Son Of A Peacher Man has been sung by many great artists. The hit comes from the pens of songwriters John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins.

John Hurley started in the music world as a small child. He performed with his uncle in bars and was a sidekick on a local radio show. In 1962 he decided to move to Nashville and started his career as a songwriter at music publisher Tree . This is where he met Ronnie Wilkins who had been writing music since high school. The two formed a writing duo from the mid-1960s. Son of a Preacher Man was the men's greatest success.

Son of the preacher
In 1967, the writing duo were working at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. During a recording session for Aretha Franklin, Wilkins played the organ. After the session, producer Jerry Wexler asked Hurley and Wilkins if they would write a song for Franklin. The songwriters agreed and retreated for a few days to write. "A couple of days went by and John and I were in the writers' room trying to come up with something," Wilkins told American Songwriter Magazine . "We were thinking about Aretha and remembered that her father was a preacher and both my grandfathers were. I said, 'She's a preacher's daughter and you could say I'm a preacher's son.' That's how we came up with the title. It took us about a half hour or maybe 45 minutes to write it." Son of a Preacher Man is about a young girl who sneaks away with the preacher's son every time he and his father visit her home. This “preacher's son” teaches her about love and is the only one she ever loves.

Issued hit
Producer Jerry Wexler was pleased with Son of a Preacher Man and had Aretha Franklin sing it. However, they decided not to release the song, because it was too gospel-like and would not fit in with the other songs on her new album. Son of a Preacher Man was then handed over to Dusty Springfield. The track ended up on her album Dusty In Memphis and she released it as a single in 1968. It became a top 10 hit in Great Britain and the United States. In the Netherlands, the song ended up in sixth place in the Top 40. The singer's version was the writing duo's greatest success. After hearing Springfield's version, Franklin decided to release it herself in 1970, but she did not manage to score a hit with it. Son of a Preacher Man was covered in the years that followed by Nancy Sinatra, Tina Turner and Eva Cassidy, among others.