1985 - I'll fly a starship ...

1985 sort of continued the vague sense of mid-decade doldrums that 1984 gave us, but the bright spots were a bit brighter.  More interesting nods to country music’s past and future, and some nice instances of oft-lightweight artists delivering relative knockouts. Let’s roll.

Off to a great start with a hitting-his-stride George Strait and “Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind,” a slyly poetic slice of fiddle-drenched regret that moved many a boot across many a dancehall and hopefully still does (I admittedly have not hit the dancehall in awhile, I’m probably overdue).  Eddie Rabbitt’s “The Best Year of My Life” was less evergreen, although as twinkly country-pop goes it’s not a chore or anything.  Reba McEntire’s “How Blue” had more spark and twang, sad on paper but an upbeat wink in the execution.  Alabama continued to be at least as much Eagles as they were Skynyrd, with the compressed, vaguely synth-rock likes of “(There’s A) Fire in the Night” still coming through sincerely enough in the delivery despite the unnecessary parentheses.  And Merle Haggard, God bless his weathered soul, could still be as pensive and downtempo as all hell and make it to #1 for at least another year; “A Place to Fall Apart” was a masterpiece of melancholy word economy, co-written with Willie Nelson and Freddy Powers and co-vocalized by the always-holding-her-own Janie Fricke. 

Conway Twitty was Merle Haggard’s main rival for chart-topping longevity – Charley Pride had dropped off, they all had a fair head start on Ronnie Milsap and a huge one on George Strait – and he could still sail to the top on name value and strength of performance, even with a weird little number like “Ain’t She Somethin’ Else.”  It seems like a devoted love song, lyrically and vocally, until there’s a weird little twist at the end that I’m not sure indicates just awkward writing or some implied love triangle or what.  The Oak Ridge Boys followed up with one of their best, “Make My Life With You,” a layered thing of beauty.  I’m not going to argue that the Oaks were secretly really cool or vastly underrated or anything; their song choice was kind of all over the place, and their aesthetic was kind of hokey.  But give them a sincere song, especially one with a hint of mystique to it, and they could give it all of the heartfelt vocal firepower it deserved.

From Oaks to Okies … Mel McDaniel had been putting out albums and singles for about a decade before snagging his first #1 with “Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On.”  Simultaneously folksy and sexually-charged (not to mention wildly catchy) in that Bellamy Brothers-esque sort of way, it’s as memorable a celebration of denim-clad curves as you’ll ever hear.  It’s too bad this’ll be the only time we get to celebrate McDaniel’s warm, gritty twang in these pages.  Gary Morris had much less of a good ol’ boy voice and look; he starred onstage in both literal operas (including La Boheme) and soap operas (albeit playing a blind guy behind big eye-obscuring sunglasses), and that’s him on the more-or-less definitive cast album of Les Miserables.  I’m not sure why the country charts were more welcoming that the easy-listening charts – pretty much all of his hits could’ve gone either way – but for what it’s worth, “Baby Bye Bye” is a ruefully catchy number worth hearing.  It’s preferable to some of the overwrought stuff he'd subject country radio to in the months and years to come. 

The Statler Brothers already seemed kind of out-of-place by this point.  Superficially similar to the Oak Ridge Boys, they nonetheless had an older-school vibe and look to them.  It’s hard not to find the beauty in the layered harmonies of something like “My Only Love” but it’s also a little weird that this kind of stuff still had a foothold among all the young upstarts, crossover careerists, and handful of iconic diehards that were left in the mix.  It might be more worthwhile than the feathery pop of Exile’s “Crazy For Your Love,” but Exile also sounded 100% engineered to meet the moment with inoffensively catchy radio fodder catered to whatever on-the-fence grown-ups were deciding this was the year the actual pop and rock charts finally got too weird for them and drifted over to country radio.  I don’t love it, but at least I get it.

Meanwhile, I could scarcely love “Seven Spanish Angels” more.  It’s one of the most-remembered songs of my childhood, holds up even better today, and just seems like a bit of a musical miracle.  Written by music-biz vet Troy Seals – who has a healthy catalog, but this is next-level even for him – it’s a poetic tragedy of love and wartime that multiplied its own gravity in the alchemic combination of Willie Nelson and his similarly iconic buddy Ray Charles.  One of country music’s most sincere and distinctive voices melded with perhaps soul music’s most important progenitor.  Touches of flamenco guitars and Latin horns leading to big string swells and eminently soulful vocal ad-libs.  It’s just one of those triumphs that makes you grateful it was made in the first place and extra grateful that no stick-in-the-mud record exec decided it was too weird for radio.  As with many projects by both Nelson and Charles separately, it plays by its own rules and gloriously wins.

Kenny Rogers really liked venturing outside of country music for collaborators too, but “Crazy” (co-written with soft-rock star Richard Marx) is no “Seven Spanish Angels.”  I don’t remember it at all, if I’ve ever heard it previous to writing this then I guess it just evaporated, not terrible but perhaps eclipsed by the half-dozen or so better songs titled “Crazy.”  “Country Girls” by John Schneider was only as good as it had to be for a hunky Dukes of Hazzard star to score another hit, wisely kissing up to his obvious demographic.  Earl Thomas Conley remained ol’ reliable with “Honor Bound,” a little more ornate than his usual work but in keeping with his honest, three-dimensional portraits of troubled relationships.  It’s vaguely reminiscent of Journey in its big-ballad sweep but has been eclipsed with time by his bigger (and arguably better) hits.

The Bellamy Brothers were also unassumingly on a roll; “I Need More of You” was full of wholesome, sunny devotion and endures as one of the best songs in a solid and underrated catalog.  The Judds’ “Girls Night Out” was catchy enough too, I know I wasn’t in the target demographic for this song then or now but looking back it’s sort of impressive how much of a country-blues vibe some of their hits had.  Alabama pulled off their usual blend of downhome sincerity and soft-rock crossover appeal with the devoted “There’s No Way,” and Reba McEntire took a turn towards stone-cold domestic heartache with “Somebody Should Leave.”  To me that’s almost always her best stuff; she’s an immensely gifted country singer, but her attempts to be brassy, poppy, etc. often hit the notes but miss the point.  Dolly Parton could shift those gears with her personality intact and bend the material to her will.  With Reba, your mileage might vary as much as mine.

