“Last Cheater’s Waltz” was a cover of a single issued by the writer, Sonny Throckmorton, in February of 1979. Throckmorton’s double A-side single “Smooth Sailin’/ Last Cheater’s Waltz” topped out at #47. Sheppard covered bothsongs (on separate singles) and had hits with both songs . Throckmorton wasn’t much of a singer (this was his biggest hit) but I suspect he regarded his singles more-or-less as demos anyway, since virtually all of his singles were turned into bigger hits by other artists. “Last Cheater’s Waltz was TG’s first #1 in over four years – he would go on to have another eleven more for a total of fourteen

“Tall Dark Stranger” is largely forgotten. It’s a very good record, but lacks the familiar ‘freight train’ sound of most of Buck’s prior singles. Buck’s next single “Big In Vegas” is probably the best remembered of his later hits. Shockingly, it did not reach #1 on Billboard (getting only to #5) but it was a #1 on Record World. George Strait recently passed Buck for third place on the list of most weeks at #1