who sang you are always on my mind first
Always on My Mind "Always on My Mind" is a song by Johnny Christopher, Mark James, and Wayne Carson, recorded first by Gwen McCrae (as "You Were Always On My Mind") and Brenda Lee in 1972. The song has been a crossover hit, charting in both the country and western and pop categories.
You Were on My Mind "You Were on My Mind" is a popular song written by Sylvia Fricker in 1962[1] in a bathtub in a suite at the Hotel Earle in Greenwich Village. She wrote it in the bathroom because "it was the only place ... the cockroaches would not go". It was originally performed by Fricker and her then husband-to-be Ian Tyson as the duo Ian & Sylvia and they recorded it for their 1964 album, Northern Journey. It was published in sheet form by M. Witmark & Sons of New York City in 1965. In 1965 the song was covered in an up-tempo version, with slightly altered lyrics and melody by the California pop quintet We Five. Their recording reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in September 1965 and topped the Billboard easy listening chart for five weeks.[2] Billboard ranked the record as the No. 4 song of 1965.[3] The performance by We Five is noteworthy for the gradual buildup in intensity, starting off somewhat flowing and gentle, increasing in intensity in the third stanza and remaining so through the fourth stanza. The fifth and final stanza starts off gently and concludes very intensely, ending with a series of guitar chords.