Jack Blancard & Misty Morgan

Jack Blanchard (b. 8 May 1942, Buffalo, New York, USA) and Misty Morgan (b. 23 May 1945, Buffalo, New York, USA), coincidently they both had moved to Ohio when they were children. Blanchard learned to play the saxophone and keyboards and found work with a small band; Morgan learned piano and organ as a child and initially worked clubs in the Cincinnati area. Their paths eventually crossed in the mid-60s when they met in Florida and in 1967, they married. They moved to Nashville, where Blanchard worked in songwriting, record production and as a newspaper cartoonist, and in 1969 achieved a minor US country hit with ‘Big Black Bird’, one of Blanchard’s songs. In 1970, his novelty song, ‘Tennessee Birdwalk’, reached number 1 in the US country and number 23 in the US pop charts. This was followed by further country and pop chart success with ‘Humphrey The Camel’ and country success with the Fortunes’ ‘You’ve Got Your Troubles’. From 1971-75, they had 11 more country hits on Mega or Epic, including ‘Somewhere In Virginia In The Rain’ and ‘The Legendary Chicken Fairy’. There were no further chart hits after 1975. Nothing more was heard of the duo until 1993 when they suddenly reappeared with Back In Harmony on the Playback label. The album drew poor comments from reviewers, who appeared to know nothing of what the couple had achieved, or where they had been, during the years that their names had been missing from the charts. Since then they have recorded on the Velvet Saw label.