1980 - urban cowboys & dukes of hazzard

The dawn of a decade. That cosmic window where we toss out the detritus of the last ten years and gaze towards the horizon at a bright new sun. Or just keep on keepin’ on because the last few years went pretty well. Country singers were popping up in hit movies, rubbing elbows with Burt Reynolds, hanging out at the White House with Georgia native Jimmy Carter. Folks like Willie and Waylon earned it a dose of critical respect, Dolly Parton was about as big and beloved as a star gets, talents like Ronnie Milsap and Barbara Mandrell who probably could’ve been pop stars were choosing to plow the fertile ground of the country charts. Those slicks in NYC and LA and London and wherever else could trip over their skinny ties trying to beat each other to the next hot trend: Nashville had identified a huge slice of Middle America that just wanted catchy, relatable tunes that appealed to adults with conservative (not necessarily politically, although there was certainly overlap) tastes and lifestyles. 

So staying the course made sense. It’d be late spring before someone who hadn’t had a #1 before scored one, and late summer before it’d be anyone who signaled anything resembling a new direction. Kenny Rogers was first out of the gate with “Coward of the County,” scoring a three-week run at the top. It’s easy to see how “The Gambler” being such a smash inspired him to tackle another Western narrative with a memorable chorus, and obviously it worked at the time, but for my money “Coward” is one of the most butt-awful songs of that or any era. Rogers is a good singer of course, and the production’s not as chintzy as it could’ve been, but geez, this story …  spoilers ahead. Kid in a generic western town is considered cowardly but really just behaves himself because his outlaw father’s dying request was that he not engage in tough-guy bullshit because it leads to prison. He has a girlfriend that loves him though. Then one day while he’s at work three actual outlaw brothers (called The Gatlin Boys, which is odd considering that some real Gatlin brothers were among Kenny’s chart rivals) come by and rape his girlfriend (“they took turns at Becky/and there was three of them”). He comes home to the immediate aftermath and, spurred by his girl’s visible trauma but also by looking at his daddy’s picture from the mantle, beats the three presumably full-grown outlaws to death despite having studiously avoided actual fights for his entire life. One last punch dedicated to Becky’s trauma, then a whole slightly-tweaked chorus dedicated to the memory of his father. What – and I cannot stress this enough – the hell.

But at least they got it out of the way early, with TG Sheppard taking over for a couple of weeks with “I’ll Be Coming Back for More,” a leerily upbeat cheating anthem with all the subtlety of a horny wolf in a Tex Avery cartoon. Things got way better with the Oak Ridge Boys landing a brilliant Rodney Crowell-penned tune “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight” that kicked up a nicely swampy atmosphere to frame a poetic tale of backwater Cajun drama that, unlike the likes of “Coward,” left some room for poetic mystery. “Love Me Over Again,” by stalwart-by-now Don Williams, wasn’t as striking but it continued the warm, dignified streak that made him a legend. Barbara Mandrell ditched her usual cheesy foxiness to show more vocal prowess and tenderness with the slow-burning “Years” before ceding to another Rodney Crowell composition, this time Waylon Jennings with the hard-driving badassery of “I Ain’t Living Long Like This.” I know we don’t always make a big deal about the songwriters here (we’re wordy enough as it is) but Crowell’s a personal favorite, would eventually have some #1 spotlight himself, and was sort of a mini-Kristofferson in the sense of bringing some literary ambition to a scene that didn’t always prioritize it. He’d eventually be spotlighted as a singer as well, building up enough of an audience to veer off into more auteurish, highly-personal territory as a singer-songwriter.

Up next was Willie Nelson with the dusty majesty of “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.” Speaking of songwriters, google Sharon Vaughn sometime, she’s got a knack for bringing poetic subtlety to country hits, and Willie of course is as simpatico to that sort of thing as anyone could ever hope for. Bob McDill has an even deeper catalog, with Ronnie Milsap’s take on his “Why Don’t You Spend the Night” standing out as one of his more intricate works. Conway Twitty scored his lone #1 of the year with “I’d Love to Lay You Down,” an absolute gem that tempered his usual signature come-ons with odes to marital gratitude and actually looking forward to getting old together. It’s a love song for all of us who’ve already been this far before, bump-bum-bum.

The Bellamy Brothers breezed back in with “Sugar Daddy,” which like their previous #1 sounds a bit skeevy on the surface but is pretty charming and affectionate if you give it a chance.  They weren’t vocal heavyweights or anything, but David Bellamy was a gifted songwriter who knew a hook when he wrote one.  Meanwhile, Charley Pride recorded a whole album of Hank Williams covers called There’s A Little Bit of Hank In Me, which resulted in hits like “Honky Tonk Blues” as well as rumors that Pride might be the illegitimate son of the country legend.  Never mind that Hank was only 11 years old when Pride was born … people couldn’t Google that back then, and two decades into his career, folks were still trying to wrap their head around why a black man would want to be a country music star.  

It was a good year for female artists … I don’t know if there are itemized stats for this sort of thing, but four distinct female artists in a row shot to the top in mid-spring and that seems rare.  The consistently elegant Crystal Gayle with the melodic sweep of “It’s Like We Never Said Goodbye.”  The appealingly gritty Dottie West with the spare, salty “A Lesson in Leavin’.”  Easy-listening crossover Debby Boone with her first country #1, the gently catchy “Are You On the Road to Lovin’ Me Again.”  And then the divinely rustic Emmylou Harris with the slow-burning twang of “Beneath Still Waters.”  The Harris and West entries hold up best, but in a modern era where female artists are relatively marginalized on country radio, it all sounds like a pretty nice run.  Keep in mind that this is the same Debby Boone who’d won Grammys and scored a pop #1 with “You Light Up My Life” three years prior; she was the first “new” name to score a #1 country hit in 1980, still plenty youthful but not so much new as repurposed.  There’d be plenty more female #1s as the year went on.

Eddie Rabbitt scored one for the dudes, albeit with the lightweight “Gone Too Far.”  By all accounts a good guy, and a lifelong fan of country music despite his New Jersey upbringing, Rabbitt nonetheless seemed almost engineered to make slick, breezy pop  for people who’d probably really dig Hall & Oates-type stuff but didn’t want to venture outside the country aisle at the record store.  Dolly Parton had no shame about co-opting other genres herself – divorcee character study “Starting Over Again” sounds more Broadway than Nashville – but even on a lyrical clunker like this one, she had that unmistakable twang and personality to her voice that made anything sound recognizably country.  The still-on-a-helluva-roll Ronnie Milsap was more Rabbitt than Parton, splitting the difference on a single where both sides got some play: “My Heart” was an upbeat-but-mournful earworm that leaned pop, while “Silent Night (After the Fight)” was low on twang but high on the distinctly heartbroken wordplay you’d want out of a traditional country song. 

Next up was another first-timer: Cristy Lane.  If you’ve thought about her at all in the last 40 years, you’ve probably got her pigeonholed as a gospel artist, between her big hit being the Jesus-friendly waltz “One Day at a Time” and the gospel-album packages she hawked on TV in the 80s.  But really she’d been trying to forge a country music career for almost two decades by 1980, spurred along by a shady-sounding husband who badgered record labels on her behalf and booked her on near-fatal tours of war-era Vietnam entertaining GIs.  She’d cracked the country Top 10 a few times in the late ‘70s, but “One Day at a Time” managed to elbow its way to the top amidst the various cheatin’-and-drinkin’ songs country music had come to be known for.  Given that most of the country demographic, then as now, is at least nominally Christian it’s surprising this doesn’t come up more often; this was also the heyday of gospel-rooted groups like the Oak Ridge Boys and Statler Brothers, but even they were shifting gears to secular tunes for mainstream country success.  Lane finally grabbed the brass ring with an explicitly religious tune, sort of like Ferlin Husky or Kris Kristofferson in past decades.  But then her next single was something called “Sweet Sexy Eyes” and perhaps that spooked the devout; she tumbled down the charts, taking a couple of years to realize that perhaps contemporary Christian music was her row to hoe going forward.  Meanwhile, the just-mentioned Oak Ridge Boys lent their gospel-trained harmonies to the excellent “Tryin’ to Love Two Women,” which was secular enough to point out that really, the problematic part of infidelity is the logistics.

George Jones was up next with “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” and that kind of blows my mind.  Frequently atop any attempted list of the greatest country songs ever, a career landmark and signature song for one of country’s greatest legends … how is it possible that this song came out in 1980?  This is like finding out that the first Godfather movie actually came out in 1992 or that Babe Ruth’s baseball heyday was in the mid-‘60s or some other time-bending paradigm shifter.  It’s also crazy to think it was Jones’ first #1 in six years and only spent one week at #1, although it had enough staying power that (at least according to Billboard) it was the third-biggest country song of the year. I don’t know what else I could say about this towering masterpiece of love and loss and big Billy Sherrill production flourishes that hasn’t already been said; it just seems like something eternal instead of something specific to 1980, but there it is.

