“It Takes One to Know One” is a country song written by two major figures of mid-century Nashville songwriting, Harlan Howard and Freddie Hart. It was introduced in bluegrass by Jimmy Martin, the forceful singer and bandleader known as the “King of Bluegrass.”
Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys recorded the song in 1964 and released it as a single. Its lyric works a familiar honky-tonk theme of cheating and mistrust, turning the old phrase of its title into a knowing accusation between two people who each recognize the other’s wandering ways.
Jimmy Martin had a particular gift for taking country material and driving it hard with his band’s tight, aggressive bluegrass sound, and “It Takes One to Know One” is a representative example. The song has stayed in the repertoire and been recorded by later bluegrass performers drawn to Martin’s catalog.
