"The Minute You're Gone" is a song written by Jimmy Gateley (often miscredited as "Gately" or "Gatelie"), a

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

based fiddle player and singer, for

Sonny James Jimmie Hugh Loden (May 1, 1928February 22, 2016), known professionally as Sonny James, was an American country music singer and songwriter best known for his 1957 hit, " Young Love", topping both the ''Billboard'' Hot Country and Disk Jockey s ...

in 1963. This song originally made No. 95 in the US charts and No. 9 in the country charts for

in 1963.

Cliff Richard Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is a British singer and actor. He has total sales of over 21.5 million singles in the United Kingdom and, as of 2012, was the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart histo ...

recorded it in 1964 and his single spent a week at number one in the UK Singles Chart in April 1965. It was also recorded by

Al Martino Jasper Cini (October 7, 1927 – October 13, 2009), known professionally as Al Martino, was an American traditional pop and standards singer. He had his greatest success as a singer between the early 1950s and mid-1970s, being described as "one o ...

Faron Young Faron Young (February 25, 1932 – December 10, 1996) was an American country singer, musician, and songwriter from the early 1950s into the mid-1980s. His hits including " If You Ain't Lovin' (You Ain't Livin')" and " Live Fast, Love Hard, Die ...

and

Loretta Lynn Loretta Lynn (; April 14, 1932 – October 4, 2022) was an American country music singer and songwriter. In a career spanning six decades, Lynn released multiple gold albums. She had numerous hits such as "Hey Loretta", "The Pill (song), The P ...

Cliff Richard version

Richard's recording of the song had come about with the involvement of Richard's American label

Epic Records Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), cong ...

, which wanted to present Richard in the US with more American songs. Bob Morgan, executive A&R producer from Epic met with Richard's A&R producer

Norrie Paramor Norman William "Norrie" Paramor (15 May 1913 – 9 September 1979) was a British record producer, composer, arranger, pianist, bandleader, and orchestral conductor. He is best known for his work with Cliff Richard and the Shadows, both togethe ...

and Richard to map out recording plans and brought 50 songs of US origin for them to screen. About 15 songs were selected and plans were made to record in New York, Nashville and Chicago according to the different styles of the songs selected, which ranged from pop-country, pure country, ballad and medium tempo. In Nashville, Richard recorded the singles "The Minute You're Gone", "Wind Me Up (Let Me Go)" and "

On My Word "On My Word" is a song written and first released by American singer-songwriter Chip Taylor as a single in April 1964. It was covered by British singer Cliff Richard and released as a single which peaked at number 12 on the UK Singles Chart. Cl ...

" with

Billy Sherrill Billy Norris Sherrill (November 5, 1936 – August 4, 2015) was an American record producer, songwriter, and arranger associated with country artists, notably Tammy Wynette and George Jones. Sherrill and business partner Glenn Sutton are regar ...

producing with backing by Nashville session musicians together with the Anita Kerr Singers. Arrangement and conducting on "The Minute You're Gone" was by Stan Applebaum. "The Minute You're Gone" provided Richard with his eighth UK number one single. It was also his first UK chart topper he had recorded without

The Shadows The Shadows (originally known as the Drifters between 1958 and 1959) were an English instrumental rock group, who dominated the British popular music charts in the pre-Beatles era from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. They served as the bac ...

backing. However, at the corresponding time in the US, Epic curiously chose to release the soft ballad " Again" (another of his Nashville recorded tracks) as a single with "The Minute You're Gone" as the

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph record, vinyl records and Compact cassette, cassettes, and the terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side of a Single (music), single usually ...

. Although "Again" received a 4 star rating from

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

, it had no chart success. Meanwhile, "The Minute You're Gone" became another international hit for Richard outside the Americas.

Chart performance

References

External links

Song info
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minute You're Gone, The 1963 singles Sonny James songs 1965 singles Cliff Richard songs UK singles chart number-one singles Song recordings produced by Norrie Paramor 1963 songs