And then you had another single from Charley Pride’s Hank-covers project – “You Win Again,” a heartsick masterpiece that’s always good for another go-round – followed by Mickey Gilley with a florid, unnecessary cover of Buddy Holly’s “True Love Ways.”  Speaking of inessential, Clint Eastwood took the next logical step from having country stars in his stunt-caper movies and just pulled up a mic next to Merle Haggard himself and sort-of-sang the duet “Bar Room Buddies.”  If you’re a revered-enough star, sometimes just having your name on it is enough I guess.  It’s engaging but nothing worth quitting the day job over.  For that matter, neither is “Dancin’ Cowboys” by the Bellamy Brothers, which is catchy enough but just doesn’t have much meat on the bones, the vocals so quiet in the mix it’s like someone just caught them half-heartedly whisper-singing in the truck.  At least they weren’t trying to cover an unimpeachable classic like Mickey Gilley with his overcooked, staid take on Ben E. King’s soul classic “Stand By Me,” which was like Muzak if they added vocals.  Gilley was a good singer and a very prominent figure in the era’s country music, but he just didn’t know when to leave a great song alone.  Surely he’d befriended some songwriters along the way that could’ve helped him cultivate his own style instead of spending so much time on covers that suffered by comparison.  Then again … he’s the one with the number one hits, not me.

So yeah, that’s a five-song stretch of covers and novelties, as if “He Stopped Loving Her Today” just made everyone give the hell up.  But then it was time for a first-timer that actually was something of a game-changer.  The band Alabama doesn’t get a ton of critical respect, but they had a youthful spark to them, a chick-magnet lead singer named Randy Owen, and a live show where the energy level and imagery was more akin to Southern rock.  “Tennessee River” might not be a great song, but it was a great record, with big hooks and cool dynamics and downhome shout-outs and a big fiddle-driven jam at the end in case you were worried that these kids were a bunch of pop-rock interlopers.  Without necessarily turning off the middle-aged crowd, it managed to sound like it was reaching out to the younger folks too, at a time when most other artists didn’t bother.  They’d reap some serious rewards off of this.

Eddie Rabbitt broke out of his own doldrums with the rollicking “Drivin’ My Life Away,” an upbeat country-rocker with rapid-fire lyrics that kept the “Tennessee River” party going with those midnight headlights that blind ya on a rainy night etc.  Ronnie Milsap couldn’t be bothered to rock out though; fortunately his clunky tortured-comparison single “Cowboys and Clowns” was backed by a much more palatable tune, a relatively swinging cover of the old Jerry Reed-penned Porter Wagoner hit “Misery Loves Company.”  Probably a lot of folks heard these songs on the car radio en route to the picture show to see Urban Cowboy.

Urban Cowboy was a big mainstream hit, starring John Travolta on his first run of fame on the heels of Saturday Night Fever and Grease, and for a while there it did for country music what the other flicks did for disco and ‘50s nostalgia: took an existing entity and spread/rekindled interest in it to a wider audience.  In retrospect it’s cool that Travolta didn’t try to sing the soundtrack himself – he could carry a tune, of course – and nobody would probably agree more with that than Johnny Lee.  He’d labored in the shadow of his old pal Mickey Gilley for years, singing in bar bands and a regular gig at Gilley’s historic Pasadena, TX nightclub, which of course featured prominently in Urban Cowboy.  Lee was picked to sing the movie’s big tie-in single “Lookin’ For Love,” and it was an absolute smash, riding atop the country charts for three weeks and getting up to #5 on the pop chart.  It wasn’t exactly hardcore country, but Lee’s assured-but-vulnerable baritone loaned it some authenticity.  The whole movie soundtrack sold 3 million copies, hedging its bets a little with non-country ringers like The Eagles, Bob Seger, and Bonnie Raitt; lots of industry heavyweights got a piece of the Urban Cowboy action, but even more than Mickey Gilley, Johnny Lee’s the guy who seemingly got a whole career out of it.

