Cissy Houston - Midnight Train To Georgia And The Story Behind The Song

Today, I was thinking about songwriters and wanted to know who wrote 'Midnight Train To Georgia' and found that it was Jim Whetherly, an NFL aspirant along with Farah Fawcett's Lee Majors and when the NFL didn't work out for either of them Jim Whetherly took to LA to write songs. Jim called Lee and Farah answered. He asked her what she's doing and she said she was catching a midnight train to Houston for a family event. Jim thought that was a pretty good idea for a song and the idea also occurred to him of '...a superstar, but he didn't get far' as was added to the back up singers by Gladys Knight And The Pips (There is another great story there, as well). The song was tendered to Sonny Limbo in Atlanta. He wanted to record it with Cissy Houston with changes. Change 'Midnight Plane to Houston' to 'Midnight Train To Georgia' and Whetherly agreed, as long as the rest of the song remained the same.
I wanted to hear Cissy Houston do the tune and I found it on YouTube and here it is. I think she did a great job. Her melody is a wonderful variation from the one by Gladys Knight. It's very slightly different and has a nice flavor. I think the other changes were superior too; Train is better than plane for the song and the singers and Georgia is better than Houston for a line in the song. Georgia is more quaint, Houston is more modern, less nostalgia

It is important to note that Ray Price recorded 38 songs written by Jim Weatherly! Amazing!

Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtzyxoX0To0&ab_channel=Dutchmusicfan1992