RIP Henson Cargill

I'm sure that very few people here, if any, will know this man's name. He really only had one noteworthy hit record, but it was a monster. "Skip A Rope" was the No. 1 country song in Billboard for five weeks in February-March 1968 and also reached No. 25 on the Hot 100.

http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=256401&GT1=7702

A New York Times review in 1968 called the song "a little morality lesson within the context of a child's skip-rope rhyme" and said Cargill "has one of those deliciously smooth country baritones like Johnny Cash's or Dave Dudley's."

The verses refer to marital discord, tax cheating and racial prejudice, with the refrain:

"Skip a rope, skip a rope.
Oh, listen to the children while they play.
Ain't it kind of funny what the children say, skip a rope."

I can tell you this song made a lot of people sit up and take notice of what their kids had been noticing. It hit very close to more than a few homes and it deserved its status as a monumental hit. Sadly, it's been kind of lost in the years since. Radio stations would never play a song like this today even though its message is as true now as it's ever been - maybe more so.

 

As an old-school country music fan, I've heard this song a bunch of times. It occasionally gets some airplay in classic country formats, but not much. And it's absolutely worth hearing, as much today as ever. I don't recall ever hearing another song of his, but he knocked it out of the park in his only at-bat. RIP.