| There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight | |
| Published: | Acuff-Rose Publications, Inc.[1] |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Hank Williams With His Drifting Cowboys |
| A-Side: | Mind Your Own Business |
| Released: | July 1949 |
| Recorded: | December 22, 1948 |
| Studio: | Herzog Studio, Cincinnati |
| Genre: | Hillbilly, Honky-tonk, Country blues |
| Label: | MGM |
| Producer: | Fred Rose |
| Prev Title: | Wedding Bells |
| Prev Year: | 1949 |
| Next Title: | You're Gonna Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave) |
| Next Year: | 1949 |
There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight is a song written by Hank Williams and released on MGM Records as the B-side to "Mind Your Own Business" in July 1949.
According to Colin Escott's 2004 memoir Hank Williams: The Biography, country music disc jockey Nelson King always insisted that he had written "There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight" with Williams, and was surreptitiously credited with a half-share of the song.[2] However, the extent of King's contribution is debatable; songwriter Tillman Franks, who Escott writes "had more or less invented payola in the country record business," later recalled a fishing trip he took with Williams and country singer Webb Pierce:
I'd given Nelson King half of "Three Ways of Knowing" and Hank said, "Franks, you and Pierce have done fucked up business giving these deejays songs." I said, "Hank, I didn't start it. Nelson told me you'd given him half of 'There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight.'" Hank said, "I didn't mean to, I was drunk.'"[2]
Williams' session band was composed of Clyde Baum (mandolin), Zeke Turner (electric guitar), Jerry Byrd (steel guitar), Louis Innis (rhythm guitar), Tommy Jackson (fiddle) and Willie Thawl (bass).[3] The session is notable for being held at a Cincinnati recording studio rather than Castle Studio in Nashville, where Hank usually recorded.