|
According to Stuart Hamblen,
his 1951 hit song, “It Is No Secret What God Can Do,” was
written at the suggestion of actor John Wayne!
According to Hamblen, he had
committed his life to the Lord during a 1949 Billy Graham
Crusade. Shortly thereafter, he was attending a party at the
home of John Wayne and the actor asked him how he had kicked
his drinking habit. Stuart told John, “I didn’t do it. The
Lord did it. It is no secret what God can do.” Hamblen added,
“John Wayne immediately told me that I should write a song on
that idea. So as soon as I got home that night, I sat down to
start working on the song idea. And just as I sat down, the
ole grandfather clock struck midnight and I immediately wrote
down the line, ‘the chimes of time ring out the news, another
day is through; someone slipped and fell; was that someone
you?’ I sat down at the piano and finished the song in about
seventeen minutes.”
“My wife heard me singing the
song and came downstairs crying. She said it was the most
beautiful song I had ever written and that the song would
touch a lot of people, all over the world.”
Stuart Hamblen’s version of
“It Is No Secret” entered the country music charts January
6th, 1951 and peaked at # 8. It was on the charts for 20
weeks.
Stuart Hamblen died in 1989 at
the age of 80.
Doug
Davis
Country Music Classics
|