Dolly Parton would have her own hit movie (and tie-in song) soon enough but for now she had to settle for the breathtakingly beautiful “Old Flames Can’t Hold a Candle to You,” a sweetly longing waltz that’s one of her finest moments on record.  TG Sheppard was less transcendent on “Do You Wanna Go to Heaven,” a little number about how getting baptized is a lot like hooking up with some chick on the road.  Razzy Bailey, another example of a middle-aged dude who’d knocked around the fringes of the industry patiently enough to finally get his shot, started up his largely-now-forgotten hot streak with the country-soul hybrid “Loving Up a Storm.”  Next up was Don Williams, around the same age but already a chart regular, with the sweetly clever and wordier-than-usual “I Believe In You.”  Despite the influx of Urban Cowboy-inspired attention, things were kind of business-as-usual.

Hollywood was still calling, though.  The Dukes of Hazzard was becoming a big hit on TV, two cornfed boys and their hot female cousin dodging cops in a Confederate-themed Dodge Charger that kept making suspiciously similar-looking stunt jumps mid-chase.  I’m going to assume Waylon Jennings was as amused by this as most of the rest of the country, because he didn’t have a long history of doing things he didn’t want to do.  He was a big enough star to comfortably say no to singing the theme song “Just a Good Ol’ Boy,” much less appearing (at least vocally) in every episode as the narrator, but Ol’ Waylon was along for the ride.  I don’t really know how to rate or rank a TV theme song that doesn’t mean much outside the context of the show, but it was way better than “Coward of the County” at least.  And like a cold beer chasing a quick bourbon shot, Willie Nelson was up next with “On the Road Again,” a song with about ten words and a simple melody that still manages to make you smile every single time you hear it.

The Urban Cowboy soundtrack reared its head again with Anne Murray’s sweet, easygoing “Could I Have This Dance.”  Kenny Rogers had been on that soundtrack too, with the pretty-swell “Love the World Away,” but instead the next #1 went to his weirdly stiff, off-putting take on Lionel Richie’s “Lady.”   Rogers and Richie worked together pretty frequently for awhile, but (at least to these ears) whatever chemistry they might’ve found as buddies didn’t translate well on record.  “If You Ever Change Your Mind” by Crystal Gayle was another swoony, sophisticated, kinda-sleepy ballad that you’d think folks would’ve been getting tired of by then.  Ronnie Milsap’s “Smoky Mountain Rain” was a big-production ballad too, but it had some narrative drive and tasteful dynamics to elevate it (plus Milsap’s usual hyper-invested vocal).

Those upstart kids in Alabama (who would’ve been a great fit on the Urban Cowboy soundtrack) scored #1 again, this time with a spacious, harmony-rich slow-burner “Why Lady Why,” showing their range went well beyond hoedown-rock.  And not to beat a dead mechanical bull, but Urban Cowboy’s lingering echoes closed out the year with Mickey Gilley’s sleepy slow-dancer “That’s All That Matters” and Johnny Lee’s upbeat romance “One in a Million” squeezing in amidst the Christmas songs as country radio’s first year of the ‘80s took a bow.  

THE TREND?

The possibly-overemphasized Urban Cowboy craze didn’t hit the collective consciousness until September, but for the most part it reflected an existing direction, bringing expanded attention to it but not really transforming it.  The common lament among critics, purists, old-schoolers etc. is that it watered down country music for a mass audience, as if it was retroactively to blame for Kenny Rogers, Anne Murray, Eddie Rabbitt etc.  A more optimistic tack would just be to enjoy some of those country-pop nuggets for what they were and hold out for a comeback miracle like George Jones and “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” putting himself squarely back in the mix with folks like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton who were doing some of the best work of their careers, either bucking the trends or transcending them from the inside.  Straightening the curves, flattening the hills, and looking for love in all the right places.  

