Trivia

Country and pop songwriter.

Had a Top 30 crossover hit in 1971 with "Saturday Morning Confusion".

Several of his songs became hits for other performers, including "Little Green Apples" (for O.C. Smith), "Honey" (for Bobby Goldsboro), and "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" (for then-wife Vicki Lawrence).

Ex-brother-in-law of Joni Lawrence.

Russell's best-known songs were lyric-heavy, with lines that seem artfully torn from conversation. Two of those songs ruled the radio in 1968, the year Bobby Goldsboro had a five-week pop #1 and three-week country #1 with "Honey." The hit song inspired numerous cover versions, as did another Russell-penned 1968 hit, "Little Green Apples.".

Between 1966 and 1973, he had five singles on the Hot Country Songs charts, including the crossover pop hit "Saturday Morning Confusion".

As a singer, Russell's biggest chart success was his self-penned "Saturday Morning Confusion", a top 25 country hit and No. 28 pop hit in the early fall of 1971. The song was a first-person account of a family man suffering from a hangover and trying to find peace and quiet to sleep it off, but constantly being henpecked by the kids, wife and neighbors. Also penned and sung by Russell was 1974's "Go Chase Your Rainbow", his highest-charting entry in Australia.

His next indelible hit after 'Honey' and 'Little green apples' would come in 1972 when his actress wife, Vicki Lawrence, recorded "The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia," a pulsing tale of Southern injustice. Lawrence sang the demo of the song in hopes of placing it with another artist, but Cher and others turned it down. Lawrence went on to record a studio-polished version, and it became another cross-format hit. In the 1990s, Reba McEntire's version reached the Top 20 of the country charts.

Russell had modest success as a solo recording artist, reaching the pop Top 40 with a whimsical look at domesticity called "1432 Franklin Pike Circle Hero," and again with another glimpse of suburbia called "Saturday Morning Confusion.".

Russell penned "The Joker Went Wild", a Billboard Top 40 hit for Brian Hyland in 1966.

Bobby Russell wrote "Little Green Apples," which Roger Miller recorded as a relaxed, simple country song with enough multi-genre appeal to cross over into the pop and easy-listening charts. Patti Page's recording was similar to Miller's, while O. C. Smith offered a soulful, crooning take that sold more than a million copies. In 1969, "Little Green Apples" won Grammy Awards for best overall song and top country song.

Other songs that Russell recorded were "Better Homes and Gardens", "1432 Franklin Pike Circle Hero", "For a While We Helped Each Other Out", "Our Love Will Rise Again", "How You Gonna Stand It", and "Mid American Manufacturing Tycoon".

He also wrote and recorded "Summer Sweet" for the Disney live-action Rascal in 1969 and wrote and sang the title song "As Far as I'm Concerned" over the opening credits of The Grasshopper.

The Russell composition "Camp Werthahekahwee", an ode to summer camps sung by a father to his son, appeared on a 1986 album by Ray Stevens. The name of the camp is pronounced "where the heck are we?".

Russell wrote the ballad "Do You Know Who I Am", which was recorded by Elvis Presley during his 1969 Memphis sessions.

His composition "Honey" became the signature hit for Goldsboro, topping every available Billboard chart with a song sung from the point of view of a man who laments the death of his spouse. "Honey" spawned numerous covers, with Dean Martin, Hank Snow and many others recording versions.

For Nancy Sinatra he wrote "Anabell of Mobile" .

He was posthumously inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994.

Roger Miller took "Little Green Apples" to #6 on the Billboard country chart, then Patti Page had a #11 easy-listening hit with the song, and O. C. Smith reached #2 on pop and R&B charts with "Little Green Apples.".

Born in Nashville and raised in the days when the Tennessee capital was taking steps towards becoming Music City, Russell's first successes came when pop performers Jan & Dean, Brian Hyland and Gary Lewis & the Playboys recorded his songs.