny Reb", a ballad that praises the Confederate soldiers who fought for their native South during the Civil War. To promote the song, Horton even performed the song - which was written by his good friend Merle Kilgore - to one of the last surviving Confederate veterans of the Civil War.

In third place, "Honky Tonk Man", a hit earlier (1956) than "The Battle of New Orleans" would be ranked. This rockabilly classic has been covered by other artists including Dwight Yoakum and the hard driving rhythms are as popular today as when the song first burst onto the music scene.

Fourth place must go to another historical tune, "When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below), a story song that was written by Horton with his manager Tillman Franks. The song evolved out of an on stage routine that the two worked up and became another of Horton's best loved best selling songs.

In fifth place, another song with an Alaska theme ranks. "North to Alaska", from the John Wayne movie with the same title, was topping the charts at the time of Horton's untimely death in a car crash in Milano, Texas. The song - and the light hearted movie starring The Duke himself - is still classic today.

Sixth place goes to one of the sweetest love ballads recorded in the Fifties, "One Woman Man". A hit from the day Horton sang it for the first time on the stage of the popular "Louisiana Hayride" show in Shreveport, Louisiana, this loving tribute to fidelity remains one of Horton's best.

Seventh place goes to "Sink The Bismarck", a rousing tribute to the ship, The Bismarck, and the World War II era. The song was also featured in the movie "Sink The Bismarck" and with its' drum rolls is one of Horton's most memorable tunes.
Eighth place goes to the soft, sweet, plaintive strains of "Whispering Pines", another love song that is both sentimental and moving.

Ninth place would go to another love ballad, "All For The Love of A Girl", a tune Horton penned himself after spending weeks of solitude in the Florida everglades.

Last but far from least, the show style tune "Johnny Freedom" from the "Freedomland" album has to be included. Freedomland was a Bronx amusement park that although short lived, remains popular in the childhood memories of many. Horton spent the last summer of his life headlining at the park which focused on American history.

These ten songs are just the bare minimum of the many songs Horton recorded. True Horton fans are familiar with countless others, many of which are equal to and in some cases superior to the best known songs or the unofficial "top ten".