THE RANKING

1. He Stopped Loving Her Today (George Jones)
2. Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight (The Oak Ridge Boys)
3. My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (Willie Nelson)
4. I Ain’t Livin’ Long Like This (Waylon Jennings)
5. Old Flames Can’t Hold a Candle to You (Dolly Parton)
6. A Lesson in Leavin’ (Dottie West)
7. Drivin’ My Life Away (Eddie Rabbitt)
8. Tennessee River (Alabama)
9. Beneath Still Waters (Emmylou Harris)
10. Lookin’ For Love (Johnny Lee)
11. I Believe In You (Don Williams)
12. One in a Million (Johnny Lee)
13. Sugar Daddy (The Bellamy Brothers)
14. I’d Love to Lay You Down (Conway Twitty)
15. Trying to Love Two Women (The Oak Ridge Boys)
16. On the Road Again (Willie Nelson)
17. Smoky Mountain Rain (Ronnie Milsap)
18. Love Me Over Again (Don Williams)
19. Why Lady Why (Alabama)
20. You Win Again (Charley Pride)
21. My Heart (Ronnie Milsap)
22. Honky Tonk Blues (Charley Pride)
23. Theme From Dukes of Hazzard (Good Ol’ Boys) (Waylon Jennings)
24. Why Don’t You Spend the Night (Ronnie Milsap)
25. Could I Have This Dance (Anne Murray)
26. If You Ever Change Your Mind (Crystal Gayle)
27. Dancin’ Cowboys (The Bellamy Brothers)
28. One Day at a Time (Cristy Lane)
29. It’s Like We Never Said Goodbye (Crystal Gayle)
30. Bar Room Buddies (Merle Haggard & Clint Eastwood)
31. That’s All That Matters (Mickey Gilley)
32. Do You Wanna Go to Heaven (TG Sheppard)
33. Years (Barbara Mandrell)
34. Gone Too Far (Eddie Rabbitt)
35. Starting Over Again (Dolly Parton)
36. True Love Ways (Mickey Gilley)
37. Loving Up a Storm (Razzy Bailey)
38. Cowboys and Clowns/Misery Loves Company (Ronnie Milsap)
39. Are You On the Road to Lovin’ Me Again (Debby Boone)
40. Stand By Me (Mickey Gilley)
41. Lady (Kenny Rogers)
42. Coward of the County (Kenny Rogers)
43. I’ll Be Coming Back for More (TG Sheppard)

DOWN THE ROAD ...

There's nothing wrong with the Oak Ridge Boys' hit take on Rodney Crowell's "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight," and kudos to them for their good taste in recording it. But perhaps it's an even better fit for the seedier, steamier, grittier sounds of a stripped-down rock outfit like Shovels & Rope, the husband-and-wife duo that's always had a special ear for uniquely Southern tales of love and mayhem. On their Busted Jukebox record series, they've looked outside their own considerable songwriting talents to rock unconventional covers of everything from Leonard Cohen to the Clash to Guns n' Roses, often with some gifted semi-famous friends in tow. But looks like they saved the Crowell classic for themselves.

1979 - Eastwood smiles and Robert Redford hair ...

I don’t know why we stubbornly hang on to the idea of the beginning and ending of a decade as being some sort of cultural turnstile, as if it’s always just that simple.  But maybe it’s easier with pop culture than it is with some other things; after all, it’s made by artists and marshalled by powers-that-be in a constant back-and-forth with hopefully-receptive audiences.  All three of those entities are all too human and prone to getting swept up in the cultural expectation to knock off some played-out shit and move on to something new.  Take disco out behind the barn and shoot it, bring a nice new-wave puppy home for the kids.  Stuff like that.

But the country music business likes its change incremental at best.  The Urban Cowboy craze wouldn’t kick in until the next year; country radio was still acting like the youth audience might be a lost cause so it was time to circle the wagons and keep the aging audience on board.  Keep some of their old favorites in the mix, keep the relatable-slice-of-life tunes coming, hold your nose and grind out some close-enough versions of pop and easy listening to keep them from drifting elsewhere on the dial.  It all more or less worked, a holding pattern until an unexpected windfall of oddly John Travolta-driven attention came their way. Tune-for-tune it was one of the less-iconic years in country music history, but there were gems to be had.

“Tulsa Time” by Don Williams was a solid start and thematically appropriate for a genre wanting to circle its wagons, a stubborn bluesy chug about ditching LA flash for Middle America authenticity. And they didn’t get much more Middle American authentic than guys like Williams and John Conlee, who scored his first #1 with only his second single, the poignantly humble “Lady Lay Down.”  It wasn’t quite as good as his breakthrough single “Rose Colored Glasses” but it’s warm and relatable. Conlee was in his early 30s in 1979 but looked about a decade older (to be fair, he’s still healthy and touring as of this writing) and was kind of emblematic of an era when the “hot new star” may well give off one hell of a middle-aged vibe in their persona and material. Nashville didn’t need another mercurial Elvis; a dependable Kenny Rogers type would do nicely, right?

