David Houston

Charles David Houston (December 9, 1935 – November 30, 1993) was an American country music singer. His peak in popularity came between the mid-1960s and the early 1970s.

His biggest success came in 1966, when his recording of "Almost Persuaded", topped the Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart for nine weeks, and garnered Houston a pair of Grammy Awards.

Houston was born in Bossier City in northwestern Louisiana, United States. He claimed to be a descendant of Sam Houston, the first president of the Republic of Texas (there is no available data to support this claim) and Confederate General Robert E. Lee. His godfather was 1920s pop singer Gene Austin. Like Austin, Houston lived briefly as a youth in a house at the intersection of Marshall and Goodwill streets in Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. Another musician from Minden, Tommy Tomlinson, collaborated with Houston in the single "Mountain of Love".

Houston was one of the earliest artists with National Recording Corporation in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1963, he rose to national stardom with "Mountain of Love"; the song, which was different from the tune made famous by composer Harold Dorman, Johnny Rivers, and Charley Pride, rose to number two on Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart, as did "Livin' in a House Full of Love" (1965).

In 1966, Houston recorded "Almost Persuaded". This song, which is unrelated to the Philip Paul Bliss hymn of the same title, is the tale of a married man managing to resist a temptress he meets in a tavern. Houston's recording of it quickly reached number one that August, eventually spending nine weeks atop Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart. For 46 years, no song did as well until Taylor Swift matched its nine-week record on December 15, 2012, with "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". (Swift's song went on to surpass the nine-week run of "Almost Persuaded", spending a 10th week at No. 1 in early 2013.)

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.