1982 - we come here quite often to listen to music ...

Part of the charm of the country charts as one era eases into another is the interplay of old and new, the lack of impetus to shake off something tried-and-true as soon as something shiny and new comes along. This was even truer back in the pre-‘90s days when the industry seemed to embrace its primary role as the soundtrack to adult middle-American life, uninterested in making a big play for kids and trend-hoppers but up for appropriating the sort of light-rock and easy-listening that might draw full-grown listeners away from the country side of the dial. But at the same time there’d be reassuring room for the sounds and artists that had roped in the last generation or two of fans. Maybe it sounded jarring at the time to hear Willie Nelson or George Jones back-to-back with Ronnie Milsap or Eddie Rabbitt, but to the business it probably calculated as a better gambit than ditching the former or rejecting the latter.

Alabama bridged ’81 into ’82 with the run of “Love in the First Degree,” and also bridged a downhome image with some pop-smart songcraft about as well as anyone could. They ceded to the perpetually-underrated Gene Watson, a native Texan who’d been kicking around the charts for most of a decade by then and finally scored with “Fourteen Carat Mind,” a bitingly rueful tale of a low-stakes golddigger leaving a trail of heartbroke (and just broke-broke) rednecks in her wake. It was hardcore, hot-pickin’ country but immediately gave way to Ronnie Milsap’s typically florid and state-of-the-art “I Wouldn’t Have Missed it for the World.” Not a bad tune, but if cultural anthropologists 100 years from now are trying to figure out what exactly made country songs “country,” this is one they’re going to have a tough time with.

While they’re at it they might wanna just skip Conway Twitty’s “Red Neckin’ Love Makin’ Night.” Twitty’s longstanding gift for bringing dignity to the cheesiest and horndoggiest of sentiments finally failed him on a pandering Jerry Lee Lewis knockoff with traces of disco detritus and unbecoming self-name-dropping. Juice Newton, a willowy beauty who’d been knocking around the music industry for over a decade, finally struck emotive gold with “The Sweetest Thing (I’ve Ever Known).” Like most of her material, it was more earthy pop than country, but it was also more than close enough. Mickey Gilley’s languid country-pop blend on “Lonely Nights” continued his low-key hot streak, and as per usual with him it was nice to hear a song he could make all his own instead of trying to borrow a classic. 

Eddie Rabbitt’s “Someone Could Lose a Heart Tonight” continued his streak of sounding sort of like country music’s answer to Eddie Money or Billy Squier, with plenty of big-hook competence but not a ton of resonance. TG Sheppard continued to split the difference between macho and romantic on the catchy-but-slight “Only One You.” Don Williams scored his 12^th #1 with “Lord I Hope This Day is Good,” another master class in letting stronger emotions slip in around the edges of stoic warmth; music biz lifer Ed Bruce wouldn’t have as storied of a career, but “You’re the Best Break This Old Heart Ever Had” pulled off a similar trick nicely. 

And then things got really, really good for a week with Rosanne Cash and “Blue Moon With Heartache.” A shimmery, heartbroken, self-recriminating meditation on a love gone sour, it blended pretty much everything that was good about the day’s contemporary pop and country sounds into something sublime. Just perusing the list I thought I didn’t know this one, but yeah I probably heard it several dozen times as a kid and I hope I hear it several dozen more at least. I guess I just thought it was called “What Would I Give” or “Go Away” or some other line from the chorus. Her music would eventually get even more adventurous and introspective (mainstream gatekeepers said things like “pretentious,” but to hell with ‘em) but in the moment, nobody on the country charts was splitting the difference between conventional beauty and forward-thinking smarts better than Ms. Cash.

The already-legendary Charley Pride went back to the VSC (variety show country) well with “Mountain of Love,” but it’s a tuneful, smartly-written blast so it kind of transcends the mini-genre I sort of made up. “She Left Love All Over Me” was another hit of suggestive country soul from Razzy Bailey, his last ride to the top of the charts before a steep drop to the lower reaches for the rest of the decade. The Oak Ridge Boys, meanwhile, were only hitting their stride, although the cheesy retro-bop of “Bobbie Sue” doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that would sustain a dominant run. What with the lines about the titular neighbor girl just turning 18, it sounds more like the sort of thing that’d put a bunch of middle-aged harmonizers on a watchlist.

Merle Haggard was already living up to his name to some extent by 1982 (and to be fair, probably by 1962 also) but he sounded both sly and ornery on “Big City,” a swinging declaration of get-off-the-grid independence that resonates a little more with every traffic jam or social media trend the modern age hands us. Conway Twitty was playing to his strengths again, digging in deep on the masculine pathos with a nice side of kind-of-incongruous circus imagery on “The Clown.” Not every hit was a home run, but for the most part guys like Hag and Conway (and Willie, Jones, Dolly, Pride etc.) were easing into elder-statesman status without losing their relevance. And while Nashville’s apparent lack of ageism at the time was noble enough, it seems like maybe this was around the time that it occurred to some record execs that they could probably sell more records to young folks if they had some younger folks making at least some of the records.

