Marijohn Wilkin
Musician · 1920–2006 · Kemp, Texas
Best known for
Songwriter
Marijohn Wilkin was a Texas-born Nashville songwriter whose “Long Black Veil” (with Danny Dill) and “One Day at a Time” (with Kris Kristofferson) became two of the most-covered country songs of the postwar era. Known on Music Row as “the Den Mother,” she mentored Kris Kristofferson through his early Nashville years.
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- Born July 14, 1920, in Kemp, Texas; raised in Sanger, just north of Dallas.
- Trained as a teacher; widowed when her first husband Bedford Russell was killed in World War II.
- Moved to Nashville in 1958 after booking agent Lucky Moeller heard her sing in a Dallas piano bar.
- Co-wrote “The Long Black Veil” with Danny Dill for Lefty Frizzell; the 1959 Columbia single reached the country Top 10 and has since been recorded by Johnny Cash, the Band, Joan Baez, and many others.
- Co-wrote “Cut Across Shorty” with Wayne Walker; Eddie Cochran cut it for Liberty in 1960.
- Wrote “I Just Don’t Understand,” a 1961 pop hit for Ann-Margret that the Beatles covered on a 1963 BBC session.
- Co-wrote “One Day at a Time” with her former mentee Kris Kristofferson in 1973; the song became one of the most-recorded gospel songs of the 1970s.
- Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1975.
- Published the 1978 memoir Lord, Let Me Leave a Song with Darryl E. Hicks.
- Died October 28, 2006.