Sawyer Brown (that’s a band name, not a singer name) came barreling outta Florida with their hit debut “Step That Step,” a bit of brisk, motor-mouthed catchiness that sounded pretty rock & roll in context.  They weren’t envelope-pushing wildmen in the vein of Jason & The Scorchers or anything, but they dressed more like pop-rockers and were young enough to not look ridiculous doing so, even when frontman Mark Miller was getting all happy-feet onstage like a cornfed Mick Jagger knockoff.  Fun song and a nice entre for a band that ended up with surprising longevity, having an eventual resurgence in the ‘90s country boom.  Charly McClain wouldn’t stick around the charts nearly as long, but “Radio Heart” was a sweetly twangy slice of heartbreak that was probably intensely relatable to big chunks of the female audience with its married-young-divorced-also-young narrative.   

Conway Twitty’s choice of material continued to be on a bit of a downward slide (although what do I know … he was still cranking out more #1s than almost anyone else ever would).  “Don’t Call Him a Cowboy” sounds like a parody of country music, something Stallone would’ve mumbled out in Rhinestone while Dolly Parton tried to be nice about it.  Clumsy sex/rodeo puns, a synthesized horse-clop rhythm track … this should’ve been (if anything) a one-hit wonder novelty for some flash in the pan, not the 34^th triumph of a legend.  His chief rival Merle Haggard both retained and enhanced his dignity with the relatively wonderful “Natural High,” again bolstered by the writing of Freddy Powers and the backing vocals of Janie Fricke.  Warm, enduring stuff.  Ricky Skaggs kind of split the difference with “Country Boy,” another hot-pickin’ showcase of bluegrass chops in a radio-country context, a bit hokey but nobody would’ve doubted his sincerity. 

The Oak Ridge Boys’ “Little Things” was kind of hokey too, but there’s some neat little synth tricks and vocal arrangements in there nodding vaguely towards new-wave pop.  So at least they were trying something new.  Ronnie Milsap cranked out one of his better ones with the warm, grateful “She Keeps the Home Fires Burning,” which alleviated his usual slickness with some believable blue-collar lyricism that embraced the country genre a bit more than usual.  Exile didn’t transcend their usual drippiness with “She’s a Miracle” (if anything they doubled down on it) but fortunately, Willie Nelson wasn’t done with the #1 spot just yet and “Forgiving You Was Easy” was just as relatable and wise as anything he’d ever written.  The production only had a little whiff of radio slickness; the country classicism of his songwriting and the distinctly undiluted twang of his vocals and guitar still prevailed.  When the torch was passed to Lee Greenwood, he made the best of it, transcending his usual whitebread balladry with the sweet, well-penned country-folk narrative of “Dixie Road.”    

Earl Thomas Conley continued to be Mr. Consistency with “Love Don’t Care (Whose Heart it Breaks),” mournful in spirit but underpinned by a hearty heartland-rock pulse.  Alabama was predictably all about the heartland as well, giving a sincere-sounding shout-out to all the paycheck strivers in the audience with “40 Hour Week (For a Livin’).”  It’s not an all-time great or anything, but there’s something to be said both artistically and commercially for country music that gives counterpoint to the escapist fantasies of ‘80s pop and rock (give or take a Bruce Springsteen or Bob Seger here and there) and makes the hard-working folks feel seen.  Hank Williams Jr., despite only occasionally snagging the #1 spot relative to some of his peers, was about as larger-than-life as a country star could hope to be at the time, but even he was capable of dialing it down to something as relatable as "I'm For Love."  If you'd about had it with the politicians and taxes and uppity doctors and, uh, cats in the house or whatever, Bocephus had your back. 

Speaking of larger than life, though … things were about to get seriously legendary.  As the ‘80s eased into the ‘90s, folks who’d been around since the ‘60s or earlier were finally starting to lose some ground to the younger, fresher acts.  But country was still a genre that, more so than most, had a lingering reverence for both its older artists and older fans that amounted to more than just lip service.  Columbia Records decided to bet on a quartet of older guys, and I doubt it ever seemed like that much of a longshot; Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings were still regular chart presences, having helped define and expand the genre since the ‘60s.  Johnny Cash predated them as a chart-topping star; Kris Kristofferson was more or less their contemporary (not to mention a bottomless well of songwriting content for all the aforementioned) but rarely got much chart action as a vocalist.  Cash – despite wandering off the charts and mostly dropping passion-project concept albums – remained a towering figure of nostalgia, and Kristofferson was as respected as a songwriter gets (not to mention a fairly famous film actor).  All of the above were no stranger to album-length collaborations with one another so teaming up to tackle a fantastic chunk of mystique like Jimmy Webb’s “Highwayman” came as natural as breathing to the whole crew.  A reincarnation narrative that starts with Willie as a noose-bound bandit and wraps up with Johnny Cash hollering about flying a starship, it’s absolutely awesome, a worthy use of the talents and personas of four unimpeachable greats.

Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers were arguably legends by this point too, albeit of a glitzier, less-grizzled pedigree than the Highwaymen, and 1983’s duet “Islands in the Stream” was certainly a big enough hit to warrant a sequel.  Like most sequels, “Real Love” has a hard time living up to the original; it’s less poetic, less unique, less hooky but still on balance a pretty sweet tune elevated by the talents and chemistry of the singers.  The younger crew took back over for a bit with The Judds’ warm, offhandedly sexy “Love is Alive” and the bittersweet sweep of Rosanne Cash’s “I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me,” with then-youngster Vince Gill’s sweet backing vocal way up in the mix like a cheery omen of yet another generation of stars to come.  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, as previously noted, weren’t exactly new but were smartly repurposed as a country hitmaking machine for a few years; “Modern Day Romance,” a mournfully clever country-rock recount of a wild little fling’s lasting impact, was another nod to country music’s future by dint of being co-written by future Brooks & Dunn superstar Kix Brooks.  The Forester Sisters’ dreamy, tuneful “I Fell in Love Again Last Night” was co-written by the prolific Paul Overstreet, who’d be a steady force in the business as both a songwriter and solo artist for years to come.  Does anybody else miss the days when the past and future of country music seemed to be in constant conversation with each other, especially to the extent of chart-topping impact?

