Donna Fargo – "Superman" (1972)

You don't have to rub it in

Just ‘cause you’re right and I’m wrong again

Sometimes right is just as wrong as wrong is

Donna Fargo – her real name is Yvonne Vaughn – was born in 1945 in Mount Airy, North Carolina,  which was the inspiration for the fictional town of Mayberry, the setting for The Andy Griffith Show.  (Andy Griffith was born in Mount Airy, so that makes sense.)

Mount Airy sounds like the perfect place for a country-western singer to be from, but Yvonne Vaughn moved to southern California (where she was a high-school English teacher) long before she became a recording artist.

Donna Fargo

Vaughn started using the name Donna Fargo after moving to Phoenix in 1966.  I’ve been unable to uncover any explanation for her choice of that pseudonym.  (I’ve also been unable to figure out how two parents could name their daughter “Yvonne Vaughn.”)

After releasing a half-dozen singles that failed to chart, Donna finally hit it big with “The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.,” which not only was a #1 country hit but also crossed over to the pop charts, climbing all the way to #11 on the Billboard “Hot 100.”  Fargo’s next three releases were also #1 country hits.  

In other words, she struck out her first six times at bat, then hit four consecutive home runs.

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Fargo wrote three of her first four #1 hits all by herself.  The other one – “Superman,” which was released on My Second Album – was co-written with Eddie Sauter.

Eddie Sauter was considered to be one of the most talented and innovative arrangers of the big band era.  (He did a number of arrangements for Benny Goodman, among others.)

It seems odd that a big band arranger from the forties would end up co-writing a country-western hit in 1972, but it appears that he did – as best as I can tell, there was only one Eddie Sauter.

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In addition to writing her own hits, Donna Fargo has also written songs for many other C&W stars – among them Tammy Wynette, Kitty Wells, Tanya Tucker, and Marty Robbins. 

In 1978, she became one of only a handful of female country singers to have her own network television show.

She also has created a successful line of greeting cards and published four books:

Fargo has accomplished all this despite suffering from multiple sclerosis since she was only 32 years old.

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Click here to listen to Donna Fargo’s 1972 hit, “Superman.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: