Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye

“Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye” is a song written by John D. Loudermilk. It was first released in 1962 by Don Cherry, as a country song and again as a doo-wop in 1967 by the group The Casinos on its album of the same name and was a number 6 pop hit that year. The song has since been covered by Eddy Arnold, whose version was a number 1 country hit in 1968, and by Neal McCoy, whose version became a Top 5 country hit in 1996. The Casinos version of “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye” – which became the title track of the group’s debut album – reached number 6 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in March 1967, becoming the group’s only Top 40 hit. Casinos’ frontman Gene Hughes would recall that he’d heard the 1964 Johnny Nash recording of “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye” on the John R. Show broadcast on WLAC out of Nashville and that the Casinos had been performing it in their club act for several years (Gene Hughes quote:)”So, while we were in the studio in the King Studios in Cincinnati, cutting this instrumental [King Curtis’] ‘Soul Serenade’ for a disk jockey, we used the time to [also] cut ‘Then You Can Tell Me’.” Musicians on the track included Bob Armstrong on organ, Mickey Denton on guitar, Ray White on bass, and Bob Smith on drums.