Ned Miller – From A Jack To A King

This song takes me back to when I was a kid. On my country post a few weeks ago, I did 5 songs that I liked…Obbverse mentioned this one and I didn’t remember it by the title. Once I played it I knew it right away. I probably haven’t heard it since I was around 7-8 years old.

Ned’s mom taught him how to play guitar, and he wrote his first song at 16 while still in High School in Salt Lake City. After a three-year stint in the Marine Corps – he served in the Pacific theater during World War II – he went to college with the help of the G.I. Bill and became a pipe-fitter and later air-conditioning man by trade.

He wrote a song called Dark Moon that was made into two top 5 hits for other artists. He wrote and recorded this song in 1957 but it did absolutely nothing on the charts. He convinced his record company to re-release this song in 1962 and it was a massive international hit.

Ned recorded between 1957 and 1970. He did have another huge country hit with Do What You Do Do Well.  After that, he had some top-50 hits in country but nothing in the top 10. It didn’t help that Ned rarely toured owing to stage fright. He gave up recording in the 1970s and moved to Prescott, Arizona, and later to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Ned came back into the limelight in 1989, when Ricky Van Shelton resurrected ‘From A Jack To A King’ and took it to #1 on the Country charts and #1 in the Canadian Country Charts.

The song peaked at #2 on the Country Charts, #6 on the Billboard 100, and #2 in the UK in 1962.

Ned Miller passed away at the age of 90 in 2016.

From A Jack To A Queen

From a jack to a king
From loneliness to a wedding ring
I played an ace and I won a queen
And walked away with your heart

From a jack to a king
With no regrets I stacked the cards last night
And lady luck played her hand just right
And made me king of your heart

For just a little while
I thought that I might lose the game
Then just in time
I saw the twinkle in your eye

From a jack to a king
From loneliness to a wedding ring
I played an ace and I won a queen
You made me king of your heart

For just a little while
I thought that I might lose the game
Then just in time
I saw the twinkle in your eye

From a jack to a king
From loneliness to a wedding ring
I played an ace and I won a queen
You made me king of your heart…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

26 thoughts on “Ned Miller – From A Jack To A King”

    1. LOL.. when I read “His mom taught Ned” last night (I wrote this months ago) I thought…I wonder if I should keep that…it read funny but then I went to sleep lol. Now I’ve changed it to “Ned’s mom….”

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  4. I think there was one of those K-Tel albums (maybe on another label, I’m not sure) that this was on. I used to see the ads all the time. All I knew was the first line. Now, this is real country music. I love it!

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    1. Yes I remember it…I can still hear how it sounded over AM radio with my dad listening to it. Those K-Tel records had everything I believe for a while.

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      1. Granted, they weren’t the highest quality, but it was a quick and dirty way to add a bunch of songs to your collection. You did have to be careful that they were the original recordings and not knockoffs by a bunch of halfassed studio players…

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      2. Oh I had some also…along with some Roncos… sometimes they would get cheap and have the artist to redo the song instead of the real version.

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  7. Yep, this one has Country songwriting hooks aplenty, especially the lyrics. One I remember from the days of Dad in his chair in the living room billowing out clouds of Borkum Riff from behind his tabloid, Mum rattling the pots and pans in the kitchen, imbuing the meatloaf and spuds with that Kool taste, Every meal was primarily smoked before cooking in those days.

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