Which, speaking of, Ronnie Milsap was more than happy to cash in on too.  “Lost in the Fifties Tonight (In the Still of the Night)” didn’t mind just beating you over the head with nostalgia, and it was a savvy move, the only country #1 of 1985 to top the charts for more than just one week (if you were wondering why this entry is so long).  And honestly I don’t wanna gripe about it too much, it sounds lovely (if not nearly as much so as co-writer Troy Seals’ aforementioned “Seven Spanish Angels”) and the singer and writers were all old enough to have actual ‘50s nostalgia, not just some cynical boomer cash-in.  “Meet Me in Montana,” by Marie Osmond and Dan Seals – penned by journeyman singer-songwriter Paul Davis – might’ve raised some purist hackles as a chart-topping country collaboration from three folks who’d wandered in from pop music.  But it’s got plenty of heart, nice lyrical detail, no shortage of rustic country imagery … I like stony authenticity as much as the next guy, but there’s something to be said for country-pop done right, and a lot of folks were nailing that balance circa 1985.  Juice Newton, for example, up next with the cheery synth-pop of “You Make Me Want to Make You Mine.”  Not gonna be mistaken for a Hank Williams cover, but easy to like on its own terms. 

The Oak Ridge Boys made another trip to the positive quasi-gospel well with “Touch a Hand, Make a Friend,” which was more nice sentiment than fully-formed song but never hard to hear.  Steve Wariner, meanwhile, scored an early home run with the rueful “Some Fools Never Learn,” couching some real heartsick lyrical bite in smooth, state-of-the-art country-pop production.  An uber-gifted vocalist and guitarist and endlessly nice guy by all accounts, his hits often veer a little too yacht-rock for my tastes, but this one’s a masterpiece.  Alabama were pretty out-on-the-yacht themselves with “Can’t Keep a Good Man Down,” Exile pretty much lived full-time on it with more dreck like “Hang On to Your Heart,” and Gary Morris took it for a spin on the lite-funk pop of “I’ll Never Stop Loving You.”  It’s weird that they retroactively call it yacht rock when most of it stays right in the middle of the road.

I’ve mentioned the anachronistic-even-back-then Statler Brothers more than a few times already, and they scored #1 one last time with “Too Much On My Heart.”  It’s got more modern (or at least then-modern) sheen that the average Stat-Bros tune, but despite a couple of clunky lyrical rhymes they really tapped into something timeless with this one.  It probably didn’t hurt that tenor singer Jimmy Fortune wrote it himself; the level of commitment he puts into a portrait of a unilaterally dying love is so heartfelt its almost terrifying in its despair, magnified by the soaring sympathy of the group’s harmony.  It’s a madly soulful performance that I’d hate to see get lost to time, begging for affection or at least a little kindness in the wake of acknowledged failures. 

Lee Greenwood seemed to be going for a similarly operatic sweep with “I Don’t Mind the Thorns (If You’re the Rose),” but at best just kind of kicks up a little generic warmth.  Earl Thomas Conley’s more modest, catchier “Nobody Falls Like a Fool” was similarly earnest but considerably better.  Appropriately enough, the year closed out with a couple of acts who were successfully bridging to the next generation of stars: George Strait, with the winking charm and conversational flow of “The Chair,” really leaned into his downhome for-the-ladies appeal.  Check out the music video sometime, it’s mostly young George staring into the camera dreamily while various hot ‘80s gals in shoulder pads squirm in their chairs at the very thought of it all.  Any of those women would’ve fit in nicely at a bachelorette party with the still-cresting The Judds, who almost literally bridged into the future by having 1985’s last #1 and 1986’s first with the bluesy plea of “Have Mercy.”  It’s my understanding that love can also build a bridge, but we’ll cross it when we come to it.            

THE TREND?

Jeez, man.  51 songs.  I guess the trend is that we’re doing our damnedest to make sure everyone has a #1, even if we gotta load four old-timers onto one song, or possibly bring in Ray Charles for reinforcement, and it doesn’t matter how great it is or how legendary they are because they aren’t getting any longer of a reign than the latest Exile joint.  Quality control seems to be slipping; yeah that Top 10 down there looks nice, but that bottom 10 leans pretty damn lame and the stuff in between seems more filler than killer.  George Strait was riding high, but largely on the strength of material that – while not explicitly retro – usually felt like it could’ve been a hit 20 years prior for one of his heroes.  The rest of the really memorable stuff was, more often than not, courtesy of warhorses like Haggard and Willie.  Troy Seals, the songwriter behind “Seven Spanish Angels,” would soon score a George Jones hit with “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes.”  Maybe he wrote it around 1985 … if the genre’s other young bucks were the likes of Lee Greenwood and Gary Morris, its hard not to imagine the concern.  If only there were some tradition-minded youngsters waiting in the wings …   

THE RANKING

1. Seven Spanish Angels – Ray Charles & Willie Nelson
2. Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind – George Strait
3. Natural High – Merle Haggard
4. Highwayman – The Highwaymen
5. I Need More of You – The Bellamy Brothers
6. Forgiving You Was Easy – Willie Nelson
7. Modern Day Romance – The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
8. I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me – Rosanne Cash
9. Make My Life With You – The Oak Ridge Boys
10. Some Fools Never Learn – Steve Wariner
11. Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On – Mel McDaniel
12. A Place to Fall Apart – Merle Haggard
13. The Chair – George Strait
14. Radio Heart – Charly McClain
15. Love Don’t Care (Whose Heart it Breaks) – Earl Thomas Conley
16. Somebody Should Leave – Reba McEntire
17. Country Boy – Ricky Skaggs
18. Step That Step – Sawyer Brown
19. Meet Me In Montana – Marie Osmond & Dan Seals
20. How Blue – Reba McEntire
21. Too Much On My Heart – The Statler Brothers
22. I’m For Love – Hank Williams Jr.
23. Dixie Road – Lee Greenwood
24. 40 Hour Week – Alabama
25. I Fell in Love Again Last Night – The Forester Sisters
26. You Make Me Want to Make You Mine – Juice Newton
27. Lost in the Fifties Tonight (In the Still of the Night) – Ronnie Milsap
28. Love is Alive – The Judds
29. Nobody Falls Like a Fool – Earl Thomas Conley
30. Real Love – Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers
31. Have Mercy – The Judds
32. There’s A Fire in the Night – Alabama
33. Baby Bye Bye – Gary Morris
34. Country Girls – John Schneider
35. Honor Bound – Earl Thomas Conley
36. She Keeps the Home Fires Burning – Ronnie Milsap
37. Can’t Keep a Good Man Down - Alabama
38. Touch a Hand, Make a Friend – The Oak Ridge Boys
39. There’s No Way – Alabama
40. I’ll Never Stop Loving You – Gary Morris
41. The Best Year of My Life – Eddie Rabbitt
42. My Only Love – The Statler Brothers
43. Don’t Call Him a Cowboy – Conway Twitty
44. Little Things – The Oak Ridge Boys
45. Ain’t She Somethin’ Else – Conway Twitty
46. Hang On To Your Heart - Exile
47. Girls’ Night Out – The Judds
48. I Don’t Mind the Thorns (If You’re the Rose) – Lee Greenwood
49. Crazy For Your Love – Exile
50. She’s A Miracle - Exile
51. Crazy – Kenny Rogers

