1971 - yesterday is dead and gone ...

 The ‘70s were widely nicknamed the “Me” Decade – spurred along by a famous Tom Wolfe essay – and perhaps the country charts were starting to reflect that.  Gone from the roster of #1s in 1971 were any of the big social statements (left or right) that folks felt more compelled to put out in the ‘60s.  Counterintuitively, so were some of the mainstays that had avoided that sort of thing – no David Houston, no Buck Owens, Jack Greene and Eddy Arnold were staying gone as well.  Newly crowned chart perennial Charley Pride put out a song called “I’m Just Me,” characteristically humble and mellow but maybe the title alone was enough to capture the zeitgeist.  It was a big year for standard love songs and personal narratives, so maybe just disregard my “trend” section from the previous year.

Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden” opened things up, finishing out the bulk of its 5-week run in early 1971.  It’s a groovy, highly quotable little time capsule, penned by genre-bending Joe South and bearing a clever whiff of paisley-patterned late-’60s pop (it would fit in just fine on an Austin Powers soundtrack).  Lest things get too hip, Johnny Cash took over briefly with the affectionate, earthier-than-thou love song “Flesh and Blood,” followed by an also-rustic number called “Joshua,” Dolly Parton’s first of many #1s.  The tune itself, an odd folksy narrative about pulling some ominous-looking but kindhearted mountain hermit out of his shell, has mostly been forgotten, but of course Dolly herself has proven to be for the ages.  That bighearted crystal twang with more than a note of downhome sass would continue to sit alongside Cash as of the most recognizable voices in any genre.

#1 wasn’t quite ready for Kris Kristofferson’s voice yet, except for as a songwriter. Another one of his elegantly stated heartache ballads, “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” entered the pantheon via relative unknown (but vocal powerhouse) Sammi Smith. World-weary and longing, it was a masterfully crafted and sung example of an honored country tradition: singing unmistakably about sex without coming right out and saying it. Charley Pride was dealt a less elegant hand with “I’d Rather Love You,” a kind-of-clumsy expansion on the old “tis better to have love and lost” adage; staid and uncatchy, its ascension mostly just speaks to what a roll Pride was on in the moment.

Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, despite their talents and stature, don’t seem like the most intuitive duet partners. But some of that’s in retrospect. Twitty hadn’t firmed up that smooth ladies-man balladeer persona just yet; he was more of a hardcore honky-tonk guy that just happened to have a bigger and more nuanced voice than most, and it coaxed more of a romantic edge out of Lynn than the feisty-and-folksy material she’d become known for. “After The Fire Is Gone” was their first and best hit, a timeless tension-and-release lament of two cheaters who kind of hate how much they’ve come to love each other. The romantic tension the two could muster up on record apparently turned into a lifelong friendship and collaboration: they’ll be back.

Sonny James had a four-week run by raiding the Ivory Joe Hunter catalog again for a pleasant-enough reading of “Empty Arms.” Conway Twitty took back over briefly with “How Much More Can She Stand,” which had kind of the opposite shortcoming, pouring too much anguish and vocal fire into a clumsy tune that didn’t quite deserve it. By comparison, Ray Price’s ongoing resurgence with “I Won’t Mention It Again” was pretty perfectly calibrated: on a song brimming with raw middle-aged heartbreak, he went back and forth between a Sinatra-esque soar and biting down on phrases like a sob might slip through the veneer of masculine reserve at any moment. It hung on until June when Lynn Anderson (in her post-“Rose Garden’ afterglow) nudged him off with the relatively breezy, not-much-to-it “You’re My Man.”

If Anderson sort of generically brightened things up, Jerry Reed came barreling in to put a shit-eatin’ grin on everyone’s face for five weeks of summer. A handsome, fast-talking guitar-slinger with more than a touch of Roger Miller kookiness, he scored his first #1 with the motor-mouthed gambler’s-anthem singalong “When You’re Hot You’re Hot.” When that one finally ran out of gas, Charley Pride’s humble, optimistic “I’m Just Me” kept things upbeat, followed by Sonny James getting downright bluesy for once on a cover of Jimmy Reed’s “Bright Lights Big City.” Tammy Wynette’s “Good Lovin’ (Makes It Right)” was a bit more hushed but had some smoky charm of its own. It was another round of Billy Sherrill writing her a song exhorting women to not only be patient with their men but also to get better at sex, an approach that was apparently successful at the time but seems a bit pathological in retrospect.

Freddie Hart’s “Easy Loving” cranked up the romance and dialed down the complications. It’s gotten some critical heat down through the years for being cheesy, simplistic etc. and I just don’t get that. Sure, country singers will probably always sound a little weird coming right out and saying “sexy” but to me Hart wrote and sang a sincere little charmer here; it’s catchy and affectionate, especially on the bridge. Tom T. Hall’s Dixieland-inflected tale of a childhood guitar hero – “The Year Clayton Delaney Died” – took over the #1 for a couple of weeks, but Hart snatched the #1 spot back through early October. Lynn Anderson’s banner year continued with “How Can I Unlove You,” which hit somewhere in the middle between “Rose Garden” grooviness and “You’re My Man” forgettableness.

Sonny James took back #1 in mid-October and – believe it or not – it was his 16^th #1 single in a row. His next one would stall out at #2 for the first time in years. “Here Comes Honey Again,” that 16^th #1, was a James original, a weary-eyed number about helplessly loving an unfaithful woman. It’s a good song with a poignant vocal but there’s not necessarily a line that’ll haunt you or a melody you’ll catch yourself humming all day. Early in this column I’d noted how Sonny James seemed like kind of a non-entity when I first dove into the project; memory jogged, I remembered he was the guy behind “Young Love” but that one pre-dated the consolidated Billboard chart. The dozen-plus songs I’ve heard of his since have all seemed new to me; I can’t swear I’d never heard them before, but they sure don’t sound familiar relative to most of the other tunes surrounding them. It’s almost a little spooky, sort of a Mandela Effect if you’re inclined to go down the rabbit hole of looking that term up, like I lived in some parallel universe where Mr. James faded into obscurity shortly after “Young Love” instead of being apparently one of the biggest country stars of the ‘60s and ‘70s. He didn’t seem to be on the oldies-heavy playlists of the Houston-area radio of my childhood, or in the stacks of vinyl and cassettes at my parents or grandparents’ homes, or among the constant boozy blare of vintage country music at the Dixie Chicken in College Station where I frequently lost track of time but hardly ever let a killer song go unnoticed. Maybe he just wasn’t as big of a deal in Texas as he was in other country music enclaves? In the pre-ClearChannel days of radio it was easier to be a household name in one region and an unknown in another. At any rate, if I’d caught Sonny James in my more-formative years, maybe his apparently towering appeal would be more obvious to me, and his success would be less of a surprise in hindsight or otherwise.

Although I can’t recall a time I didn’t know who they were individually, I also didn’t remember Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn having quite so many duets, but they took back #1 with “Lead Me On.” It gives off a subtler heat than “After the Fire Is Gone” but it’s a nicely nuanced take on full-grown but tentative romance, a love affair where the “extramarital” is implied instead of bluntly stated in a year when the songs that hit #1 seemed to finally be chilling out a bit on the cheating fixation. The year rounded out on upbeat, goodhearted notes with Merle Haggard’s “Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)” and Charley Pride’s “Kiss An Angel Good Morning.” The Haggard tune about a travelling family band where the blind dad played guitar and French harp and the deaf mom sang harmonies by reading lips wasn’t terribly plausible (even people with perfect hearing can have a hell of a time nailing harmonies, right?) but it was catchy enough. The Charley Pride tune was just an evergreen classic, even catchier and warmly romantic, a great thing to play any smarmy philistine who declares country music (especially the old stuff) is all sad-bastard weepers about dead dogs and broke-down trucks. Number one for five weeks and still treasured today. In a year where pretty much all the singers at #1 were just talking about themselves, at least Pride was also dishing out some good advice along the way.

THE TREND?

As mentioned at the get-go, the country charts of the early ‘70s might’ve been where broad social statements went to die. The emphasis is on songs about romantic ups and downs, self-evaluations both Jerry Reed-comical and Charley Pride-earnest, memorable little narratives about Clayton Delaney and Joshua, etc. “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” if we’re looking for an exception, spurred some discussion for its sympathetic depiction of casual sex. It’s not like the subject had never been broached in country music, or like Smith’s indelible delivery took the subject lightly, but maybe the song (and its subject?) was just too damn good not to talk about.

THE RANKING: 

1. Sammi Smith – “Help Me Make It Through the Night”
2. Charley Pride – “Kiss An Angel Good Morning”
3. Jerry Reed – “When You’re Hot You’re Hot”
4. Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty – “After the Fire Is Gone”
5. Lynn Anderson – “Rose Garden”
6. Ray Price – “I Won’t Mention It Again”
7. Tom T. Hall – “The Year Clayton Delaney Died”
8. Freddie Hart – “Easy Loving”
9. Johnny Cash – “Flesh and Blood”
10. Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty – “Lead Me On”
11. Merle Haggard – “Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)”
12. Charley Pride – “I’m Just Me”
13. Tammy Wynette – “Good Lovin’ (Makes It Right)”
14. Sonny James – “Empty Arms”
15. Dolly Parton – “Joshua”
16. Sonny James – “Here Comes Honey Again”
17. Lynn Anderson – “How Can I Unlove You”
18. Conway Twitty – “How Much More Can She Stand”
19. Sonny James – “Bright Lights Big City”
20. Charley Pride – “I’d Rather Love You”
21. Lynn Anderson – “You’re My Man”

DOWN THE ROAD ...

We were still more than a couple of decades away from Martina McBride busting onto the scene like a big-voiced, blue-eyed force of nature. A lot of people don't remember that she originally was pushed as a more-traditional artist before finding bigger success with a more pop-tinged approach, but once established she got back to her roots for the 2005 covers album Timeless, cherry-picking some of the all-time greats including the '71 smashes "Help Me Make it Through the Night" and "Rose Garden." If a distaste for pop-country ever put you off McBride's music, perhaps this bit of spare, beautiful, steel-laced balladry would be a nice re-introduction to a remarkable vocalist.