Unlike some of the other relative youngsters that had topped the charts in the last decade – your Alabamas, your Eddie Rabbitts, etc. – the next round was going to lean heavily towards more traditional sounds instead of pushing the pop-rock envelope. I don’t know if this was to course-correct, or to appease the old-schoolers who were starting to sour on the lite-rock stuff, or to catch some sort of youthful zeitgeist yearning for slipping-away authenticity. But either way it spelled out a big push for folks like George Strait, John Anderson, and the next #1: Ricky Skaggs, with “Crying My Heart Out Over You.” A youthful Ned Flanders type with a sweet, clear tenor twang and a growing mastery of any stringed instrument you put in front of him, Skaggs brought some serious bluegrass chops but wasn’t too much of a purist to match it up with some radio-friendly sheen and percussion. He’d get a touch hokey sometimes, but his best stuff was (and is) a breath of virtuosic fresh air.

Alabama more or less revisited their breakthrough “Tennessee River” with the very-similar jam “Mountain Music,” a high-volume hoedown after a few successful pop-rock forays. Then it was outlaw time again, although by now Willie Nelson had realized it was pretty outlaw to just drop the damn outlaw posturing and sing something as tender and soaring as “Always On My Mind.” Transcending some of the cheesy pop production touches with his heavy wonder of a voice, inimitable phrasing, and distinctive Spanish-tinged guitar, it was one for the ages; a mature love song tinged with self-reproach and a plea for forgiveness. The only sort of thing that was worthy of following this up was Willie himself, guesting with Waylon Jennings on the latter’s hard-driving, more-conventionally-outlaw “Just to Satisfy You.”

Up next was the only 1982 #1 I don’t remember from my childhood: TG Sheppard with “Finally.” Fair enough, because it’s not memorable. Sheppard’s a good singer but the song’s got one of those melodies that’s both kind of challenging and really not worth it. Slow and anemic, it mercifully slid right back out of #1 and let the Bellamy Brothers take over with their usual blend of breezy and lustful on “For All the Wrong Reasons.” Again: these guys were excellent at being pretty damn direct without coming across like a couple of creeps. But maybe not as good at it as Conway Twitty: who the hell could be? Any mojo he lost early in the year with that dumb “Red Neckin’…” song came barreling back on his cover of the Pointer Sisters then-recent soul hit “Slow Hand.” Leaning mostly on his gritty low end like a carefully-permed Barry White, Twitty scored himself another late-career signature song.

There’d be plenty more dabbling in the light-R&B pop-crossover end of the pool, with Ronnie Milsap’s tuneful but slight “Any Day Now,” Barbara Mandrell’s twinkly “Till You’re Gone,” and Alabama’s catchy come-on “Take Me Down.” Not terribly similar songs, but they collectively stood in contrast to something like Ricky Skaggs’ sweetly loping, fiddle-laced “I Don’t Care.” It was a bit saccharine, but the harmonies and instrumentation were digging for something timeless. Hank Williams Jr., a decidedly ornerier champion of country tradition, ripped through a cover of his famous dad’s “Honky Tonkin’” for another ride to the top of the charts. Albeit less audaciously than Hank, David Frizzell was leaning on a legendary family name as well (his uncle Lefty, if you’re just joining us); with “I’m Gonna Hire a Wino (To Decorate Our Home)” he was neither a retro throwback or a pop carpetbagger, just a talented vocalist delivering an amusing story to a catchy tune about overaccommodating a barfly husband. The song’s writer, Dewayne Blackwell, would eventually strike even bigger common-touch gold with “Friends in Low Places.”

Up next was one of the great cheesy guilty-pleasure country-pop earworms, the mononymous Sylvia’s “Nobody.” You know, the same Nobody that called today, hung up when I asked her name, etc. Her late-song resolve to win back her straying partner by getting better at sex (at least that’s what I got out of it) is pretty inspiring too. But maybe not as inspiring as the now-legendary George Strait scoring his first #1 with “Fool Hearted Memory.” It was his fourth major-label single after a couple runs at the top ten. It’s a smartly-written, emotionally-rich ball of fiddle-and-steel heartache from back when the still-young troubadour had a bit of youthful yelp to his voice. I don’t know if it was clear at the time just how grand of a run was kicking off here, but in retrospect how could it not have been obvious? Strait was smart but accessible, handsome but not in some off-putting pretty boy sense, visibly young but audibly steeped in country tradition. If everyone in Nashville interested in selling records didn’t see gold, they weren’t looking especially close.

