In the 1971 column we touched on how, retrospectively, Sonny James’ incredible run of 16 #1 hits felt like it came from some alternate universe where a singer who’s largely forgotten today was beating the likes of George Jones and Buck Owens at their own game. Well, 1972 might’ve been from that same universe, where apparently the sun rose and set on the sprawling chart empire of Freddie “Easy Loving” Hart and everyone else was just picking up his scraps. Well, his and Donna Fargo’s, anyway.
1972
started off conventionally enough, with Charley Pride and “Kiss an Angel Good
Morning” riding high outta 1971, but standing back and looking at it, it would
turn out to be a curious year of anomalies, one-offs, and cool little
comebacks. Keep in mind that we’re just looking at #1s here. It was starting to
look like the Nashville radio-and-records business were doing what they could
to make sure everyone who was talented enough or patient enough would get their
turn eventually, as opposed to the late ‘50s when a small handful of artists
might hog the whole year. But there still wasn’t room atop the mountain for
everyone. Slightly lower down the charts, folks like Dolly Parton and Waylon
Jennings were laying groundwork, Tom T. Hall and George Jones were still having
hits, it just wasn’t brass ring time for them. Folks who’d have far shorter peaks
just happened to be on a roll.
Jerry
Lee Lewis took over from Charley Pride with a double-sided hit. “Would You Take
Another Chance on Me” was nominally the single, but the B-side of “Me &
Bobby McGee” got more attention. Janis Joplin’s landmark rock version of the
Kris Kristofferson song had been a posthumous hit the previous year;
Kristofferson’s original had already run its course, and country radio wasn’t
going to touch the Joplin version, but they were happy to make room for a
boogie-woogie version by a middle-aged rock & roll pioneer settling into
the country phase of his career. Plus “Would You…” was pretty unmemorable,
especially by comparison.
Merle
Haggard took over for the rest of January with “Carolyn,” a uniquely pensive
number that posited some men were inevitably cheaters and all men could be
driven to it “if he’s treated bad at home,” which was surprisingly written by
Tommy Collins instead of Billy Sherrill. Nuanced, dark, and downbeat, it
doesn’t sound like a guaranteed #1 but Haggard was on a roll. Loretta Lynn’s February
hit “One’s On the Way” was a ton of fun, especially relatively: the verses
described the travails of the rich and glamorous, and the shifting choruses
described scenes of domestic working-class chaos, coming back around to the
hook that yet another baby was about to enter the fray. Written with
characteristic humor by Shel Silverstein and seemingly customized for Lynn,
it’s a keeper.
Faron
Young, who’d spent a few years taking a backseat, came surging back with the
undeniable “It’s Four in the Morning,” as fine an execution of heartsick vocal
prowess as that year (or most years) would ever see. Tammy Wynette’s
even-better voice would yet again serve as mouthpiece for a creepy Billy
Sherrill number called “Bedtime Story,” in which a doting mother recasts her
husband ditching her for some other gal (“because oh what big eyes she had”)
and then boomeranging back when it
didn’t work out (“because he missed his little princess and his queen’)
as a tale worthy of tears of joy when recounting it to her little daughter. Keep
those expectations low, baby girl.
Freddie
Hart’s 1971 breakthrough with “Easy Loving” had more legs than history might
suggest. First off, though he might sound like just another tenor-voiced
romantic crooner, Hart was more than a bit of a badass. Dude lied about his age
at 15 to join the Marine Corps and was a combat veteran in Iwo Jima before
parlaying his lifelong love of karate into a new career teaching self-defense
to Los Angeles cops. At some point he befriended (and/or possibly scared the
shit out of) Buck Owens and, intentionally or not, kind of took over for him in
terms of chart domination, at least for a short stretch. “My Hang-Up Is You” is
of a piece with his signature song, a sweet and unhurried song of devotion, and
it held the #1 spot for six weeks. Only Jerry Lee Lewis dared take it away from
him, with a cover of the old Big Bopper hit “Chantilly Lace.” It all was a
solid indication that, as rock got more experimental and wild and the pop
charts got more diverse and eclectic, many of the fans who’d gotten into rock
& roll as youngsters had migrated to the safer harbors of country music as
they eased into middle age. It was just a matter of time before they brought
some of those old songs and artists with them (the aforementioned Sonny James
had been doing it for years anyway at this point).
