The song "Act Naturally" was the first number one hit for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos. And it took the famous band's leader, Don Rich, to convince Owens into recording the song in the first place.

Buck didn't like the song at first. But even more interesting, is that the idea for the song came from a guy breaking off a date with his girlfriend.

The guy was the man that wrote the song, Johnny Russell. Russell was all set to go out with his sweetheart in Mississippi until he got a call from his musician friends in California asking him to come join them in a recording session.

Russell said, "When she asked me why I was going to L.A., I answered, 'They are going to put me in the movies and make a big star out of me.' We both laughed."

Thus inspired, Russell quickly came up with a concept for a love song based around his comment. He wrote it that day.

Two full years would pass and Russell couldn't get anybody to record the song. By  then he was writing songs with lady named Voni Morrison, who also worked with Owens.

Russell agreed to share the royalties to the song with Morrison, if she would pitch the song to Owens. And the rest was history.

On June 15, 1963, "Act Naturally" spent the first of four weeks at number one. And another note, The Beatles covered the song in 1965 and it was on the B-side of "Yesterday".


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