They weren’t allergic to glamour, necessarily; Dolly Parton scored again with the brassy, sexy “Baby I’m Burnin’,” which had no shortage of shiny pop production and could’ve been a disco hit with just a couple of tweaks. Crystal Gayle’s glamour was a little more subtle (whose wouldn’t be?) but undeniable, and her brisk and catchy “Why Have You Left the One You Left Me For” had just the right balance of sass and sophistication. Eddie Rabbitt wasn’t overly glamorous but “Every Which Way But Loose,” the theme song of the Clint Eastwood/orangutan comedy of the same name, was pretty glitzy by association. The whole Urban Cowboy thing was still around the corner, but the trend of manly-man movie stars like Eastwood and Burt Reynolds bringing in country music stars to burnish the downhome appeal of their stunt-heavy action comedies with cameos and soundtracks was in full swing. The Rabbitt song was forgettable easy-listening filler but it couldn’t help but benefit from the association.

Dave & Sugar scored their mercifully-final #1 with “Golden Tears,” which hung in their for three weeks somehow. In the 1978 rundown I pointed out the proliferation of what amounted to cocktail-lounge filler, sort of a bad countrypolitan hangover. 1979 suffered from an influx of lounge music’s brassier, more shameless cousin: variety-show country (henceforth known as VSC because it’s gonna come up a lot). Big, simple melodies with annoyingly bright production and cheesy vocals where you could almost hear the plastered-on smiles in the performance. On a not-unrelated note, Anne Murray started breaking through in a big way, a Canadian easy-listening crossover largely devoid of edge or twang.  To be fair, “I Just Fall in Love Again” is pretty subtle and lovely, possibly her best hit.  It just feels like it’s on the wrong chart.       

Barbara Mandrell was inescapably VSC; she and her sisters would eventually headline one of the last prominent primetime variety shows hosted by a country star. A gorgeous blonde with a wholesome-cheerleader vibe about her, “(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want to Be Right” was sort of scandalous by her standards, a sultry-sounding ode to infidelity from the POV of the mistress.  Perhaps the cheesy insincerity of the whole thing kept it from messing with her image. Kenny Rogers and Dottie West, who’d found something transcendent on their last hit, cheesed it up pretty hard themselves on “All I Ever Need is You.”  It sounds like they’re auditioning for their own shitty late-70s romantic sitcom, in all its catchy emptiness.

Things got earthier for a bit. The plainspoken hurt of Charley Pride’s “Where Do I Put Her Memory” wasn’t his finest hour, but at least it sounded sincere and relatable. John Conlee’s “Backside of Thirty” was more memorable and more specific in its misery, and nowadays seems like a time capsule from a day when one’s early 30s qualified as middle age. Conway Twitty, another dude that seemed like he was pretty much born middle-aged, came roaring back in with the soul-tinged “Don’t Take it Away.” It had a whiff of VSC about it, but Twitty had a knack for transcending the encroaching chintziness of ‘70s record production.

I’m sure not everyone would agree, but the Bellamy Brothers first #1 “If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold it Against Me” kind of transcended the whole VSC thing too despite being part and parcel of the trend. For one, even if that double entendre in the title’s been quoted to death by now, I bet it sounded pretty clever to fresh ears (or was it already an old joke by then? I’m admittedly not sure). The vibe feels then-modern but not overdone; the Bellamys were good at co-opting that beachy Jimmy Buffett vibe without overdoing the gimmick. The verses surrounding the hook all sound witty enough instead of a bunch of leering b.s. like you get with some come-on songs. To these ears it’s proof that there’s a right way to do even the most derided of genres.  Similarly, Kenny Rogers “She Believes In Me” was a sweetly soulful piece of folk-tinged easy listening, elevated by his performance. “Nobody Likes Sad Songs” by Ronnie Milsap mined a similar vein, with brighter production but tangible hurt in the performance. It was one of his better tunes of an era he continued to dominate, and at least country-ish in sentiment.

Waylon Jennings, meanwhile, remained stoically cheese-averse. “Amanda” was a simple waltz on its face, but the lines of humility and devotion spoke to the better angels of timeless country songwriting (thank you Bob McDill!) and soared on the wings of Jennings’ hearty baritone. Maybe his (and Willie’s and the rests’) outlaw schtick seemed larger-than-life to some, but on songs like this he was just as gut-level relatable as blue-collar bards like John Conlee and Don Williams (who, come to think of it, also had a hit with this song). It held the top spot for three weeks before VSC took back over with Anne Murray’s forgettable “Shadows In the Moonlight,” and then Dolly Parton split the difference with big-production easy listening but no lack of soulful, twangy melodrama on the sweeping “You’re the Only One.”