Kenny Rogers was still as good a gamble as anyone, and the earthy but sophisticated country-pop of “Love Will Turn You Around” was one of his best. Jerry Reed stuck with the hot-pickin’ comedy approach to country music and scored with the lighter-side-of-divorce anthem “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft).” Michael Martin Murphey wasn’t necessarily a fresh new face if you’d been hip to the Texas-based “Cosmic Cowboy” scene where he was among the ringleaders, and even if you’d missed that then his crossover 1975 lost-horse epic “Wildfire” barely missed the #1 all-music Billboard spot (and topped the adult-contemporary charts) in an era where dreamy singer-songwriter stuff was all the (quiet, laid-back) rage. So he already had a solid reputation as an adventurous, genre-bending singer-songwriter but appears to have decided to dial it down for something a bit more mainstream; fair enough because “What’s Forever For” is lovely, and so were several of his other successive singles. He'd only hit #1 once more, but perhaps Top 40 country was always meant to just be a stop along the way.  As that leg of his career wound down, he’d commit to traditional cowboy balladry and eventually bluegrass, serving a smaller audience but hopefully with a nice chunk of Nashville money in the bank.

Mickey Gilley was still on an undeniably durable but oddly non-iconic roll, with the big-sweep country-pop of “Put Your Dreams Away” giving him another gold record to hang on the wall of his namesake nightclub. Then things got considerably more iconic, damn near a country-legend singularity with Merle Haggard and George Jones teaming up to cover Willie Nelson’s “Yesterday’s Wine,” which you kind of wish was co-written by Waylon Jennings just to bring things full-circle. It’s a warm, wise and timeless tune, not really missing anything in the stripped-down Willie original but it certainly lent itself well to a grizzled, steel-drenched duet. Perhaps emboldened by the success of the Outlaws compilation a few years prior, “buddy albums” were a bit of a country-music phenomenon as the ‘70s eased into the ‘80s. Various combinations of Willie, Waylon, George, Merle, Cash, Price, Paycheck etc. would team up and burn through a few numbers (in more ways than one, probably) and once in awhile notch a memorable hit. Most of it’s not as essential as their prime solo work, but still it’s kind of cool that these grown-up play dates were captured when everyone was at or near the height of their powers.

It's hard to get mad at a legend for leaning on their legend, and Dolly Parton certainly qualified when she remade her own “I Will Always Love You” for the soundtrack of Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, memorably starring Dolly herself alongside Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise and the least-convincing college football team to ever sing in the shower. The B-Side, “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind,” got some play as well. It may not be as heart-melting as the A-side but it’s smart, tuneful, and only slightly derailed by whoever’s grunting out the bass harmonies a little too high in the mix like a death-metal Lee Hazelwood. Ronnie Milsap wasn’t covering himself yet but “He Got You” was pretty interchangeable with his other recent hits, all yacht-rock grooves and sax solos that sound about as country as a Prius. Alabama’s “Close Enough to Perfect” had some pop sheen to it too but was grounded by relatably specific lyrics and warm harmonies. Charley Pride was staying in his ’80s wheelhouse of big-production VSC but managed to keep the cheese level manageable; with “You’re So Good When You’re Bad,” he was finally comfortable dialing things up from “warmth” to some actual heat. Faithful domestic heat, sure, but at least things had maybe progressed to the point where a black man singing about sex wasn’t considered too scary for radio.

Ricky Skaggs sure as hell wasn’t gonna scare anybody; on a cover of Texas legend Guy Clark’s “Heartbroke” he sanded down the “pride is a bitch” line to keep things radio-friendly, and honestly it’s worth it to have something this intricately wordy and mature in the pantheon of #1s. I doubt the songwriter intended it as a bluegrass-pickin’ showcase but it lent itself well to it. It was a lot classier than TG Sheppard’s “War is Hell (On the Homefront Too),” a story song that’s almost “Coward of the County”-level WTF in its detailed depiction of a 1942 teenage kid hastily recruited by the love-starved wife of a deployed soldier for a little afternoon delight. There were still a lot of WWII vets alive and well in 1982 and I wonder if any of them called up their local country station and told them to knock this shit off. Not enough to keep it from going to #1 I guess.

Janie Fricke scored one of her better hits with “It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Easy,” a damaged-goods lament that she threw herself into with her usual heartfelt gusto. Maybe this is a good time to talk about Fricke, which people otherwise don’t really do all that often. She was a good-looking lady but not overly glamorous; she looked kind of like your mom’s friend from work who just happened to score a record deal. She’d broken through by doing supporting vocals on Johnny Duncan hits but soon leveled up to working with the likes of Charlie Rich, Merle Haggard, and even Ray Charles. A bit like John Conlee over on the male side, she had a knack for inhabiting songs of working-class despair and self-doubt. Her best song, “You Don’t Know Love,” didn’t hit #1 but seven others did. She was no lightweight but, unlike some of her storied collaborators, has gotten a bit lost to history.

