In honor of Black Music Month in June, The Root is launching an exclusive series about the history of Black music...full of stories and videos telling the story behind some of our favorite songs by Black artists. Today, we discuss the history behind the Gladys Knight & the Pips’ Grammy Award-winning song “Midnight Train to Georgia.
Even if it was before your time, you probably already know what comes immediately after “L.A...” What you likely don’t know is the surprising origin story behind the hit single.
Lee Majors, the 85-year-old star of the 1980’s TV show “The Fall Guy,” recently told PEOPLE that a phone call with his flag football buddy Jim Weatherly inspired the classic song.
Majors and “Charlies Angels” star Farrah Fawcett, who died in 2009, were a couple at the time. “One day he (Weatherly) called the house. I don’t know whether I [or Farrah] answered, but I think I said, ‘She’s taking the midnight flight to Houston,’ and that was a true statement,” Lee said.
What does a plane to Houston have to do with Auntie Gladys’ iconic 1973 tune?
In an interview, Weatherly, who passed away in 2021, told The Tennessean newspaper that Fawcett answered the phone and told him that she was packing her clothes to take the midnight plane to Houston to visit her family.
“Kind of a little bell went off when she said midnight plane to Houston, sounded like a song to me, so right after I got off the phone with her I picked up my guitar and I wrote ‘Midnight Plane to Houston,’” Weatherly recalled.
His original version was about a young woman who came to L.A. to become a star but struggled to make it and decided to go back home to Houston with the guy she fell in love with in Hollywood.
It was a country pop song. “Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think it would be an R&B record,” he added.
Weatherly’s publisher sent “Midnight Plane to Houston” to artists who were looking for material. Cissy Houston, Whitney’s mother, was the first to remake the song. Her version was a mix of country and R&B.
Knight also expressed interest in Weatherly’s song. However, Knight couldn’t relate to it because she preferred traveling by train and was from Atlanta. Weatherly worked with Knight to tweak the song, and as the saying goes...the rest is history.
“I’m amazed that it has lasted as (long) as it’s lasted. It’s a very timeless record,” he commented.
Knight’s iconic version topped the pop and R&B charts in 1973 and won a Grammy in 1974.