"Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line" is a song written by Jimmy Bryant. Originally recorded by American country music singer Jim Alley,[3] it was made famous by American country music singer and musician Waylon Jennings.
Billboard, in a review of the album, said that it and "Walk On Out of My Mind" were "typical of the robust, compelling vocal style."[6] Nathan Brackett and Christian Hoard, in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, wrote that Jennings began to "really assert his rough-hewn sensibility" on the song.[7]
The song spent eighteen weeks on the Hot Country Singles charts, peaking at #2 and holding that peak for five weeks.[1] In Canada, it reached Number One on the RPM Country Tracks charts for the week ending September 30, 1968.[8]
Linda Ronstadt included a gender-reversed version of the song (sung as "The Only Mama That'll Walk the Line") on her 1969 album Hand Sown ... Home Grown; The song became a staple of Ronstadt's set lists at her concerts during the late 1960s and early '70s. She performed it on The Johnny Cash Show in June 1969, nearly a year before Jennings performed it on the same show.
In 1991, The Kentucky Headhunters recorded a cover version for the album Electric Barnyard. Also released as a single that year, this version spent seven weeks on the same chart and peaked at #60.
^Whitburn, Joel (2005). Hot Country Songs 1944 to 2005. Record Research, Inc. p. 23. ISBN0-89820-165-9.
^Nashville Rebel (liner notes). Waylon Jennings. New York, New York: Sony BMG Music Entertainment/Legacy Recordings. 2006. pp. 132–139. 82876 89640 2.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
