"Rings of Gold" is a song recorded by American
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
artists
Dottie West
Dorothy Marie Marsh West (October 11, 1932 – September 4, 1991) was an American country music singer and songwriter. Along with her friends and fellow recording artists Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, she is considered one of the genre's most in ...
and
Don Gibson
Donald Eugene Gibson (April 3, 1928 – November 17, 2003) was an American songwriter and country musician. A Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, Gibson wrote such country standards as " Sweet Dreams" and "I Can't Stop Loving You", and enjoy ...
. It was released in February 1969 as the first single from their album ''
Dottie and Don''. The song peaked at number 2 on the ''
Billboard''
Hot Country Singles
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States.
This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sa ...
chart. It also reached number 1 on the ''
RPM
Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines.
Standards
ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...
'' Country Tracks chart in Canada.
The duet – a mid-tempoed country pop-flavored song about a failing relationship – became the first of two duets pairing West and Gibson to reach the top 10 of the ''Billboard'' Hot Country Singles chart, the other being the No. 7 hit "
There's a Story (Goin' 'Round)" in January 1970. "Rings of Gold" was West's biggest hit to that point in her career, and her 1973 solo hit "
Country Sunshine" would match it; both remained her biggest hits until "
Every Time Two Fools Collide," her 1978 No. 1 duet with
Kenny Rogers
Kenneth Ray Rogers (August 21, 1938 – March 20, 2020) was an American singer, songwriter, and actor. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013. Rogers was particularly popular with country audiences but also charted m ...
. For Gibson, it was his first top 10 hit in two years, the last coming with 1967's "Funny, Familiar, Forgotten, Feelings" (No. 8), and his biggest hit since "Lonesome Number One," a No. 2 hit in early 1962.
Chart performance
References
1969 singles
Dottie West songs
Don Gibson songs
Male–female vocal duets
Song recordings produced by Chet Atkins
1969 songs
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