Merle
Haggard scored for a couple weeks in May with “Grandma Harp,” a salute to his
grandmother that he even admitted in the song wasn’t much of a story, but 1972
Haggard had clout to spare. Conway Twitty did too, and folks were glad to play
along with him adding lyrics to the classic Floyd Cramer instrumental “Last
Date” (Skeeter Davis had tried this too back in 1960, but she didn’t have
Twitty Momentum on her side). Next up was a newcomer breakthrough, young
singer-songwriter Donna Fargo with “The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA.”
Buoyant, chipper, and almost madly catchy, the ode to a relationship that
sounded way happier than anything Tammy Wynette was dealing with was sort of
1972’s song of the summer, landing a sunny three-week reign in June. Maybe her
and Freddie Hart should’ve hooked up, but then again they might have driven sad
country songs to extinction.
Speaking
of lovey-dovey songs and extinction anxiety, having his record streak of #1s
end must’ve been a disorienting experience for Sonny James: he made another run
at the top with “That’s Why I Love You Like I Do.” The song had been the B-side
to his 1956 breakout record “Young Love” and apparently it was time to unlock
whatever mojo the old chunk of vinyl might’ve had. An old hand by now at
repurposing songs from past decades, James scored something between a comeback
and a victory lap. Hank Williams Jr., meanwhile, continued to benefit from some
built-in nostalgia as well. “Eleven Roses,” a sweetly insinuating little
apology of a song, snagged him his second #1.
Meanwhile,
another star was falling. Buck Owens’ “Made In Japan,” which managed to wrangle
some tuneful pathos out of its Asian-gimmick melody, would be his last #1 until
a 1998 collaboration with then-newcomer Dwight Yoakum reintroduced him. His mid-‘60s dominance had been slowly
wearing off for a few years at this point; it’s hard to say in retrospect
whether in the moment he was creatively exhausted, suffering from overexposure,
or just naturally losing ground to a newer generation. His next single, “You Ain’t Gonna Have Ol’
Buck to Kick Around No More,” might have been a clue to his weariness, or it
might’ve just been an obvious Richard Nixon reference reframed as a romantic
kiss-off. Either way, going forward he’d be doing good to scratch the lower
reaches of the Top 10, and to younger fans he might be better known as the
co-host of the cornpone TV comedy Hee Haw instead of being the guy who
ruled the Billboard charts and inspired the Beatles. In 1974 his career (and
general happiness) would be massively upended by the bike-crash death of his
best friend and closest collaborator Don Rich. If recording and touring had
become a bit of a chore for him before that, by his own account without Rich it
was downright unbearable, and he took a long break from a spotlight that was
fading out on him anyway.
Charley
Pride was still on a roll though. “It’s Gonna Take A Little Bit Longer,” a
driving and resilient twist on his usual heartache ballads, romped atop the
charts through three weeks of summer. Freddie Hart swung in again with “Bless
Your Heart,” which was – wait for it – another sweetly devotional love song.
None of the ironic deployment of “bless your heart” you get from flinty old
Southern gals sometimes; this man was dead serious about how much he loves you,
baby. Some guy named Jerry Wallace came out of nowhere to displace him with the
similarly direct “If You Leave Me Tonight I’ll Cry.” It was a fluke – the song
was prominently featured on a Twilight Zone-esque TV show called Night
Gallery, providing a weird little back door to exposure that country radio
just shrugged and went with. He also sang the theme song for a short-lived
Henry Fonda sitcom called The Smith Family; Jerry Wallace was a bigger
deal onscreen than on radio. Already-veteran Don Gibson, who’d had a pretty
hit-and-miss career since his late-‘50s heyday but never completely
disappeared, scored a surprise #1 with the instant classic “Woman, Sensuous
Woman” but only stayed there for a week before (presumably furiously) handing
it back to “Mr. Hollywood” Jerry Wallace. Both guys would have more Top 10
hits, but no more #1s.
Sonny
James swooped in with another cover, this time Ed Ames’ old adult contemporary
hit “When The Snow is On The Roses.”
