WATCH 3 'Harper Valley PTA Sequels' Jeannie C. Riley 'Return to Harper Valley' Dee Mullins 'The Continuing Story of Harper Valley PTA' Sheb Wooley 'Harper Valley P.T.A. (Later That Same Day)' via Cocaine & Rhinestones - Tyler Mahan Coe
Ask Tom T. Hall to write another “Harper Valley PTA,” a thing he’d
been very vocal about his reluctance to do. But, also, he’s a big
softie. It’s easy to imagine him having a hard time saying “no” when
Jeannie came to him about it in 1984. Tom wrote “Return to Harper
Valley” for her. He even made all the lyrics fit Jeannie’s new Christian
lifestyle.
We’re back at Harper Valley High because our narrator’s grandchildren
go to the school now and she’s bought a ticket to the raffle at a
school dance. She’s wearing a dress that’s well below her knees because
just about every character from the original song is now on the straight
and narrow. But wouldn’t you know it? She spots a man giving a
cigarette to a school kid and, it turns out, he’s selling drugs in the
parking lot. There’s the drummer of the band doing cocaine and these
kids are all getting drunk and taking pills and taking off their
clothes. She thinks about going home for her gun but, instead, decides
to go home, pray with her Bible and, you guessed it, bring all this up
at the next meeting of the Harper Valley PTA.
In short, the song is terrible. Nobody cared, at all, even with Tom
joining Jeannie for promo appearances on all the usual TV shows, like
Nashville Now. There seems to have been a sense of urgency in the
writing, recording and release of the song. Whatever the reason for the
rush, and even if fans of the original song had grown to develop more
conservative values, there simply wasn’t enough interest in this return
to generate airplay or sales figures.
Seven years later, in 1991, Jeannie put out what looks like will be
her final formally released single, “Here’s to the Cowboys.” The entire
review in Billboard is one sentence long: Riley gives a poignant reading of this tribute to “cowboys” who are committed enough to be domesticated.
As some of you may have seen on Fox News in 2002. Somewhere along the
line, she apparently forgot that she worked with the guy who was
probably responsible for creating the “Elvis is still alive” rumors
because she went on TV and told America that Elvis is still alive. His
name is spelled wrong on that gravestone because Elvis was too honest of
a man to put his name on a grave that doesn’t have him in it. She knows
there are people in Nashville laughing at her and calling her crazy but
she doesn’t have anything to lose.
In later years, Tom would always maintain that he never felt interested
in trying to duplicate “Harper Valley PTA.” It’s quite likely that is
true. But, if it is true, then I’ve got another Shelby Singleton story
for you. In 1968, Dee Mullins, Shelby Singleton’s go-to guy for trying
to piggyback off a hit or a headline, releases the single, “The
Continuing Story of Harper Valley PTA.”
Sole writer, Tom. T. Hall. Or,
at least, that’s what you’d believe, if you only saw the label of the
single that was released to the public. Look up the copyright info on
the song or find a picture of the label for the radio promo 7” and
you’ll see two other writers listed, Clark Bentley and Jerri Clark.
Considering that “The Continuing Story” is written so poorly that it
isn’t even funny, I suspect those writers were brought in to milk every
last cent out of this cash cow. Since Tom would have to be listed any
way for writing the original, it seems they decided to just make it look
like he wrote the second one all by himself, too.
Sheb Wooley aka Ben Colder ~ Harper Valley P.T.A. (Later That Same Day)
A very funny lil' ditty that became Sheb's last charting Top 40 Single,
making it to #24 on the country charts back in November 1968