Eddie Rabbitt’s “Suspicions” was both VSC and sort of an Elvis throwback at a time when Presley was still a very recent presence on the country charts; underpinned by a nice groove and some vocal dynamics, it’s not half bad, although there’s not a ton of personality to it. “Coca Cola Cowboy” by Mel Tillis was a nicely memorable honky-tonk shuffle from an industry lifer, with shoutouts to Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford in the chorus reflecting the Nashville-Hollywood interplay that was going strong and about to blow up bigger. 

Speaking of cinematic … The Charlie Daniels Band’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” created a wild little world of its own when it hit the air.  It’s been overplayed, sequeled, parodied, quoted to death etc. down through the years so much that it’s hard to imagine hearing it through fresh ears, but it was something fresh indeed.  Daniels was certainly a country boy but not necessarily a country artist; he’d done session work on Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen records, and he and his band were more in league with Southern rockers like the Marshall Tucker Band and The Allman Brothers than the usual country chart suspects.  But he caught lightning in a bottle with “Devil,” a multi-movement jam built around the narrative of a brash country boy challenged by Satan himself to a fiddling contest.  To country radio listeners who’d never heard prog-rockers like Yes or Jethro Tull (and probably didn’t particularly care to) it was a mindblowing jam made approachable by Daniels’ shitkicker prose and the red-hot fiddlin’ at the heart of the whole thing.  Daniels wouldn’t get particularly close to #1 again but he didn’t need to.  The number one he did get cast enough of a shadow to keep him productively on the road for decades. 

Next up was another cross-genre interloper, funky rock star Leon Russell sitting in on an upbeat cover of “Heartbreak Hotel” with his old pal Willie Nelson for an inessential good time.  Conway Twitty (who, let’s not forget, started out as an aspiring early-days rocker) took another ride to #1 with the stately, soulful “I May Never Get to Heaven” followed by his old pal/friendly rival Charley Pride with the VSC jam “You’re My Jamaica.”  Between this one and all those vaguely calypso-sounding Bellamy Brothers songs that were starting to gain favor … keep in mind Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville” had been a semi-hit on country radio back in 1977, and solidified his direction as a tropical troubadour.  Perhaps there was a mini-tropical trend in action; next up were perennial country music B-teamers Moe Bandy and Joe Stampley with “Just Good Ol’ Boys,” that didn’t have tropical sounds or themes but did sport the same kind of irreverent good-time humor that Buffett often trafficked in.  Don Williams scored next with “It Must Be Love,” which had some vaguely island-y bounce in the production, although I’m not sure I’d make that connection if I wasn’t trying to retroactively force a movement here.    

TG Sheppard continued to enjoy a roll, crooning through the understated heartache of “Last Cheater’s Waltz,” a nice counterpoint to the strutting lover-man stuff that was his heyday default.  Larry Gatlin & The Gatlin Brothers, another very-much-of-their-era act, swung in with their signature song “All the Gold in California,” one of the most heavily played hits of the time.  I remember the Houston-area radio station of my childhood had an ad where at least one customer specifically said that she switched over to them because their rival station played it way too much.  How’s that for cultural impact?  The great harmonies on the track probably reminded folks of the still-beloved Eagles, but like the average Eagles song it strived for some sort of thematic grandeur while feeling a bit empty.  Tryin’ to be a hero … windin’ up a zero … stuff like that.

To compare and contrast some superstar balladeering: Kenny Rogers “You Decorated My Life” and Waylon Jennings’ “Come With Me” scored back-to-back two-week runs at #1 in November 1979.  They’re both pretty good.  Rogers was in his usual wheelhouse and he squeezed every bit of sentiment out of the greeting-card poetry of the assignment, egged on by MOR strings as the whole thing swirled to a climax.  Jennings sounded pleasantly off-kilter crooning over a warm, stately piano figure instead of his usual half-time beat and Telecaster twang.  His voice just gets warmer and more emotional as it goes, perhaps spurred on by the subtle thrill of trying something outside his comfort zone.  I can’t remember ever not knowing that Kenny Rogers song, even though I’m not a big fan; I am a pretty big Waylon fan, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard “Come With Me” outside of this self-imposed writing assignment.  Funny how legacies often don’t just leave out the unsuccessful stuff, they also sometimes leave out the successful stuff that doesn’t fit the narrative.

