He’ll Have to Go

“He’ll Have to Go” is an American country and pop hit recorded on October 15, 1959, by Jim Reeves. The song, released in the fall of 1959, went on to become a hit in both genres early in 1960. The song is about a man who’s talking by telephone to the woman he loves, when he realizes that another man is with her. The song was written by the husband-and-wife team of Joe and Audrey Allison, and was inspired by a phone conversation between them in which they had trouble making themselves understood. Because of background noise and Audrey Allison’s naturally soft voice, her husband had to ask her to put her mouth very close to the receiver. That led her to pen the song’s first line.
Reeves recorded the song after listening to the original version of it by singer Billy Brown. When Brown’s version attracted little attention, Reeves felt free to record his own. It was released to country radio as the B-side of “In a Mansion Stands My Love”, which some music executives considered a stronger song. However, “Mansion” failed to catch on, and disc jockeys began playing the B-side instead. It was not long before “He’ll Have to Go” became a huge country and pop hit. Several rhythm and blues radio stations played the song, too. The recording features a small group of musicians: Floyd Cramer on piano, Marvin Hughes on the vibraphone, Bob Moore on bass, Buddy Harman on drums, Hank Garland on guitar, and the Anita Kerr Singers providing the background vocals. The first verse set the tone: “Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone/Let’s pretend that we’re together all alone/I’ll tell the man to turn the juke box way down low/And you can tell your friend there with you he’ll have to go.” Country music historian Bill Malone noted that “He’ll Have to Go” in most respects represented a conventional country song, but its arrangement and the vocal chorus “put this recording in the country pop vein.” In addition, Malone lauded Reeves’ vocal styling – lowered to “its natural resonant level” to project the “caressing style that became famous” – as being why “many people refer to him as the singer with the velvet touch.”