DOWN THE ROAD ...

There are at least a couple of star-studded covers of "Seven Spanish Angels" knocking around YouTube, but nothing that the esteemed duos (Jamey Johnson & Alison Krauss, Chris Stapleton & Dwight Yoakam) ever committed to record. Most of the rest of these songs were never prominently revamped, to my knowledge, so I'd like to spotlight the obscure but talented Andrea Marie, a sweet-voiced stalwart of the Austin-area music scene. She actually did put a cover of "Natural High" on an EP almost a decade ago; it's not on streaming for now, far as I can tell, but this live version captures the alchemy of the timelessly sentimental tune and her flexible, empathetic delivery. 

1984 - darlin' I've wasted a lot of years, without seein' the real you ...

1983 was pretty heavy on the gems. Check out the top ten or so on that ranking again. Diverse styles, artists from different eras, great songwriters represented … hard not to dig that. And it was (and is) hard not to dig George Strait, scoring the first #1 of 1984 with his evergreen lament “You Look So Good in Love.” Relatable to the guys, irresistible to the gals. That little recitation on the third verse (“darlin’ I’ve wasted a lot of years, without seeing the real you…”) is icing on the ¾ time cake. Great way to kick off a year. TG Sheppard was on board too, outdoing himself with the groovier-than-usual love ballad “Slow Burn.” He didn’t always have the best taste in material, to these ears, but this one was a winner.  

John Conlee kept it downbeat too, with the devoted but complex “In My Eyes.” Talk about relatable … he could settle for amiable ditties sometimes, but even by country music standards he was an ace at plumbing some of the darker worries and fears of the common folk. Famously, Conlee was a mortician before he caught on as a country star, and never let his license expire. Guess it was good practice for staring uncomfortable realities in the face. Crystal Gayle’s swooping, dramatic “The Sound of Goodbye” wasn’t quite as affecting but it’s sincere enough in its romantic paranoia.

“Show Her” caught Ronnie Milsap in a tender mood, a bit more spare in spots than usual, which was a nice fit for him. And granted this is largely a matter of taste, but Merle Haggard out-tendered him by a mile on a hit cover of Lefty Frizzell’s sublime “That’s the Way Love Goes” that made the absolute most of his barrel-aged, time-deepened twang. Hag and whoever he was working with deserve retroactive congrats for figuring out how to frame a familiar and decidedly old-school voice in contemporary production without making it sound out of place. 

Ricky Skaggs was blending timeless and contemporary pretty damn well too. He obviously loved bluegrass and drew deeply from it but wasn’t all fuddy-duddy about it … songs like “Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown” met the production-standard demands of country radio, all crisp and shiny and percussive, while still weaving in the high twangy harmonies and acoustic chug Skaggs just wouldn’t be Skaggs without. Plus it was cool to see him tackling a bit darker of a theme. Don Williams stepped farther out on a limb than usual with “Stay Young,” a pretty rich sentiment coming from a guy who always sounded like he was born middle-aged. There’s even kind of a reggae vibe to it! Don’t know how the hell he beat the Bellamy Brothers to this one, but it’s a beauty and a nice change-up in the DW catalog.

And then you get Exile. Or sort of, anyway. A heavily reshuffled lineup of the pop band that had the big 1978 disco-ish hit “Kiss You All Over,” they were retooled by Epic Records as a country-pop band, or at least a country-pop brand. There have been about two dozen members of Exile through the years; it’s sort of like Menudo for middle-aged white guys. “Woke Up in Love” is entirely emblematic of the sort of snappy, weightless drivel they’d build the second act of their career upon. “Going, Going, Gone” by Lee Greenwood is no stone-country masterpiece, but he sounded like vintage Buck Owens by comparison. The durable old-school Statler Brothers (who could’ve taught Exile a thing or two about keeping a lineup together) swung back in with “Elizabeth,” which sounded like a Civil War folk ballad compared to all the slick contempo-pop dabblers they somehow snuck in between. Late-phase Statler Brothers could sound pretty stodgy but also somehow reassuring, the audio equivalent of a ceramic bowl of Wurther’s Originals and a Matlock rerun playing in the background at your grandparents’ house. 

Things jackknifed abruptly into Alabama’s story-song country-pop sort-of-classic “Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler).” I’m biased because this is easily one of the most-remembered, most-quoted songs of my childhood even though in retrospect I misunderstood one of the central plot points. Despite growing up in a Christian (if non-denominational) home, I’d never heard God referred to as “the man upstairs” as a child, so in that dramatic bridge where the family of the missing trucker rejoices that “the man upstairs was listenin’/when Mama asked him to bring Daddy home…” I thought they lived in an apartment and the mortal man who literally lived upstairs went above and beyond his neighborly duties and went and tracked down the beloved father and husband, dragging him out of the wrecked rig or snowbank or whatever and driving him back to his despairing family. I also thought they were singing “roll on mama like the Eskimos do” instead of “like I asked you to do.” Anyway, good song. As Janie Fricke said next, “Let’s Stop Talkin’ About It” (that one’s just ok).

