Hey, good news on two fronts … longer runs at #1 seem to be back in 1977, so I guess slightly-shorter articles are too. Also, none of these #1 squatters are novelty songs about CB radios. Doesn’t mean it’s never a weird year for other reasons, but 10-4 on moving the hell on, good buddy.
Emmylou
Harris’ take on “Sweet Dreams” eased us from ’76 to ’77 and handed it off to
Billy “Crash” Craddock and his stormy, convincing, somehow-forgotten-by-now
ballad “Broken Down In Tiny Pieces.” His Elvis-esque vibe had to be
intentional, but at least he proved he could handle the slow-dance numbers with
kingly panache. Newcomer Crystal Gayle scored next with another winner that’s
kind of fallen down the memory hole since then: “You Never Miss A Real Good
Thing (Till He Says Goodbye)” might’ve just had too long a title to stay stuck
in our collective nostalgia, but it’s a sweet, winsome number, twangier than
the more countrypolitan stuff that would eventually dominate her career. Conway
Twitty was sounding afterglow-grateful on “I Can’t Believe She Gives It All to
Me.” Ronnie Milsap probably drifted a little too far into Las Vegas cheesiness
on the energetic yet awkward “Let My Love Be Your Pillow,” but Vegas cheesiness
was about to be the order of the day so maybe he was slightly ahead of the
curve. Recently-divorced uber-country warhorses George Jones and Tammy Wynette
were probably violating some sort of restraining order by the time they put out
“Near You,” but if nothing else their voices sure still seemed to love each
other.
Then
suddenly, rock & roll icon Elvis Presley took the #1 spot with the
double-sided “Moody Blue”/”She Thinks I Still Care.” It wasn’t a huge surprise;
he’d made the country charts off and on throughout the ‘70s, cracking the Top
Ten a few times. Rock & roll had changed a lot since he’d jumpstarted it;
some would insist the ascendance of the Beatles almost immediately made him
irrelevant within the genre, and while that’s a major oversimplification it is
fair to say that it’s not obvious where he would’ve fit in
post-British-Invasion with genres like disco, heavy metal, psychedelia, and
funk taking things in wilder directions. Elvis was getting older and so were
his fans … the country charts (or maybe easy listening, for some tunes) was
bound to feel more like home. Plus he’d had no shortage of country influence
from the start, and even at this notably late period in his career he was
covering George Jones (as well as, obviously, following him in the #1 spot). Unfortunately,
Elvis wasn’t going to get much older at all. I had to double-check my
dates, but we’re not at Elvis’ posthumous hit phase just yet.
So
yeah an Elvis #1 made sense, but Tom Jones? Yeah, they were both big sweaty
Vegas headliners, and international icons beyond that, but Jones was a
Welsh-born pop singer better known for big brassy adult-contempo hits
engineered to rock the European pop charts. To be fair, he’d found room in his
catalog before for classic country covers like “Green Green Grass of Home” and
“Detroit City,” so I guess there’s no harm in giving him his own country hit
with “Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow” even though it’s a pretty run-of-the-mill
come-on of a song. Mel Tillis’ “Heart Healer” kind of is too, but nobody
doubted he’d paid his country-music-bidness dues.
Charley
Pride scored yet again with “She’s Just An Old Love Turned Memory,” a typical
restrained and gentlemanly performance with a nice touch of magic-hour sparkle
in the production. Glen Campbell, never one to be too tied-down by genre, looked
well outside of the country music field to New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint’s
“Southern Nights.” If Toussaint’s was sort of an R&B-jazz hybrid,
Campbell’s added a little extra funk and pop into the mix as well. I grew up
with this song but never loved it quite as much as the country (and pop … it
was a crossover #1) charts seemed to. It’s got a nice warm sound to it and
never hits a bum note, it just didn’t quite strike a chord with me somehow. If
you love it, keep in mind that I’m often just wrong.
Kenny
Rogers, who’d also been doing some cross-genre dabbling trying to break through
(and really, would never exactly stop) scored his first country #1 with
“Lucille.” A dusky, largely unadorned waltz, it let Rogers’ husky voice carry
the tale of a rambler who couldn’t bring himself to romance some homegrown
honey after realizing she’d callously (and very recently I guess) ditched her
giant husband and hungry kids to go get hit on in bars by Kenny Rogers. A
downbeat but fairly unforgettable song, it launched one of the most successful
phases of Roger’s career or, honestly, anyone’s. Johnny Duncan was, at least in
song, less stymied by moral complications when it came to getting it on: “It
Couldn’t Have Been Any Better” is not far off from being a carbon copy of his
’76 breakthrough “Thinkin’ Bout A Rendezvous” except for this time he actually
does sleep with his friend’s girl and clearly enjoyed the hell out of it.
