Top Ten Johnny Horton Songs

Although Johnny Horton is best known for his #1 hit song, “The Battle of New Orleans” that stormed to the top of the music charts in 1959, he had many other hits that still delight fans today. More than forty years after his death in November 1960, Horton’s music continues to sell at amazing rates and new generations of fans born long after Horton’s music career ended have emerged to keep the rockabilly artist alive if only in memory. 

When “The Battle of New Orleans” hit the charts in the spring of 1959, Horton was one of many artists who took advantage of a popular craze for story songs; songs that told a story through music. After his major hit – the tune sold over two million copies and rocketed Horton to major stardom – he recorded other songs with a historical vein. 

To rank Johnny Horton’s top ten songs of all time, “Battle of New Orleans” must lead the list. In second place, a song that hit the charts and scored high later the same year as “Battle”, would be “Johnny Reb”, a ballad that praises the Confederate soldiers who fought for their native South during the Civil War. To promote the song, Horton even performed the song - which was written by his good friend Merle Kilgore – to one of the last surviving Confederate veterans of the Civil War. 

In third place, “Honky Tonk Man”, a hit earlier (1956) than “The Battle of New Orleans” would be ranked. This rockabilly classic has been covered by other artists including Dwight Yoakum and the hard driving rhythms are as popular today as when the song first burst onto the music scene. 

Fourth place must go to another historical tune, “When It’s Springtime in Alaska (It’s Forty Below), a story song that was written by Horton with his manager Tillman Franks. The song evolved out of an on stage routine that the two worked up and became another of Horton’s best loved best selling songs.