Earl Thomas Conley’s “Don’t Make it Easy For Me” was his usual default sincere-midtempo-relationship-song sort of thing, good but not his best. The family act The Kendalls scored their third and last #1 hit with “Thank God For the Radio,” perhaps shrewdly aware that DJs love spinning songs that specifically kiss a little radio ass (see also: “BJ the DJ” by Stonewall Jackson). Chart veteran Johnny Lee brought fellow songwriter Lane Brody in for a duet on a rewrite of the mid-19^th-century (how’s that for old school?) anthem “The Yellow Rose of Texas” renamed simply “The Yellow Rose,” engineered to be the theme song of a primetime soap starring Cybill Shepherd called The Yellow Rose. Sounds contrived, and I guess it is, but as rewrites go it’s pretty solid and their voices blend nicely. Writing this is the first I’ve heard of the TV show, but as many a songwriter has said about a shitty relationship or rough night: “at least we got a song out of it!”

George Strait went digging back multiple decades too, unearthing the old ‘20s jazz standard “Right or Wrong” and doing his hero Bob Wills (almost certainly the version Strait was familiar with) proud in the process. Given the song’s vintage, it’s pretty cool how out-of-place it didn’t sound. The Oak Ridge Boys “I Guess It Never Hurts to Hurt Sometimes” was relatively hot off the presses, and to these ears it’s one of their best, richly and tastefully produced to get some pretty sweet dynamics out of their layered vocal harmonies and Joe Bonsall’s emotive tenor lead.

Then it was time for some high kitsch. Willie Nelson high. Nelson had spun elegant gold covering Townes Van Zandt with his buddy Merle Haggard the previous year, and soon enough he’d capture an alchemic mystique with soul legend Ray Charles on a similarly poetic number. But 1984 was the year he joined forces with cartoonishly suave international singing sensation Julio Iglesias to herald conquests past with “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.” This could’ve gotten smarmy really easily – two aging troubadours waxing about notches on their presumably expensive bedposts – but honestly it was pretty endearing. The contrast between the luxuriously dapper Spanish pop icon and the eternally scruffy bandana-clad country warhorse was immediately amusing, and the lyrics are so damn devotional considering the subject matter that everybody comes out of this looking pretty good. It’s no “Seven Spanish Angels,” but what the hell.

John Conlee humbly narrowed it down to one gal for the sweet grow-old-together ballad “As Long as I’m Rockin’ With You.” Ricky Skaggs dug into honky-tonk instead of bluegrass for a change, unearthing an old Mel Tillis/Webb Pierce collaboration with “Honey (Open That Door),” a catchy little ramblin’-gamblin’ number that sounded considerably more rakish in Pierce’s hands (check it out sometime!) but was well worth another run. Merle Haggard kept his middle-aged baritone warble in fine shape on “Someday When Things Are Good.” Then it was time for the biggest country-chart #1 debut since Julio Iglesias: the erstwhile Eddy Raven clocked in with “I Got Mexico,” a Jimmy Buffett-ish rebound tune about healing a heartache down on a Mexican seacoast somewhere. The underrated Raven (who also co-wrote the tune) was good at wringing a bit of extra emotion out of songs that sound a bit fluffy on the surface, and this was no exception.

Things got pretty direct for a bit, with Alabama scoring another #1 with the warm soft-rock cheese of “When We Make Love.” Vern Gosdin, whose well-weathered gift of a voice had been knocking around the charts for a decade at this point, finally scored his first #1 with the galloping, confident “I Can Tell by the Way You Dance (You’re Gonna Love Me Tonight).” I’m not sure how this one slipped past Conway Twitty, but it was a well-deserved shot in the arm for a lifer who’d eventually be venerated as one of the great vocalists of his day (you might’ve heard him nicknamed “The Voice” at some point). His very best work was maybe too morose to get all the way to #1, but he was canny enough to shift gears as needed.

Speaking of Conway Twitty, the slightly-retro groove of “Somebody’s Needin’ Somebody” scored him his 31^st #1. I’d like to think Twitty was easily one of the guys getting first picks from the Nashville songwriter mill, confident in his ability to elevate them even further through performance, and getting richly rewarded along the way because this one’s another gem. Then as now, I’m less high on Exile but “I Don’t Want to Be a Memory” is pleasant enough, in a background-y sort of way. Anne Murray could do pleasant in her sleep, and “Just Another Woman in Love” is one of her best, a vulnerable yet cheery paean to full-grown romance. Earl Thomas Conley kept the mid-tempo warmth going with the self-penned “Angel in Disguise.” It might not be an all-timer, but I’d like to note that in the songs he wrote and chose, Conley had an uncanny knack for making the objects of his affection sound like fleshed-out characters as opposed to the shallow hot-country-girl sketches mainstream male country music tends to hand out to us nowadays.   

Next up was probably the year’s biggest #1 debut, another new artist trying to more or less steer country music back into a more traditional, organic direction: the Judds had a big breakthrough with the warmly memorable “Mama He’s Crazy.” Wynonna Judd’s dreamy, devoted lead vocal pretty much instantly put her in the top tier of contemporary female vocalists, with the durably foxy Naomi Judd lending motherly harmonies and a big dose of middle-aged glamour that had always been more than welcome in country music (and is unfortunately sort of lost nowadays, at least on the upper reaches of the chart).

Undeterred by the newbies, the old guard was successfully sticking to their guns. Don Williams got all warm and wise and low-key on us again with “That’s the Thing About Love.” Ronnie Milsap got all big and slick and emotive on us with “Still Losing You.” Next up was a band that took a twistier path than most to their first #1: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. They’d been around since the mid-‘60s (with no less a future classic-rock titan as Jackson Browne briefly taking part), founded in California during a fertile time for local earthy country-rock pioneers. They took the country side even more seriously than some, releasing the landmark 1972 album Will The Circle Be Unbroken in collaboration with folk and country titans like Doc Watson, Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle Carter and Merle Travis. Along the way they became the first American band permitted to tour the Soviet Union, backed up Steve Martin’s comedic “King Tut” song on Saturday Night Live, had a pop hit with a Jerry Jeff Walker tune (“Mr. Bojangles”) and retooled themselves as just The Dirt Band for a rejuvenated run at the pop charts. When that fizzled, they were a much more obvious fit than, say, Exile for a run at mainstream country music and for a while were welcomed with open arms in a genre that most of their longtime fans had probably gravitated towards anyway. They wisely hit up Rodney Crowell for some material and hit the first #1 of an already-long career with the gorgeously detailed “Long Hard Road (The Sharecropper’s Dream).” I was a big fan of their greatest hits cassette as a child so maybe I’m retroactively overestimating how huge they were, but this tune was the beginning of one of the more successful music-biz redirections of the pre-Taylor Swift era.

