Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town

"Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town" is a song written by Mel Tillis which was made world famous by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition in 1969. However, it was originally recorded some time prior by Johnny Darrell, who scored a minor country hit with it.

Other singers, Roger Miller among them, also cut the song, but no one had a major hit with it. However, in 1969, after their success with the hits "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" and "But You Know I Love You," Kenny Rogers wanted to take his group more and more into country music.

The song itself is about a disabled war veteran, who is dying and who is begging his lover not to cheat on him.

The group recorded their version of the song, with Rogers singing the lead, in one take. The record was yet another major hit for them. It made #1 in the UK (on the New Musical Express chart), staying in the top 20 for 15 weeks and selling over a million copies by the end of 1970. In the United States it made #6 and also sold more than 1 million copies, by 1979. Worldwide the single sold more than 5 million copies.

In 1977, now a solo act (following the First Edition's split in early-1976), Rogers made re-recordings of this and a number of other First Edition hits for his greatest hits package Ten Years Of Gold (later issued in the British Isles as The Kenny Rogers Singles Album), which topped the US country charts and was just as successful in the UK.

Rogers also re-recorded the track for a 1990 collection of hits, issued in the USA as 20 Great Years. It also appeared on live albums, other hits collections and compilation albums.

All inclusive sales of Rogers' own recordings of the song are above 140 million. It also still receives regular airplay on radio and TV across the globe, making it one of the world's most popular songs of all time.

In 2004 the band Cake recorded a version of the song that can be found on their promo CD titled Extra Value.