For reasons unknown, I am feeling a little melancholy today…  I always find that Skeeter Davis is absolutely marvellous listening material for these kind of days.

She is, of course, most widely known for ‘The End Of The World’:

… and a slightly rarer recording from 1963

In one of those strange twists of the US and UK charts, this record never got to number one in the pop music charts – I cannot fathom why not, it’s such a beautiful and emotive song, a true classic!

Mary Frances Penick (December 30, 1931 – September 19, 2004), better known as Skeeter Davis, was an American country music singer best known for crossover pop music songs of the early 1960s. She started out as part of The Davis Sisters in the early 1950s. In the late ’50s and early ’60s, she became a solo star. Her best known hit was the song “The End of the World” in 1963.

One of the first women to achieve major stardom in the country music field as a solo vocalist, she was an acknowledged influence on Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton and has been hailed as an “extraordinary country/pop singer” by The New York Times