Bringing Mary Home

A supernatural ballad written by John Duffey, Joe Kingston, and Chaw Mank, recorded by the Country Gentlemen at Syracuse University on February 23, 1965 and released as a Rebel single in July 1965. The story is the vanishing-hitchhiker urban legend: a driver picks up a young girl named Mary on a dark and stormy night and takes her to the house she names, only to find the back seat empty and to hear from her parents that Mary died in a car wreck thirteen years earlier — and that he is the thirteenth driver to bring her home. The recording features Charlie Waller on lead vocal with Duffey and Eddie Adcock humming eerie harmony, and it remains one of the Country Gentlemen’s signature pieces and a frequent Halloween request. Mac Wiseman cut his own version later in 1965, and the song has been recorded by Red Sovine, Billy Edd Wheeler, and many others.