When did the night the lights went out in Georgia actually happen?

Music wise, it happened a few times when different people sang the same song. "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" is a Southern Gothic song, of the murder ballad type, written and composed in 1972 by songwriter Bobby Russell and sung by Vicki Lawrence, an American pop music singer, actress, author, and comedian. Lawrence's version, from her 1973 Bell Records album of the same name, was a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 after its release. In addition to several other renditions, the song was again a hit in 1991 when Reba McEntire recorded it for her album For My Broken Heart. McEntire's version was a chart single as well, reaching number 12 on Hot Country Songs.

That has a reference to a death in a state prison electric chair. My brother an assistant county attorney made the statement about our state prison's 1957 electric chair use and the cities power dimming failure. ...It's PURE FABRICATION!

Funny thing is... that the area electric company refused to supply the electric power to the state's electric chair and (I believe long before chemical means have replaced the electrical process ) all prisons years ago using the electrical means had an independent, stand alone, internal combustion powered electrical generator required to provide the electrical energy necessary to accomplish the feat of human execution.

Myth aside; it's totally unrealistic fabrication! There isn't a mainline transformer without 'line fuses' protecting the power system in the entire U.S. A.. Roasting a human does not require but a small amount of electrical energy. As a licensed electrician in agriculture it's not uncommon at all by system fault to 'take out' several line fuses a year most of them due snakes, squirrels, and racoons found smoking on the ground or hung up on transformers with their insides boiled out their nose with no effectible notice to the main electrical supply system. (other than opening the 'line fuse' mere feet away from the roasted beast)

There has never been anything said by the writer of the words and composer of the music, Bobby Russell, who at the time was married to Vicki Lawrence, who recorded it herself when it was turned down by other artists, that his words were based on any real-life event.

So it's just a song with fictional characters. Lawrence recorded it in 1972 and it became a radio hit in 1973. Others have recorded the song since then.

There's music and history. Recommend YouTube answer the former.

As to the present sense it still happens in global warming