No point in redirecting George Strait; he was as reliably tasteful and relatable as always on the fiddle-and-steel waltz of “Let’s Fall to Pieces Together,” another one of those songs that’s so sweet in the delivery that it gives barroom hookups a good name. Dolly Parton was unenviably saddled with making Sylvester Stallone look credible as a country star wannabe in Rhinestone (it’ll always be hard to say how much of the movie’s comedy was intentional) but in the meantime she managed to squeeze a #1 hit out of it with the sweet, yodeling ramble of “Tennessee Homesick Blues.” And then, right on the heels of this nice run of legends (both contemporary and in-the-making) you’ve got the year’s biggest fluke with Jim Glaser and “You’re Gettin’ to Me Again” landing at #1. The brother of ‘70s “outlaw country” cohort Tompall Glaser, Jim had been a bit of an under-the-radar success as a songwriter and backup vocalist since the ‘60s. He’d popped up in the lower reaches of the Top 100 over a dozen times before, but for some reason, the weightless country-pop of “You’re Gettin’ to Me Again” got the rocket strapped to it.  Glaser was pushing 50 by this point; he’d been a part of some much better songs over a long and obscure career but somehow this one grabbed the brass ring and none of his future work got particularly close. He even won Best New Male Vocalist at the 1984 Academy of Country Music Awards (also up for it: four other guys you’ve never heard of). Long as we’re getting obscure here, some lady named Gus Hardin won Best New Female Vocalist that year, but has the more interesting footnote of beating future stars Amy Grant, Lorrie Morgan, and Kathy Mattea. So someone in the biz was looking out for Jim Glaser, but I guess they got distracted in pretty short order.

Merle Haggard continued to be a legend still riding his peak; he could knock out sly little hard-country nuggets like “Let’s Chase Each Other Around the Room” in his sleep and watch ‘em glide right up the charts, cutting through the upstarts and wannabes like a steel guitar lick through an ‘80s sound mix. Crystal Gayle was on a roll too, with the lovelorn “Turning Away” taking over at #1 … nice tune, although I don’t remember it at all somehow. The Oak Ridge Boys drew from their gospel roots again with the bighearted call-and-response of “Everyday” serving up some counterweight to the usual cheatin’/drinkin’/heartbreakin’ vibe. Ricky Skaggs was doing some roots-diggin’ himself (when was he not?), masterfully covering Bill Monroe’s hot-picking hoedown “Uncle Pen” and getting rewarded with a #1. Conway Twitty’s warm, really-familiar-by-now vocal dynamics brought out the best in a sort of slight tune with “I Don’t Know a Thing About Love (The Moon Song).” Lots of real-deal pros making easy-to-like and sort-of-surprisingly diverse music for the countrified masses. Alabama hit another home run (at least chart-wise … the song’s memorable but nothing groundbreaking) with the hoedown-rock mashup of “If You’re Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band,” which I’m sure was news to ZZ Top.

Willie Nelson continued to be admirably restless in his search for material, landing this time on Steve Goodman’s passenger-train folk epic “City of New Orleans” and delivering it like it belonged to his warm, distinctive twang all along. Following up was the less-legendary but (at least at the time) comparably-famous John Schneider with his first #1, the hard-country kiss-off of “I’ve Been Around Enough to Know.” Schneider was mostly known as one of the stars of the red-hot, red-necked, kid-friendly primetime TV show The Dukes of Hazzard, which of course had huge demographic overlap with the country radio audience; putting Schneider’s name (or, perhaps even more can’t-miss, picture) on pretty much any tossed-off country single guaranteed at least moderate success. It didn’t have to be a good song, but to these ears it was, and it wouldn’t be his last run at the top. Exile’s annoyingly chipper “Give Me One More Chance” somehow took over, a harbinger of a string of forgettable tunes to round out the year. Johnny Lee’s “You Could’ve Heard a Heart Break,” Janie Fricke’s “Your Heart’s Not in It,” and Earl Thomas Conley’s “Chance of Lovin’ You” were all decent tunes that pretty much evaporated as soon as the DJ changed records. Anne Murray’s duet with folk-pop dude Dave Loggins, “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do,” was more actively annoying in that drippy power-ballad-without-the-power way; usually Murray could do pillowy-soft and still stop short of cloying, but perhaps Loggins dragged her across the saccharine Rubicon. The Judds’ “Why Not Me” wasn’t necessarily evergreen, but after five relative duds in a row it felt like a breath of fresh countrified air. Which is good, because we might as well get used to them.                

THE TREND?

I don’t want to just dismissively wave my hand at a whole year’s worth of songs, but does anybody else sense a bit of the mid-decade doldrums setting in? Even looking at the Top 10 or 15 there in my entirely-scientific ranking, there’s a lot of stuff I’m always glad to listen to but there’s also a lot of cover songs, some things our Yankee friends might call schmaltz or kitsch, some solid songs by worthy artists who’ve done better work elsewhere, etc. It’s not like Nashville abruptly turned into some risible crap factory in December 1983, it’s just that the wheat-to-chaff ratio seems to have gone the wrong direction.  If I were a bigger fan of The Judds maybe their introduction to the #1s club would be reason enough to chalk this up as a banner year. But as it is, I’m seeing a dip buoyed by a few bright spots, an encroaching blandness despite (or sometimes because of?) some newer faces in the mix.        