Her 1979 banner year is central to the Anne Murray legacy I guess, and “Broken Hearted Me” is a pretty nice slice as far as white bread goes, smooth and pillowy but not without an emotional center to it.  “I Cheated Me Right Out of You” by Moe Bandy sounds downright roadhouse by comparison; it’s pretty standard-issue honky-tonk, but at the time that had the potential to stand out amidst all the VSC and easy-listening crossovers and flowery balladry. Bandy might not have been an “outlaw,” so to speak, but he stuck to his guns nonetheless.  Wrapping up the year was no less a chart warhorse than the far-from-done Conway Twitty: “Happy Birthday Darlin’” is kind of an interesting one, with Barry White-ish spoken-word declarations on the verses and a big chorus hook about how he didn’t get you any presents or cake but he’s going to stop doing things that make you feel unappreciated. It held down #1 for three weeks in December, so it probably resonated big with all the December babies out there who didn’t get shit for their birthday because everybody was distracted by Christmas.

THE TREND?

In more recent years, as country has been irretrievably influenced by everything from several decades of mainstream pop to arena rock and even hip-hop, some pundits have questioned if “country” is just a marketing niche at this point as opposed to an identifiable style of music. Seems pretty obvious this was already the case back in 1979 (and probably well before that), when the rundown of #1s seems to suggest that just about any style that might appeal to Middle America-type Caucasian adults could be marketed as “country” and have a shot at the gold. Easy listening, VCS, Southern rock, movie soundtracks, sort-of-tropical stuff, actual traditional country music … Nashville gambled that the average listener would like most or all of that, and sort of won. What the country mainstream lacked in youth appeal was offset by a growing cache in Hollywood that’d become an even bigger deal as the ‘80s dawned.  

THE RANKING

1. Amanda (Waylon Jennings)
2. The Devil Went Down to Georgia (The Charlie Daniels Band)
3. Tulsa Time (Don Williams)
4. Lady Lay Down (John Conlee)
5. You’re the Only One (Dolly Parton)
6. Baby I’m Burnin’ (Dolly Parton)
7. If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold it Against Me (The Bellamy Brothers)
8. I Just Fall in Love Again (Anne Murray)
9. Backside of Thirty (John Conlee)
10. She Believes in Me (Kenny Rogers)
11. I May Never Get to Heaven (Conway Twitty)
12. Don’t Take it Away (Conway Twitty)
13. Coca Cola Cowboy (Mel Tillis)
14. Last Cheater’s Waltz (TG Sheppard)
15. It Must Be Love (Don Williams)
16. Come With Me (Waylon Jennings)
17. Happy Birthday Darlin’ (Conway Twitty)
18. Suspicions (Eddie Rabbitt)
19. Nobody Likes Sad Songs (Ronnie Milsap)
20. You’re My Jamaica (Charley Pride)
21. All I Ever Need is You (Kenny Rogers & Dottie West)
22. Why Have You Left the One You Left Me For (Crystal Gayle)
23. Just Good Ol’ Boys (Moe Bandy & Joe Stampley)
24. All the Gold in California (Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers)
25. Heartbreak Hotel (Willie Nelson & Leon Russell)
26. Broken Hearted Me (Anne Murray)
27. I Cheated Me Right Out of You (Moe Bandy)
28. You Decorated My Life (Kenny Rogers)
29. Shadows in the Moonlight (Anne Murray)
30. Where Do I Put Her Memory (Charley Pride)
31. Every Which Way But Loose (Eddie Rabbitt)
32. If Lovin’ You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want to Be Right) (Barbara Mandrell)
33. Golden Tears (Dave & Sugar)

DOWN THE ROAD ...

You'd better believe that barely-twentysomething Alan Jackson was listening to country radio back in 1979, at least when he wasn't catching up on even older country music. He was the most natural dude in the world to put out a classic-covers album called Under the Influence a couple decades later, and there wasn't a bum track in the nicely-curated bunch. The cover of Don Williams' "It Must Be Love" was one of the few actual former #1 hits he tackled, meaning when his version hit #1 it was one of the vanishingly few tunes to snag the top spot for two different artists over two decades apart. Much like Williams, Jackson was never short on laconic charm and effortless warmth; his version gives it a little extra dance-floor kick but never smothers its affectionate charm.