Story of the Song: (Is This the Way to) Amarillo by Tony Christie

From The Independent archive: Robert Webb on the Neil Sedaka-penned country-pop hit

Christie spent six months at No 1 in Spain in 1971 (Getty)

The Texas panhandle town of Amarillo was originally called Ragtown by pioneer settlers in 1887. Luckily for Tony Christie, the name was later changed to the Spanish word for yellow, the colour of the town's river banks. Back in 1971, “(Is this the way to) Amarillo” was bought by holidaymakers, who had just returned from Spain, where it had spent a heady six months at No 1.

Earlier in the year, Christie's manager had been on an American trip. He called by Neil Sedaka's Manhattan apartment and asked if he had anything for his newest signing. Sedaka told him he was working on a song with his co-lyricist, Howard Greenfield, and banged out the tune on his baby grand.

Christie had no idea of the way to Amarillo, but liked the song. And the name itself, a pop singer's godsend, had probably been chosen by Sedaka and Greenfield, because it rhymed with “willow” and “pillow”? Anyone well versed in American popular song as they were could not have picked those particular words without thinking of the old Patsy Cline number “Walkin' After Midnight” (“I stop to see a weepin' willow/Cryin' on his pillow/Maybe he's cryin' for me...”). Cline had recorded a Sedaka and Greenfield number, “Stupid Cupid”, in 1960, so the homage might have been deliberate.