Eddie Rabbitt and Crystal Gayle have been too, to some extent, but “You and I” was just the sort of genreless crossover bid that made them fairly big stars in their day. Also cracking the Top 10 on the Adult Contemporary and Hot 100 charts, I guess it’s pretty perfect as a soap opera wedding ballad if that’s what you’re in to. “Redneck Girl” by the Bellamy Brothers was way more fun, fulfilling their usual knack for sounding like they’re totally checking out the honeys but managing not to be leering creeps about it. “Somewhere Between Right and Wrong” was another win for Earl Thomas Conley, who unlike some of his contemporaries wrote most of his own material; catchy but with plenty of lyrical meat on the bone, and a cool synthesizer-I-think riff to spice it up, it was an early triumph for a guy who’d be one of the biggest success stories of ‘80s country music whether he’s remembered that way or not. Florida honky-tonker John Anderson, who’d had a couple runs at the Top 10 by this time, closed out the year with the even stronger “Wild and Blue.” A brisk 6/8 lament shot through with wailing Cajun fiddles, his first #1 put him on the list alongside George Strait, Ricky Skaggs, and Hank Jr. as relatively young bucks giving the business a tradition-minded shot in the arm without a ton of overlap in their approaches. You’d see it again around 1989, about the time Mr. Anderson was gearing up for a well-deserved comeback.

THE TREND?

Maybe more so than usual, the list of 1982 #1s looks like an ongoing tug-of-war between the forces of stoic tradition and crossover ambition, occasionally within the same song. And ironically, much of the former was being driven by new-to-the-table youngsters while the country chart veterans (even the rustic likes of Willie Nelson) dabbled in adult-contempo hybrids. In the right hands, either approach can come up gold, but to these tastes the old-school approach has a far better batting average. Six-year-old me probably would agree … I don’t remember if my folks let me change the radio station every time “You and I” came on, but I do vaguely recall wanting to. At any rate, the mix of already-legends and talented upstarts was as good in 1982 as anyone could hope, to the point where you wish that approach would’ve survived a few decades more.

THE RANKING

1. Blue Moon With Heartache – Rosanne Cash
2. Always On My Mind – Willie Nelson
3. I Will Always Love You/Do I Ever Cross Your Mind – Dolly Parton
4. Fourteen Carat Mind – Gene Watson
5. Wild and Blue – John Anderson
6. Fool Hearted Memory – George Strait
7. Lord I Hope This Day is Good – Don Williams
8. Yesterday’s Wine – Merle Haggard and George Jones
9. Big City – Merle Haggard
10. Just to Satisfy You – Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson
11. Heartbroke – Ricky Skaggs
12. The Sweetest Thing (I’ve Ever Known) – Juice Newton
13. The Clown – Conway Twitty
14. For All the Wrong Reasons – The Bellamy Brothers
15. Love Will Turn You Around – Kenny Rogers
16. Somewhere Between Right and Wrong – Earl Thomas Conley
17. Nobody - Sylvia
18. Slow Hand – Conway Twitty
19. I’m Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home – David Frizzell
20. She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft) – Jerry Reed
21. What’s Forever For – Michael Martin Murphey
22. Close Enough to Perfect - Alabama
23. Mountain Music – Alabama
24. Honky Tonkin’ – Hank Williams Jr.
25. It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Easy – Janie Fricke
26. Mountain of Love – Charley Pride
27. Crying My Heart Out Over You – Ricky Skaggs
28. Lonely Nights – Mickey Gilley
29. Any Day Now – Ronnie Milsap
30. Take Me Down – Alabama
31. You’re So Good When You’re Bad – Charley Pride
32. Redneck Girl – The Bellamy Brothers
33. I Wouldn’t Have Missed it For the World – Ronnie Milsap
34. You’re the Best Break This Old Heart Ever Had – Ed Bruce
35. She Left Love All Over Me – Razzy Bailey
36. He Got You – Ronnie Milsap
37. I Don’t Care – Ricky Skaggs
38. Put Your Dreams Away – Mickey Gilley
39. Only One You – TG Sheppard
40. Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me Baby – Janie Fricke
41. Till You’re Gone – Barbara Mandrell
42. Red Neckin’ Love Makin’ Night – Conway Twitty
43. Someone Could Lose a Heart Tonight – Eddie Rabbitt
44. Bobbie Sue – The Oak Ridge Boys
45. You and I – Eddie Rabbitt with Crystal Gayle
46. War is Hell (On the Homefront Too) – TG Sheppard
47. Finally – TG Sheppard

DOWN THE ROAD ...

