Son Of A Preacher Man – Dusty Springfield

The folk hit was originally written by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins about how the famous Aretha Franklin was the daughter of a preacher man, and how John was as well. Aretha Franklin was originally reluctant to record the song, because she found the song to be a little offensive towards preachers. Eventually though, Aretha did subsequently change her mind and did a cover version of it, as well.

 how long it took to write this tune…

In an interview, Ronnie recalls,  “We were thinking of Aretha, and her father was a preacher and both of my grandfathers were preachers. I said, ‘She’s the daughter of a preacher man and you might say I’m the son of a preacher man,’ and that’s how we came up with the title. It took us half an hour-  maybe 45 minutes, to write the song.” Two weeks later, the song was produced and the two songwriters were able to cut a recording of it with Aretha Franklin, herself. The song was too gospel-esque for the way her album was already sounding, so the two songwriters moved onto other potential takers…

Who had the best cover of this song? Click “Next” To Find out..