Story Behind the Song: ‘Hello Darlin’ by Conway Twitty

Conway Twitty would speak, not sing, the two words "Hello Darlin'" at the start of the song. And for the duration of the tune, you would not hear those words again.

The song was released in March 1970 and spent four weeks atop the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart that summer, and was named the number 1 song of 1970.

Aside from being Twitty's standard concert opener, the song became a country standard as well as his signature song.

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Now for the story. The song would exist for an entire decade before the public ever heard it.

During the days that his career embraced rock and roll, Twitty frequently wrote country songs but had no outlets to get them recorded.

As a result, he simply dropped cassette copies into a huge box and put them into storage. In 1969, after shifting to country, he took out the piece he had written in 1960 and played it for record producer Owen Bradley.

Bradley liked it and they went to work on it. Seven weeks after it was released it went to number one and held the top spot for the entire month of June in 1970.