Catching on to a larger (if still largely regional) audience circa the mid-'90s, folk singer Robert Earl Keen probably did as much as anyone to keep the Texas singer-songwriter tradition of Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Jerry Jeff Walker etc. going into the next generation. Him catching on with rowdy college-aged crowds getting sick of the encroaching blandness of then-modern mainstream country was as big of a gamechanger as the Texas music scene had seen since the "outlaw" heyday a couple decades prior. Dozens if not hundreds of songwriters and bands of varying notoriety would pop up in the wake of his influence. However heralded Keen was as a writer, though, he wasn't shy about dipping into covers both obscure and otherwise, including a whole double album of bluegrass material with 2015's Happy Prisoner. If you sprung for the deluxe edition, you got his hard-charging take on fellow Texan Gene Watson's only #1 hit, which sounds like it was meant to be bluegrass all along.

1981 - I'd rather see you up, than see you down ...

As a 1976 baby, we’re really getting to the point here where I actually remember hearing (most of) these songs in heavy rotation on the radio as a kid. Country radio was the default at my parents’ house and in their vehicle, at both sets of grandparents’ houses where I spent big chunks of time, in various public establishments etc. That being said, there were 9-10 songs or so in the 1981 list that didn’t ring a bell for me, more than some of the years well before I was born. Maybe that’s just the imperfect memory you’d expect for a 5-year-old, maybe some of these songs just weren’t as big in the Houston area in the pre-ClearChannel days, or maybe some of these just weren’t resonant enough to stay in rotation after they tumbled back down the charts.

It started off big enough. Johnny Lee carried over from ’80 then handed off to the already-venerable-back-then Merle Haggard. Not counting his novelty one-off with Clint Eastwood from 1980, Hag hadn’t had a #1 since 1976. He hadn’t really faded, he was still cracking the top 5 on the reg, but unlike most of his old ‘60s peers the ‘80s were going to be really good to him. Age wasn’t nearly the barrier to chart relevance that it is nowadays; as mentioned before, even the relative newbies came off pretty middle-aged in content and persona. “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink” was an example of how a few artists found a version of ‘80s production that didn’t sound chintzy or dated, but played to their strengths.

“I Love a Rainy Night” crossed over to a pop #1 even though it only topped the country charts for one week; not a ton of substance, but the finger-popping catchiness and Rabbitt’s energetic delivery were clearly good for something. Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” pulled off the same feat, but with the benefit of an iconic voice and being attached to a hit feature film.  As with the movie, it wasn’t exactly a heart-toucher but it did have some lasting social relevance, especially for women who felt overworked and overlooked in a modern workplace. A bit of a country-pop trifle on the surface, a closer listen reveals some pretty clever lyrical detail, a reminder that songwriting is one of Parton’s many gifts.

TG Sheppard was a journeyman by comparison, but “I Feel Like Loving You Again” is invested with some genuine-sounding tenderness instead of his usual default swagger. Fellow journeyman Razzy Bailey kept the sort-of-R&B flame going with the mildly groovy “I Keep Coming Back,” b/w “True Life Country Music” which was an interesting early example of interpolating titles and quotes from better-known songs and calling it clever enough. First-time chart-topper Charly McClain picked up the tempo with the spare, pop-tinged, endlessly catchy groove of “Who’s Cheatin’ Who,” followed up by warhorse-by-now crooner Mel Tillis with the eminently forgettable “Southern Rains.” I don’t remember hearing this as a child, as an adult perusing classic-country stations or playlists, I’ve never heard anyone cover or mention it, and after listening to it a couple of times a few days ago to try to jog my memory I couldn’t currently quote you a line or hum you a snippet of melody. It’s easy to see why folks liked the affable, baritone-voiced Tillis; I like him too. But it’s hard to imagine what made this one a winner for him.

Dottie West wasn’t at her absolute best either on the sad kiss-off “Are You Happy Baby?,” there’s not a ton of meat on the bone but West’s gravelly conviction was always good for something. The Bellamy Brothers cannily reprised the general premise of “If I Said You Had a Beautiful…” with “Do You Love as Good as You Look.” Similar to their signature hit (even though this time they didn’t write it), it was built around a direct, only-slightly-clever come-on but it was so catchy, breezy, and non-threatening that it didn’t come off at all creepy or obnoxious. Nice addition to a catalog that I think gets underrated sometimes.

But for a little while, it was time to shift gears to straight-up legends. Elvis Presley was four years gone at this point, and most of the King of Rock & Roll’s old fans were probably more comfortable with country (or maybe easy listening) radio than the weirder stuff that was prevailing in contemporary rock music. Elvis’ version of country music mainstay Jerry Reed’s “Guitar Man” had first popped up on the soundtrack to his 1968 movie Clambake, and somebody at RCA figured it was ripe for rediscovery so they had Reed and a new backing band come in to record a new electrified track around Presley’s vocal from the original. Eventually the recording industry would pull this trick on all sorts of deceased legends, but at the time this was a bit of a novelty (and apparently a welcome one at that). Willie Nelson was up next with something timeless: the glorious heartache and gratitude of “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” should do just fine for the next 100 years with no tweaks needed. It’s certainly up there with Nelson’s greatest masterpieces as a singer, songwriter, and (while we’re at it) guitarist.

