Yesteryears Chart Toppers I: With Tears in My Eyes (1945) by Wesley Tuttle

To our avid readers, here is another series you might want to keep a close watch on.

In an effort to make traditional country music appreciation be more forceful, we are committed to curate an array of chart-topper country songs from the previous decades. Also, we will include featuring information about the singers and the writers behind those songs.

The first pick is a composition of Paul Howard entitled With Tears in My Eyes about a man’s persistence to make his lover stay. Recorded by an also persistent artist, Wesley Tuttle who lost few fingers in childhood due to an accident in a butcher shop, the song remained on top for four weeks.

BITS ABOUT WESLEY TUTTLE

Born in Colorado but raised in California, he learned how to play ukulele and guitar despite his missing fingers. Soon, he went performing with the Red River Valley Boys in the early 1940s and after gaining enough experience, he led his own band called The Texas Stars. In the mid-1940s, he wrote and recorded his own songs that did not disappoint to gain popularity. Three of which were the “Detour”, “Tho’ I Tried” and “I Wish I Had Never Met Sunshine.” Being the multi-talented young man that he is, Wesley also took acting roles on top of his music career. He appeared on a number of Western films like Law of the Northwest(1943), Arizona Trail(1943), Oklahoma Raiders(1944), Song of the Range(1944), Terror Trail(1946), and Rainbow Over the Rockies(1947).

By 1950s, he was a musical director for the Town Hall Party, a TV series for country music and based in California. He married Marilyn Myers of the then Sunshine Girls and became singing duo since.  On the flip side of their success later in that decade, they tragically lost their young daughter. That moved them to make changes and turned to Gospel singing until their retirement.

In 2003, Wesley passed away at age 85.