Texas-based songwriting legend Sonny Throckmorton—whose credits include Merle Haggard’s “The Way I Am” and “If We’re Not Back in Love by Monday,” George Strait’s “The Cowboy Rides Away,” Moe Bandy’s “It’s a Cheatin’ Situation,” and Jerry Lee Lewis’s "Middle Age Crazy” and “I Wish I Was Eighteen Again”—discusses his career and performs briefly as part of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Poets and Prophets series.

Throckmorton claimed his first major country success in 1966 with “How Long Has It Been,” a Top Ten hit for Bobby Lewis. In the following decades, Throckmorton penned several #1 hits including Johnny Duncan’s “Thinkin’ of a Rendezvous,” the Judds’ “Why Not Me,” the Oak Ridge Boys’ “Trying to Love Two Women,” and T.G. Sheppard’s “Last Cheater’s Waltz” and “I Feel Like Loving You Again.” Throckmorton was BMI Songwriter of the Year in 1980, and he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987.

During this program, Throckmorton talks about his upbringing in New Mexico and the Southwest; the death of his mother; his musical beginnings in church; his first recording (billed as Sonny Daye); his move to Nashville in 1964; signing with Tree Publishing; writing hits with Curly Putman and Bobby Braddock; and the stories behind many of his best-known songs.

Accompanied by his daughter Fronda Alley and Scotty Emerick, Throckmorton performs “If We’re Not Back in Love by Monday,” “I Wish I Was Eighteen Again,” and “The Cowboy Rides Away.”

FOR MORE

Explore our public programming: https://countrymusichalloffame.org/plan-your-visit/exhibits-activities/public-programs/

FOLLOW THE MUSEUM

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/OfficialCMHOF/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/countrymusichof/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/countrymusichof