Hank Williams Jr. was still early in his transition from mimicking his long-gone legend of a father to confidently self-mythologizing the both of them, and he scored his first #1 with the rakishly macho waltz of “Texas Women.” Full of clever rhymes and loved-‘em-all swagger, it was a pretty solid introduction to the larger-than-life performer he was becoming. “Drifter,” the first big hit by mononymous semi-star Sylvia, had much less staying power; an odd little number that sounds like the theme song to a variety-show parody of a B-western flick, it’d be overshadowed by other bigger hits of the era including her own. Can’t say I recall ever hearing it before researching (if that’s the right word) for this article. Conversely, I can’t remember ever not knowing every word to “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma” … that thing was everywhere, and deservedly so. Lefty Frizzell’s nephew David and Dottie West’s daughter Shelly might’ve had the benefit of nepotism but they sure didn’t half-ass the opportunity: as the arrangement gradually swells from a bare-bones crawl to a harmonica-driven big-sky force of country-pop nature, they’re both up for every key change and subtle tempo shift, making their characters feel as real as their voices. It’s a beauty.

“Old Flame” by Alabama had a nicely subtle glow about it, a quietly catchy little country lope with layered harmonies, a laid-back counterpoint to the romantic paranoia of the lyrics. They might’ve been more Skynyrd on stage back in their heyday, but they were more Eagles on record. Those upstart kids weren’t squeezing Mickey Gilley off the charts, though: if anything he was getting better and more tasteful, laying off the too-smooth covers of soul and country classics and tackling a mournfully clever song like “A Headache Tomorrow (Or a Heartache Tonight)” that he could make all his own. Conway Twitty stretched his legs at least a bit by tackling the hearty Bee Gees ballad “Rest Your Love on Me,” which sounds like it was tailor-made for him anyway, and was backed by the similarly sturdy “I Am the Dreamer (You Are the Dream).” Ronnie Milsap got in on the recontextualized-cover game too, reviving the old Jim Reeves chestnut “Am I Losing You” with his usual abundance of vocal pyro; whether you think that takes a solid song to the next level or just kind of smothers it is a matter of taste I suppose. TG Sheppard was relatively laid-back, in delivery if not libido, on the self-congratulatory stud muffin anthem “I Loved ‘Em Every One.”

And then things got downright sublime. Rosanne Cash was, obviously, the daughter of already-legend Johnny Cash.  She didn’t spin her wheels trying to somehow be a female version of her famous dad, but she quickly showed that she shared his artistic edge even if she pushed it in a different direction. “Seven Year Ache” is, to these ears, one of the most perfect three minutes of music ever put to tape. An insistent but soothing groove, smartly verbose lyrics that push the envelope of country wordsmithing, crystal vocals with longing and regret shining just below the surface. She’d eventually go even further in the arch, moody, not-for-everyone direction that her breakthrough hints at, but (as we’ll see) in terms of landing ambitious-sounding singles that still hit with the masses, she was one of the top commercial country artists of the 1980s. And it feels like that’s kind of been forgotten since then.

And then you get “Elvira,” which became a signature song for the already-established Oak Ridge Boys, casting their four-part harmonies (and, especially, Richard Sterban’s indelible bass vocal) in more of a novelty-song direction, reminiscent of oldies acts like The Coasters. It was penned by Dallas Frazier (who recorded it way back in 1966) and covered in 1978, coincidentally, by Rosanne Cash’s then-husband Rodney Crowell; his version was reportedly where the Oaks heard it, possibly around the same time they were scoping out the same album’s “Leavin’ Lousiana in the Broad Daylight” that they had their second #1 hit with. Pretty damn circular around here sometimes. As a kid I liked this song but was distracted by wondering if it was about the comically sexy-spooky TV personality Elvira (aka Cassandra Peterson, who hadn’t created the character yet back in 1966, but I bet I wasn’t the only one who wondered if there was a connection by the time the Oaks got a hold of it). 

Razzy Bailey spun back into the top spot with the easy-listening “Friends” which, back to my childhood impressions, seemed to be both all over the radio and, as far as I knew back then, was his only hit (if not only song, ever).  Check out Razzy Bailey on Wikipedia, there’s a picture of him as a genially smiling older man in a straw hat and Hawaiian shirt. He looks like a composite of every middle-aged songwriter I ever ran into at an acoustic open mic.  He was a gifted vocalist with a knack for sounding fully invested in whatever he was singing.  But it’s weird that, at five, he had more #1 hits than Roger Miller, Gary Stewart, and Gene Watson put together.  The more conventionally-starry Kenny Rogers and Dottie West were up for another duet #1 with the squeezably soft, forgettable “What Are We Doin’ In Love.”  Dolly Parton’s “But You Know I Love You” was well within the easy-listening vein too, but as per usual it transcended on the strength of her performance.  Anne Murray’s “Blessed Are the Believers” wasn’t gonna wake any babies either, but this sort of intelligent, well-crafted folk-pop was totally in her wheelhouse … it’s easy listening that’s easy to listen to, which ironically often isn’t the case for most of us.  She was kind of the Mary Chapin Carpenter of her day, not as prone to wit but with a sweeter voice.

