Act Naturally: History and Key Facts

"Act Naturally" is a song written by Johnny Russell, with a writing credit given to Voni Morrison and publishing rights transferred to Buck Owens. It was originally recorded by Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, whose version reached number one on the Billboard Country Singles chart in 1963, his first chart-topper.

The song tells the tale of someone who has been jilted and, because of that, can play a film part of someone sad and lonely without knowing anything about acting. It has been recorded by many other artists, including Loretta Lynn, Dwight Yoakam, the cast of Kidsongs, and Mrs. Miller, though the best-known cover version is by the Beatles in 1965. Featuring Ringo Starr taking lead vocal, it became a featured performance number of his in concert, both with the Beatles and later with His All-Starr Band. Owens and Starr went on to record a duet version in 1989. The song was also covered by Betty Willis in 1978, and by Riders in the Sky in 2000 for the album Woody's Roundup: A Rootin' Tootin' Collection of Woody's Favorite Songs.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Act Naturally by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.