THE RANKING 

1. You Look So Good in Love – George Strait
2. City of New Orleans – Willie Nelson
3. That’s the Way Love Goes – Merle Haggard
4. Let’s Fall to Pieces Together – George Strait
5. Stay Young – Don Williams
6. Right or Wrong – George Strait
7. I Can Tell by the Way You Dance (You’re Gonna Love Me Tonight) – Vern Gosdin
8. I Guess it Never Hurts to Hurt Sometimes – The Oak Ridge Boys
9. Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler) – Alabama
10. To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before – Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias
11. Long Hard Road (Sharecropper’s Dream) – The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
12. Uncle Pen – Ricky Skaggs
13. Somebody’s Needin’ Somebody – Conway Twitty
14. Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown – Ricky Skaggs
15. Tennessee Homesick Blues – Dolly Parton
16. The Yellow Rose – Johnny Lee & Lane Brody
17. I Got Mexico – Eddy Raven
18. If You’re Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band) - Alabama
19. Honey (Open That Door) – Ricky Skaggs
20. I Don’t Know a Thing About Love (The Moon Song) – Conway Twitty
21. As Long as I’m Rockin’ With You – John Conlee
22. Someday When Things Are Good – Merle Haggard
23. Mama He’s Crazy – The Judds
24. That’s the Thing About Love – Don Williams
25. Just Another Woman in Love – Anne Murray
26. I’ve Been Around Enough to Know – John Schneider
27. Angel in Disguise – Earl Thomas Conley
28. When We Make Love - Alabama
29. In My Eyes – John Conlee
30. Slow Burn – TG Sheppard
31. Why Not Me – The Judds
32. Your Heart’s Not in It – Janie Fricke
33. Let’s Chase Each Other Around the Room – Merle Haggard
34. Don’t Make it Easy For Me – Earl Thomas Conley
35. The Sound of Goodbye – Crystal Gayle
36. Elizabeth – The Statler Brothers
37. Turning Away – Crystal Gayle
38. The Chance of Lovin’ You – Earl Thomas Conley
39. Thank God For the Radio – The Kendalls
40. Everyday – The Oak Ridge Boys
41. I Don’t Want to Be a Memory - Exile
42. Let’s Stop Talkin’ About It – Janie Fricke
43. Still Losing You – Ronnie Milsap
44. You Could’ve Heard a Heart Break – Johnny Lee
45. Show Her – Ronnie Milsap
46. Give Me One More Chance - Exile
47. You’re Gettin’ To Me Again – Jim Glaser
48. Nobody Loves Me Like You – Anne Murray & Dave Loggins
49. Going, Going, Gone – Lee Greenwood
50. Woke Up in Love - Exile

DOWN THE ROAD ...

I guess this wasn't a huge year for songs that'd eventually be prominently covered. "City of New Orleans" and "That's the Way Love Goes" were covers anyway, and George Strait's own staying power on the country charts made him an unlikely subject for revival, and plus yeah some of the other stuff's pretty blah. But I'm happy to say a worthy update of "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" exists, charismatically delivered by Raul Malo (perhaps best known as frontman of The Mavericks) and grizzled singer-songwriter Jamey Johnson. Both guys sort of helped pave the way for the current Americana/indie-country boom, each getting just enough Nashville success to attain some relevance en route to following their own muses. They aren't as humorously contrasted as Willie & Julio were once upon a time, although Malo's Latin smoothness and Johnson's outlaw bonafides echo the originators enough to be clever. Sure, they don't bear the same buzz of international-superstar wattage, but damn if they aren't really, really good singers. 

1983 - breath as hard as kerosene ...

1983 is one of those years like we’ve talked about before, where it feels like the industry just looked at the previous year and said yeah, that was pretty good, let’s just have another round of that. Similar balance of older artists vs newer, tradition vs. crossover, substance vs. fluff. As with many second helpings, it’s not quite as satisfying as the first. But if you skipped it entirely, you’d be missing some good stuff.

John Anderson’s excellent “Wild and Blue” carried over from 1982 with one of those increasingly rare two-week runs at the top before handing over to someone who’d be even more consequential, at least commercially: Reba McEntire. We’re very much in soundtrack-to-my-childhood territory here and honestly I don’t remember Reba being a big deal until a few years later, but she was scoring intermittently before she became the powerhouse female vocalist of her era. “Can’t Even Get the Blues” seems like a bit of a trifle, as is often the case when somebody who specializes in romantic ballads decides they need to put out something upbeat now and then just to change it up. For all her talents, “bluesy” was never a great fit.

“Going Where the Lonely Go,” meanwhile, was one hell of a mid-career triumph for Merle Haggard. Sure, staying relevant was a victory in itself, although the country music industry was generally kinder than most to the middle-agers. But the self-penned tune showed the longtime star never lost his common touch for down-to-earth heartache, and his voice was aging like a fine bourbon. It’s probably the earliest example I can remember of when I decided something was my favorite song.  I guess at around seven years old I was already into road-weary melancholy. That hasn’t changed much.

Emmylou Harris had broken through as a very early example of “alt-country” when she was Gram Parsons’ righthand gal, and she’d drift back there soon enough, but 1983 was well within the sweet spot when she could cover Conway Twitty covering Floyd Cramer on “(Lost His Love) On Our Last Date” and ride it to #1. Mickey Gilley was still on his kind-of-puzzling but undeniable roll with “Talk to Me,” an old Little Willie John chestnut smoothed out for the country-pop charts. Ronnie Milsap was in his imperial phase as well, with “Inside” tackling a complicated, Beatles-meet-James-Taylor sort of melody that’s technically impressive but a bit cold when it’s all said and done. Another very 1983 sort of artist, Crystal Gayle, snagged the next #1 with a cover of Rodney Crowell’s “Til I Gain Control Again.” Most longtime country fans are familiar with this longing beauty of a song, and I don’t know about the rest of them but I always associated it with Crowell himself or the timeless versions by Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris. I wasn’t aware until “researching” this (i.e., driving around listening to music) that Gayle had a version, much less a #1 hit version, but anyhow it’s lovely. One of the best things she ever recorded, although it’s been overshadowed by other tunes that she more or less had all to herself.

TG Sheppard and Karen Brooks’ “Faking Love” has kind of disappeared from cultural memory too, but probably more because it’s drippy lightweight pseudo-funk than any overshadowing issues. Warhorse-by-then Charley Pride scored again with a cover of George Jones decades-old hit “Why Baby Why,” which seems weird since Jones was still often on the chart right next to him.  Don Williams stuck to his mellow guns with “If Hollywood Don’t Need You (Honey I Still Do),” which might be far from his best work but didn’t stray from his usual twilit charm. Veterans continued to rule the roost as Conway Twitty scored with his impassioned take on “The Rose,” which had been a Bette Midler movie soundtrack hit a few years back. Midler didn’t exactly have a small, personality-free voice, but Twitty still masterfully made this one his own. It goes so big I’m sure it at least teeters on the edge of cheese for some listeners, but I’m still down with it.  

