“Hit Parade of Love” was co-written by Jimmy Martin and Wade Birchfield and was recorded on May 9, 1956 by Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys for Decca, released on November 12, 1956 as Decca 9-30118 with “You’ll Be a Lost Ball” on the B-side. The recording sits in the early years of Martin’s Decca run, the period when the “King of Bluegrass” persona he would inhabit for the rest of his career was first cohering.
The lyric works the title’s central conceit through to the end: the narrator’s heart keeps getting drafted onto a chart of lovers like a radio Hit Parade, with each new disappointment moving up the rankings. It is one of Martin’s lighter-touch heartbreak pieces — less hard-edged than “Free Born Man” or “Sunny Side of the Mountain,” but built on the same brisk-tempo Sunny Mountain Boys arrangement template.
The song became a frequent jam call almost immediately and has been covered by the Seldom Scene, the Dixie Flyers, Don McLean, Ronnie Bowman, and a long list of festival bands. The Martin original remains the reference reading; the song works as an up-tempo vocal piece in G or A with a banjo break out of the kickoff, and the chorus harmony slot is one of the cleaner trio-vocal opportunities in the Martin catalogue.