Loretta
Lynn had been around long enough at this point to be nostalgic for herself, but
she got nostalgic for Patsy Cline instead and released a whole album of covers
of her deceased onetime contemporary. And while I have vanishingly few negative
opinions about Lynn’s talents, as an interpreter of well-known classics she’s
no Emmylou Harris (who, as recently mentioned, covered Cline’s “Sweet Dreams”
for a #1). Lynn couldn’t conjure up the crystalline elegance of old Patsy Cline
hits – fair enough, most people couldn’t – but she also didn’t really replace
it with anything compelling. The whole record sounds like a bar-band cash-in
that just happened to have a legend singing lead on “She’s Got You” (her own
#1) et al. But sometimes starpower plus nostalgia is irresistible enough to hit
regardless of specific merits.
Mickey
Gilley backed off of the immediately-recognizable covers for a bit and hit #1
with “She’s Pulling Me Back Again,” of the time-honored country subgenre of
songs about how a lady’s gonna have to get better at sex or else a guy’s not
going to be able to resist cheating on her, leaving her, etc. It’s not just a
male phenomenon, and some of those songs are pretty good, but this one’s just
OK. Conway Twitty’s “Play Guitar Play” is well-produced and isn’t going to hurt
anyone’s ears or anything, but it’s in the same acceptable-not-remarkable tier.
Don Williams, meanwhile, was on the artistic upswing, with “Some Broken Hearts
Never Mend” as probably his best #1 thus far. Picking up the tempo a touch was
pretty much always a good idea for him; it’s not like he lost his warm, subtle upside
on this tune or any.
Then
it was time for another six-week reign, and it was way better than “Convoy.” Maybe
Waylon Jennings’ “Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)” was at least
a bit of a gimmick too: the “Outlaw” marketing for Waylon and his pal Willie
Nelson (who cameos on the last chorus) might have eventually got a little bit
out of hand (someone should write a song about that!) but at least the material
was almost always its own reward. Smooth, twangy and smartly-produced – has
Waylon’s baritone ever sounded better on record? – it was also instantly
memorable for name-dropping not only then-obscurities like Jerry Jeff Walker
and Mickey Newbury but also the tiny titular Texas town itself. Hinting at this
whole little satellite world of Texas folkies and honky-tonkers packing tiny
venues with real-ass songs was pretty radical in retrospect, and perhaps a
little kick back at the aforementioned encroaching Vegas-ness of country music.
Donna
Fargo scored her final #1 before a steep drop-off from the country charts with
“That Was Yesterday.” On one hand, a first-person narrative of a person more or
less in love with an opposite-sex friend but held back by life’s circumstances
from expressing it is fairly common in country music (and pop to some extent)
and relatable for many. Doing it as a straight-up, non-rhyming recitation over
a generic slow-dance backing track is the weird part. If she mentioned at any
point that the object of her affection was a trucker, or did the whole thing in
CB radio voice, it would’ve dovetailed nicely into the previous year’s trends
but as it is I can’t quite imagine why this worked as well as it did.
Charley
Pride stuck to his usual gentlemanly, sincere blueprint with the
cheating-avoidance anthem “I’ll Be Leaving Alone,” followed up by Ronnie Milsap
with the three-week reign of “It Was Almost Like A Song.” I think songs that
self-refer are usually too cute by about half, but Milsap throws considerable
vocal passion into this one; it might not quite move you, but there’s no lack
of talent or effort there. Fellow piano man Charlie Rich took over with the
much less break-a-sweat vibes of “Rollin’ With The Flow,” a smooth yet
unrepentant statement of purpose for a party-hearty middle-ager. Unlike his
last few #1’s, it seemed to wedge itself into the country pantheon; it was
still all over the radio a few years later when I was personally old enough to
notice.
Then
it was Elvis Presley time again already, but this time the hit hit different. Presley
passed away at home on August 16, 1977 and hit #1 on August 20. I don’t know if
it says anything about his diminished cultural relevance that he only stayed
there for one week, or that neither side of “Way Down”/”Pledging My Love” would
probably pop up in the first 20 or so Elvis songs that anyone who actually knew
20 Elvis songs would name off the top of their head. “Way Down” didn’t seem
like a targeted sop to the country market; it sounds more like Molly Hatchet or
.38 Special boogie-rock with The King struggling to reclaim the old magic. “Pledging
My Love,” a cover of the Johnny Ace classic, sounds like it could’ve been a
‘60s-vintage Elvis song anyway, and between his impassioned delivery and the
song’s heartsick lyrics, it probably prompted more than a few tears from
grieving fans.
Relative
newcomer Crystal Gayle took over for a full month with “Don’t It Make My Brown
Eyes Blue,” one of those sweet, classy cocktail-lounge ballads that years of
overplay have kind of turned into sonic wallpaper even though there’s really
nothing wrong with it. Conway Twitty’s “I’ve Already Loved You In My Mind” was
about as on-brand as it gets, a barroom come-on that manages to sidestep
seediness by having a friendly, upbeat melody and using the word “love” instead
of a possibly-more-relevant substitute. Kenny Rogers departed from the timeless
simplicity of his “Lucille” breakthrough for the more layered dynamics of
“Daytime Friends,” a third-party narrative about some guy sleeping with his
best friend’s wife that also has a friendly, upbeat melody and plenty of
euphemisms but somehow does not sidestep seediness (and hasn’t aged all that
well).
