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).
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
- He Stopped Loving Her Today (George Jones)
- Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight (The Oak Ridge Boys)
- My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (Willie Nelson)
- I Ain’t Livin’ Long Like This (Waylon Jennings)
- Old Flames Can’t Hold a Candle to You (Dolly Parton)
- A Lesson in Leavin’ (Dottie West)
- Drivin’ My Life Away (Eddie Rabbitt)
- Tennessee River (Alabama)
- Beneath Still Waters (Emmylou Harris)
- Lookin’ For Love (Johnny Lee)
- I Believe In You (Don Williams)
- One in a Million (Johnny Lee)
- Sugar Daddy (The Bellamy Brothers)
- I’d Love to Lay You Down (Conway Twitty)
- Trying to Love Two Women (The Oak Ridge Boys)
- On the Road Again (Willie Nelson)
- Smoky Mountain Rain (Ronnie Milsap)
- Love Me Over Again (Don Williams)
- Why Lady Why (Alabama)
- You Win Again (Charley Pride)
- My Heart (Ronnie Milsap)
- Honky Tonk Blues (Charley Pride)
- Theme From Dukes of Hazzard (Good Ol’ Boys) (Waylon Jennings)
- Why Don’t You Spend the Night (Ronnie Milsap)
- Could I Have This Dance (Anne Murray)
- If You Ever Change Your Mind (Crystal Gayle)
- Dancin’ Cowboys (The Bellamy Brothers)
- One Day at a Time (Cristy Lane)
- It’s Like We Never Said Goodbye (Crystal Gayle)
- Bar Room Buddies (Merle Haggard & Clint Eastwood)
- That’s All That Matters (Mickey Gilley)
- Do You Wanna Go to Heaven (TG Sheppard)
- Years (Barbara Mandrell)
- Gone Too Far (Eddie Rabbitt)
- Starting Over Again (Dolly Parton)
- True Love Ways (Mickey Gilley)
- Loving Up a Storm (Razzy Bailey)
- Cowboys and Clowns/Misery Loves Company (Ronnie Milsap)
- Are You On the Road to Lovin’ Me Again (Debby Boone)
- Stand By Me (Mickey Gilley)
- Lady (Kenny Rogers)
- Coward of the County (Kenny Rogers)
- 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.
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