Up next was another round of Barbara Mandrell, this time with “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.”  It was sort of a nod to the Urban Cowboy fad that made a lot of folks suddenly decide they were cowboys, but despite Mandrell’s charms as a performer it seemed a bit rich coming from someone who’d mostly trafficked in crossover schmaltz.  Her variety show with her sisters was on TV by the time this hit; cheesiness was kind of her thing, and she was good at it.  Bringing in George Jones for a vocal cameo and piping in crowd noise to make this sound like a live track all speaks to the crowd-pleasing calculations that made her a big deal in her day but have also arguably left most of her music stuck in it.  

Earl Thomas Conley was kind of unassumingly one of the most consistent and successful singer-songwriters of the era, and the warm grooves and smart lyricism of “Fire and Smoke” makes for a fine Exhibit A.  Alabama stayed on a soft-rock roll with the wholesomely sexy “Feels So Right” (I bet Conway was pissed he didn’t get this one) and their friendly Southern-pride rival Hank Williams Jr. barreled along amusingly through the Yankee kiss-off “Dixie On My Mind.”  I grew up idolizing Hank Jr., and good on him I suppose for following his own muse instead of just recording whatever he was asked, but if you take away the songs about his dad and the songs about being from the South his catalog gets pretty slim; it’d be like taking the beach songs away from Jimmy Buffett.  He kind of was/is Buffett for people who like whiskey, woods and guns better than margaritas, beaches and boats. 

Back to the country-pop fence-straddlers for awhile: Crystal Gayle stuck to her tuneful, vaguely elegant groove with the peppy “Too Many Lovers,” Kenny Rogers kicked up a near Philly-soul level of vocal yearning on the kinda-majestic “I Don’t Need You,” and Ronnie Milsap brought a little more piano-man swagger than usual to “There’s No Gettin’ Over Me.”  Up next was Ronnie McDowell, a Navy vet and big Elvis Presley fan. He’d scored a 1977 pop hit with the mournful self-penned “The King is Gone” and followed so close in his hero’s footsteps performance-wise that he was Hollywood’s go-to guy of the era if they needed an Elvis mimic to record vocals for movies or TV shows. As a country artist, he was bit redundant with the TG Sheppards and BJ Thomases of the day, but “Older Women” was the sort of catchy paean to regular folks that couldn’t help but hit a nerve in a good way.

Mickey Gilley eased back into his cover-band ways with a take on the Eddy Arnold/Cindy Walker classic “You Don’t Know Me.”  His performance is solid, even nicely nuanced, and this time around it benefits from not having one definitive version of it out there looming large enough to make Gilley’s take suffer by comparison (I’d still argue the Ray Charles version is really where it’s at).  Conway Twitty was up to his old tricks as well, with “Tight Fittin’ Jeans” fitting him better than actual tight jeans probably did at this point in his life.  A rakish little barroom vignette about meeting a slumming rich babe at a honky tonk (this probably rang pretty true to life in the Urban Cowboy aftermath), towards the end Twitty sings “In my mind she’s still a lady, that’s all I’m gonna say.” Which says plenty.

Razzy Bailey continued his largely-forgotten hot streak with the actually-pretty-groovy trucker anthem “Midnight Hauler,” his only notably up-tempo #1.   TG Sheppard scored one of his better ones too with “Party Time,” rocking a nice mid-tempo groove as a counterpoint to lyrics that are more melancholy than the title suggests.  Eddie Rabbitt scored his 9^th #1 with “Step By Step,” a bit of sparkly soft-rock reminiscent of Air Supply, in case that sounds like something you’d be into. Charley Pride, with a massive string of hits and a few recent hard-country Hank Williams covers behind him, dipped his toe into variety show country (VSC, around these parts) with the Vegas-y swirl of “Never Been So Loved (In All of My Life).” The Oak Ridge Boys continued their peak with the dusky beauty of “Fancy Free” and Roseanne Cash kept her hot streak going with the chugging, charming throwback of “My Baby Thinks He’s a Train.”

It was a nod to a stint of dominance for traditional country. Hank Williams Jr. scored again with the clever, name-dropping lope of “All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down,” hinting at how guys like Jones, Cash and Jennings that had sort of provided a bridge between Hank Sr.’s heyday and his were easing into relatively sober elder-statesmen status. Resurgent legend Merle Haggard hit again with the dreamy, affectionate waltz of “My Favorite Memory.” Johnny Lee split the difference between twangy classicism and then-modern country-pop songcraft with “Bet Your Heart on Me,” followed by heartache maestro George Jones with the barroom-as-prison metaphor of “Still Doin’ Time.”  Somewhere nearby, Willie Nelson was probably glad to note that sad songs and waltzes were selling that year.