Next
up was a full-month run at #1 for “Heaven’s Just A Sin Away,” the first big hit
for The Kendalls, an act mostly forgotten by time that had sort of a loose bell
curve of success from 1970 to around the mid-‘80s. Royce and Jeannie were a
father-daughter sort-of-duo, although Royce usually hung back and just sung
harmonies and led the band, minimizing the weirdness of a family band dabbling
hard in cheatin’ songs and romantic balladry. This one in particular’s pretty
great, blending a romantic quandary with a twangy melodic bounce that’s hard to
resist. Don Williams eventually swung back in with one of his melancholy best,
the simple but affecting “I’m Just A Country Boy.” Some of us used to use this
song to sing our kids to sleep so maybe we like it even better than the average
country music fan.
Charley
Pride 17th #1 hit – not quite consecutive, although it was rare for
him to not at least crack the top five – was “More To Me,” a brisker-than-usual
but devoted-as-usual addition to a deep catalog of hits (he’d have ten more #1s
before an eventual mid-‘80s dropoff). It’s too late to ask him personally, but
I’m still curious if Pride’s strong preference for gentlemanly love songs and
the occasional heartache ballad – as opposed to the tough-guy narratives of
Haggard and Cash or the incessant come-ons of Conway Twitty – might have been
influenced by a desire to seem non-threatening to an audience partially populated
by folks who’d see his color itself as a threat. Waylon Jennings didn’t have to
worry about that sort of thing – honestly, I don’t think worry was an
overriding influence in his life – but he was still willing to play it sweet
and vulnerable with something like “The Wurlitzer Prize (I Don’t Want to Get
Over You).” To his credit, although he was riding high on the whole “Outlaw”
movement in 1977, he didn’t feel obligated to make every damn song highlight
it.
Dolly
Parton had briefly lost that spark of momentum after her 1974 breakthrough, but
as you may already know was not bound for the literal bargain store anytime
soon. The Porter Wagoner partnership was wrapping up, some creative adjustments
were being made, there was probably some wig shopping or something, and then
she came roaring back at the tail end of ’77 with the soaring country-pop charm
of “Here You Come Again.” She’d already proven she could practically do the
rustic country-folk thing in her sleep. Elements of modern pop (or, more often,
five-years-ago pop) were seeping into the country charts left and right. Parton
surely realized there was just a little too much potential crossover stardom on
the table to not cast a wider net with her own material; she could (and did)
come back time and time again to traditional country, and she obviously never
lost that distinctive twang, but it was high time to transcend. Other country
stalwarts dabbled in pop and came off looking like hacks. Dolly came off
looking like a superstar.
THE
TREND?
Purists
have griped about threats to country music’s authenticity from the get-go, but
1977 might’ve given them more to work with than any year prior. Having Elvis
and somehow Tom Jones in the mix with genre-blurring opportunists like Kenny
Rogers, Glen Campbell, Ronnie Milsap, and even the esteemed Dolly Parton
might’ve seemed less like breezy hits and more like ominous threats if you were
concerned about your notion of traditional country music losing ground to
something cooked up between LA and Vegas. The dearly and newly departed King
had changed the world by tweaking R&B and blues for white audiences. Maybe
the new, more-modest, less-interesting goal was to repackage modern
adult-contempo pop for middle America. Willie and Waylon might’ve looked and
acted a little more like rock stars than some elements of the fanbase were
comfortable with, but it probably wasn’t lost on the audience that somehow they
sounded the most country of all.
THE RANKING
- Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love) (Waylon Jennings)
- I’m Just A Country Boy (Don Williams)
- Some Broken Hearts Never Mend (Don Williams)
- The Wurlitzer Prize (I Don’t Want to Get Over You) (Waylon Jennings)
- Here You Come Again (Dolly Parton)
- Broken Down In Tiny Pieces (Billy “Crash” Craddock)
- You Never Miss A Real Good Thing (Till He Says Goodbye) (Crystal Gayle)
- Rollin’ With the Flow (Charlie Rich)
- Near You (George Jones & Tammy Wynette)
- I’ve Already Loved You In My Mind (Conway Twitty)
- She’s Just An Old Love Turned Memory (Charley Pride)
- I Can’t Believe She Gives It All to Me (Conway Twitty)
- Heart Healer (Mel Tillis)
- Heaven’s Just A Sin Away (The Kendalls)
- Lucille (Kenny Rogers)
- Southern Nights (Glen Campbell)
- Way Down/Pledging My Love (Elvis Presley)
- More to Me (Charley Pride)
- It Was Almost Like A Song (Ronnie Milsap)
- Play Guitar Play (Conway Twitty)
- It Couldn’t Have Been Any Better (Johnny Duncan)
- Moody Blue/She Thinks I Still Care (Elvis Presley)
- Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue (Crystal Gayle)
- I’ll Be Leaving Alone (Charley Pride)
- She’s Got You (Loretta Lynn)
- That Was Yesterday (Donna Fargo)
- Daytime Friends (Kenny Rogers)
- She’s Pulling Me Back Again (Mickey Gilley)
- Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow (Tom Jones)
- Let My Love Be Your Pillow (Ronnie Milsap)
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