Born 74 Years Ago Today in Minnesota, the Songwriter Behind Barbara Mandrell’s Signature Hit and Classics by Reba McEntire, Charley Pride, and Rod Stewart

July 30, 2026, 1:37pm

On this day (July 30) in 1952, Dennis Morgan was born in Tracy, Minnesota. He started his career as a musician and slowly shifted his focus to songwriting. After moving to Nashville, he wrote jingles before penning hits for some of the biggest names in Music City and beyond. He co-wrote several hits for Barbara Mandrell, including “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.” His compositions have also been hits for Reba McEntire, Charley Pride, Ronnie Milsap, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, and many more.

Morgan was 11 years old when he saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. He, like countless others, knew from that moment that he wanted to be a musician. Not long after that fateful evening, he got his first guitar. A few years later, he dropped out of high school to pursue his dream career.

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He played in several bands throughout his teens, but none of them panned out. “When the last band broke up, I decided to just be a writer, primarily,” Morgan said in an interview with The Current. “About that time, I got into Kris Kristofferson’s songwriting,” he added. He then landed a recording deal with Wooden Nickel Records out of Chicago. The label took him to Nashville, where he recorded some original songs, but nothing came of the recordings. After traveling the country for a year, he returned to his hometown, expecting to get drafted into the Vietnam War. Fortunately, his name didn’t get pulled.

“The day after they stopped the lottery, I hit the road and hitchhiked back to Nashville,” Morgan said. A few years later, his songwriting career took off.

Dennis Morgan Goes Back to Nashville

According to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Dennis Morgan wrote a handful of commercial jingles when he first landed in Nashville. He wrote for Opryland, KFC, and Rubbermaid. At the same time, he started doing session work. Then, he got a staff writer deal with Charley Pride’s publishing company.

Morgan found his first major hit as a songwriter in 1978. He co-wrote “Sleeping Single in a Double Bed” with Kye Fleming, and Barbara Mandrell took it to the top of the country chart, where it stayed for three weeks.

Morgan and Fleming wrote dozens of songs for Mandrell. Notably, they wrote “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.” It topped the country chart and became Mandrell’s signature song.

Mandrell had more hits with Morgan’s songs than any other artist. However, she was far from the only one to find success with his compositions. The list below reveals some highlights from his catalog.