But, as noted, so was crossover-friendly country-pop. Steve Wariner would build a quietly notable career out of breezy numbers that sounded more than a little like what would eventually be called “yacht rock,” but his first #1 out of the gate was “All Roads Lead to You.” To these ears it sounds somehow both clunky and weightless; he’d do way better stuff eventually, but I’m not sure what zeitgeist this one captured. Alabama’s “Love in the First Degree” had a high soft-rock percentage to it as well but it was a more obvious winner and holds up pretty nicely, sticking hard to the love-as-a-crime metaphor without wearing it out. Newer strains of pop were infiltrating the country sound, but bands like Alabama were doing their best to prove that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

THE TREND?

If you fast-forward to the ranking, 1981 looks like a pretty solid year for the country music charts, like they capitalized on the Urban Cowboy trend with some near-undeniably good music, some more-middling stuff that you can still see the crossover appeal of, and even something starting to resemble a youthful movement. Alabama, Hank Williams Jr., Rosanne Cash, Steve Wariner, Earl Thomas Conley and others would have many more moments in the sun throughout the ‘80s and beyond, and the fact that these artists didn’t sound overly similar to each other speaks well for the sort of intergenre diversity that might aggravate purists but keeps things interesting for the rest of us.  And some of the still-active big names like Waylon Jennings and Don Williams had to live without the brass ring for a little while in a crowded field, while other legends like George Jones and Merle Haggard enjoyed a bit of a revival.  No real stinkers hit the #1s of 1981, at least to these ears; there’s a few bum notes at the bottom of the list, but for the most part it’s just lesser works from otherwise-worthwhile artists.  

THE RANKING

1. Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground (Willie Nelson)
2. Seven Year Ache (Roseanne Cash)
3. My Favorite Memory (Merle Haggard)
4. Still Doin’ Time (George Jones)
5. 9 to 5 (Dolly Parton)
6. I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink (Merle Haggard)
7. Who’s Cheatin’ Who (Charly McClain)
8. Texas Women (Hank Williams Jr.)
9. You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma (David Frizzell and Shelly West)
10. Rest Your Love on Me (Conway Twitty)
11. But You Know I Love You (Dolly Parton)
12. Guitar Man (Elvis Presley)
13. Do You Love As Good As You Look (The Bellamy Brothers)
14. Fire and Smoke (Earl Thomas Conley)
15. All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down (Hank Williams Jr.)
16. Feels So Right (Alabama)
17. I Love A Rainy Night (Eddie Rabbitt)
18. Elvira (The Oak Ridge Boys)
19. A Headache Tomorrow (Or a Heartache Tonight) (Mickey Gilley)
20. Old Flame (Alabama)
21. Fancy Free (The Oak Ridge Boys)
22. I Don’t Need You (Kenny Rogers)
23. Blessed Are the Believers (Anne Murray)
24. You Don’t Know Me (Mickey Gilley)
25. Dixie On My Mind (Hank Williams Jr.)
26. My Baby Thinks He’s A Train (Rosanne Cash)
27. Tight Fittin’ Jeans (Conway Twitty)
28. Midnight Hauler (Razzy Bailey)
29. Love in the First Degree (Alabama)
30. Party Time (TG Sheppard)
31. Never Been So Loved in All My Life (Charley Pride)
32. There’s No Gettin’ Over Me (Ronnie Milsap)
33. Older Women (Ronnie McDowell)
34. I Feel Like Loving You Again (TG Sheppard)
35. Are You Happy Baby? (Dottie West)
36. Bet Your Heart on Me (Johnny Lee)
37. Am I Losing You? (Ronnie Milsap)
38. Friends (Razzy Bailey)
39. I Was Country (When Country Wasn’t Cool) (Barbara Mandrell)
40. Too Many Lovers (Crystal Gayle)
41. What Are We Doin’ in Love (Kenny Rogers & Dottie West)
42. I Keep Coming Back (Razzy Bailey)
43. Step By Step (Eddie Rabbitt)
44. I Loved ‘Em Every One (TG Sheppard)
45. All Roads Lead to You (Steve Wariner)
46. Drifter (Sylvia)
47. Southern Rains (Mel Tillis)

DOWN THE ROAD ...

Texas crooner Aaron Watson - a longtime favorite on the rodeo and college indie-country circuits - might not have been the most obvious candidate to tackle an album's worth of female-penned classics. But to his credit, that's what the conservative-minded traditionally-Christian cowboy is going for on his latest project. Roping in another rising star with a similar buckaroo background - Jenna Paulette - he gave the Rosanne Cash signature tune "Seven Year Ache" a fresh take, hitting those expertly-crafted syllables with all the confident care they deserve.