It’s just as pretty and elegiac as the title suggests; it would have
been totally appropriate if this was the last song he’d recorded before he
died, but it wasn’t even his last #1 (although that would come soon). Plus he lived to a ripe old age, passing on
at 87 years old in 2016 after a long and presumably gentlemanly
retirement. No need to weep for Sonny
James just yet (at least in the context of this series). It held on for one week of September before
Conway Twitty, perhaps cashing in on the renewed interest in Don Gibson,
briefly took over at #1 with a cover of Gibson’s classic “I Can’t Stop Loving
You.”
Keep
in mind that, especially in old-school country music, a new face at the top of
the charts is often not necessarily a new face to the business. Since Nashville back then typically
deprioritized youth and glamor, these midlife comebacks by the likes of Faron
Young and Don Gibson weren’t as weird as it would be if, say, Sammy Kershaw
came roaring back and scored a #1 country hit in 2023. Sometimes the persistent and patient were
rewarded. Mel Tillis, for example, had
been performing and recording since the mid-‘50s. Writing for Webb Pierce and other stars of
the day, he’d come up with classics like “Mental Revenge” and “Ruby Don’t Take
Your Love to Town.” When he hit #1 with
“I Ain’t Never” (Pierce had scored with it in 1959) it was already a bit retro
for 1972 but it was a welcome milestone for a lifer whose career was finally
about to level up (and it’s a total banger too).
Donna
Fargo’s “Funny Face” was not exactly a banger, but if you can get past the idea
of “funny face” being a pet name for your wife it’s a sweet enough song, and
her voice does have an appealingly sandy sweetness to it. Merle Haggard followed up with his best and
most universal tune in a while, the wryly funny “It’s Not Love (But It’s Not
Bad).” Between its slightly-saccharine
predecessor and the titles that rounded out the year (coming right up!) it was
kind of nice to have one in the mix about one of those better-than-nothing
relationships that some listeners probably related to more than they’d care to
admit.
Tammy
Wynette’s “My Man Understands” continued her streak of near-terrifying displays
of devotion (yep Billy Sherrill wrote this one too, so it keeps getting weird)
but to be fair, this one’s good as hell, with a subtly jumpy bass line driving
a jittery tempo that perfectly underscores her great-imitation-of-breathless
delivery of the cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof lyrics.
Different kind of “Bedtime Story” I guess, although from the sound of it
it’s unlikely she let him make it past the front hall. Charley Pride’s “She’s Too Good to Be True”
was way more chill, maybe even a little boring (at least after listening to
Wynette pant her way through the last one).
Freddie Hart’s “Got the All Overs For You (All Over Me)” kind of struck
a balance between the two; while we’re at it, Hart’s singles had some of the
coolest organ of any country records from the era. But as his #1 hitmaker days were already
almost drawing to a close, maybe the listeners of the day were starting to see
him as a bit of a one-trick pony. Ray
Price would close out the year with “She’s Got to Be A Saint,” plenty devoted
in its own way, but it had a longer run in 1973 so we’ll talk about it then. And rank it there. And maybe go back and listen to that Tammy
Wynette song again.
THE
TREND?
- It’s Four in the Morning (Faron Young)
- My Man Understands (Tammy Wynette)
- One’s On the Way (Loretta Lynn)
- The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA (Donna Fargo)
- Woman, Sensuous Woman (Don Gibson)
- I Ain’t Never (Mel Tillis)
- It’s Not Love (But It’s Not Bad) (Merle Haggard)
- Carolyn (Merle Haggard)
- My Hang-Up is You (Freddie Hart)
- It’s Gonna Take a Little Bit Longer (Charley Pride)
- Me & Bobby McGee (Jerry Lee Lewis)
- Got the All Overs For You (All Over Me) (Freddie Hart)
- When the Snow Is On the Roses (Sonny James)
- (Lost Her Love) On Our Last Date (Conway Twitty)
- That’s Why I Love You Like I Do (Sonny James)
- Eleven Roses (Hank Williams Jr.)
- Made in Japan (Buck Owens)
- Bless Your Heart (Freddie Hart)
- She’s Too Good to be True (Charley Pride)
- Funny Face (Donna Fargo)
- I Can’t Stop Loving You (Conway Twitty)
- Chantilly Lace (Jerry Lee Lewis)
- Would You Take Another Chance on Me (Jerry Lee Lewis)
- Bedtime Story (Tammy Wynette)
- Grandma Harp (Merle Haggard)
- If You Leave Me Tonight I’ll Cry (Jerry Wallace)
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