If a song is a good song then the hits can start right away. This thread it all about songs that made the US/British charts since the 20s. Here are some 19th century songs that were big hits with new words or a new sound. One of you folks said they remember wild mountain time and wanted to know who had a hit with this song in 1992. Don't know much about them but they were called the Silencers. There's also My Old Man's a Dustman from 1960. The tune is a Liverpool chant called the Elder Dempster line a chant that is still sung at school and camps. That tune was also called 'What Do You Think About That?' which was a minor hit in the charts in 1922 for many singers at the time and is still sung at schools and other things. The 1960 song by Donegan went to number 1 in April of that year and is more remembered for folks to sing than the other two i have mentioned. When Elvis recorded love me tender in 1956 the tune Ken Darby wrote was the tune of Oralese, an 1873 song that has been a hit in the 1930s by many singers, pop and country. Another one I remember from the many songs of pop hits that have folk tunes is the 1962 song the Lion sleeps tonight; an African folk song first recorded in 1939 by Solamen Linden and a chart hit in 1952 by the Weavers as called Wimoweh the 1962 recording by the doo wop group called The Tokens that got to number 1 in the billboard charts in the end of 1961, and AGAIN was number 1 in Britain in 1982 for Tight Fit, but i think the tune is older than the Linden version from 1939. Another song that came to my head that nobody's mentioned yet is the 1957 song 'I'm Travelling Home'; a song that was a big hit in Britain in that year for Vera Lin and is to the same tune as the Scottish song Westering Home (written by Hugh Robertson) and has an older tune from Ireland, sung in Gallic. So who ever was talking about that language saying there is only one song that had the Gallic roots then they will know that a song from 1957 by Vera Lynn called travelling home was before the song you mentioned. 'She Wears My Ring' was a hit in 1968 by Soloman King and was a big hit. The tune is the same tune as 'The Swallow' and in 1951 was also called 'When You're In Love'. Labamba is another song that Richie Valens recorded in 1959 and was revived again by a Spanish group named loslobos that got to number 1 in 1987. The 1966 hit by The Sandpipers, Guantanamera, was a folk tune that was first remembered in 1835 and can still be heard today. The song 'Michael Row The Boat Ashore' by the highwaymen is a split up of the songs roots on the 19 century and the 20th century. The first verse they sing is the only verse that was written before the 20th century. The others they sing on the song were only written in the 1950s.