Ricky Skaggs’ traditionalist approach didn’t have much room for Bette Midler covers, but to me the bluegrass-informed likes of “I Wouldn’t Change You if I Could” has a whiff of cheese to it too. Skaggs could tackle emotionally messy stuff too, but sometimes the man was just too wholesome for these ears (which is maybe more of a knock on me than on him). John Anderson came barreling back to the top with what would come to be his signature hit, “Swingin’.” You could argue this one falls into the cheese category too, but it’s so damn fun and seems self-aware in its depiction of folksy young romance with all the organ riffs and horn sections you could ever ask for to put this kind of catchy trifle way over the top. And who hits the vocal balance of genial and weathered better than John Anderson? If this is cheese I’ll take two pounds.

The Bellamy Brothers’ “When I’m Away From You” was more breezy than cheesy, another welcome dose of their lighthearted romanticism that’s been kind of overshadowed by their even-bigger hits. “We’ve Got Tonight,” by Kenny Rogers duetting with country legend Sheena Easton, was not breezy enough. A then-recent pop-rock hit for Detroit legend Bob Seger, it suffers mightily in comparison to the original. Seger could transfix a crowd by shifting gears from R&B-fueled powerhouse to sensitive balladeer without losing too much of his vocal gusto. Rogers was a hell of a singer, and Easton was technically gifted enough, but they’ve got so little chemistry with this song and with each other that they just sound overwrought at best.

“Dixieland Delight” was of a piece with “Swingin.’” It’s goofy on paper, with all the folksy lines about doin’ a little turtledovin’ (read: truck sex) while the chubby little groundhogs watch, but in execution it kind of rocks. No horn sections, but some stadium-rock power chords breaking it down at the end before transitioning into a fevered fiddle hoedown … it’s a master class in country-rock dynamics, I know some jaded listeners might write it off as pandering but there was never really any indication that the guys in Alabama weren’t totally the wholesome shit-kickers they usually presented as. The Oak Ridge Boys took a swing at the down-home common touch too with “American Made” but didn’t do half as well. Sounds nice enough, but the brand-name-dropping about foreign-made products probably already felt dated by the time the song’s chart run wrapped up.

Reba McEntire’s second #1 was much more in her wheelhouse. “You’re the First Time I Thought About Leaving” was a lovely, emotionally complex waltz, an almost-cheating ballad that probably hit some uncomfortable nerves on the way to the top, just like you’d want real music for real people to sometimes do. Next up was Shelly West with “Jose Cuervo,” a good-time country-pop ode to boozy adventure that’s more memorable than its modest ambitions might suggest. For one, I’d long assumed that this tune was from the mid ‘70s at the latest; it just seemed like it had always been around by 1983. And as a kid, it seemed a little gender-ambiguous; Ms. West has a rounded, sort-of-deep-for-a-female tone to her voice that sure sounded like it might’ve been a guy singing about waking up next to cowboys and dancing on the bar. In an era when gay people often went unmentioned or were mentioned with contempt, it seemed like an odd thing to hear on the radio, or at all. Maybe that’s why West did so many duets with David Frizzell; his gravelly masculinity made her voice more obviously feminine by contrast.

Next up was the also-plenty-masculine BJ Thomas, who’d drifted over from the easy-listening charts as the glory days of AM-friendly pop dried up, and lent his usual genial warmth to “Whatever Happened to Old-Fashioned Love.” Chart regular John Conlee, who couldn’t have gone pop with a mouthful of firecrackers, went sunnier than usual with “Common Man.” It’s a POV tale from a regular working-class dude romanced by a well-meaning heiress of some sort, politely rejecting her upper-crust trappings in favor of Budweiser and Chevrolet. He wants the girl, sure, but he wants her in a more down-to-earth setting free from garish Mercedes and snobby-ass pedigreed dogs. The Thomas and Conlee songs fit nicely in a paragraph together because, while not without charm, they both hint at sort of a regressive social undercurrent where old-fashioned and blue-collar are put up on a pedestal. Things were better in the past and should be more like that now, and while we’re at it living simply yet surrounded by affordable brand-name indulgences is a sign of unpretentious good character. Nothing wrong with a little nostalgia or trying to find some contentment in modest means, of course, but these sort of sentiments would just get more prevalent and (in some hands) more obnoxious as time went on.

Merle Haggard, of course, still sounded pretty blue-collar a couple of decades into a very successful entertainment career: “You Take Me For Granted” brimmed with resigned vulnerability and timeless hurt. Waylon Jennings continued to kick it defiantly old-school, reshaping Little Richard’s oldie “Lucille (You Won’t Do Your Daddy’s Will)” into something more lonesome, ornery and mean than ever would’ve occurred to the flamboyant piano-pounder. Then things got fairly slick again with Crystal Gayle’s sad-yet-bouncy “Our Love is On the Faultline” and Eddie Rabbitt’s usual yacht-rock smoothness on “You Can’t Run From Love.”  Mickey Gilley leaned on his usual loungey vibe for “Fool For Your Love” and Don Williams spiced up his usual mellow country-folk vibe with quirkier-than-usual lyrics courtesy of this author’s personal favorite songwriter John Prine on “Love Is On a Roll.”  Several veterans in a row there, more or less sticking with what usually worked best for them.

Relative upstart Ricky Skaggs kicked things up a notch, showing off his hot-pickin’ prowess with the restless chug of “Highway 40 Blues.” Alabama yet again successfully split the difference between a rocker and a ballad with the catchy, state-of-the-art country-pop of “The Closer You Get.” Pleasant enough stuff, but things took a deeper and darker turn when legendary buddies Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard sunk their teeth into Texas folkie Townes Van Zandt’s masterful, mysterious “Pancho and Lefty.” Van Zandt’s legend had been quietly building in songwriting-connoisseur circles for well over a decade by then; he didn’t really have the voice or enough of a handle on his personal demons to be a breakout star himself, and by the ‘80s the business wasn’t really looking for another Bob Dylan type anymore anyway. But critics were paying attention, and so were other songwriters (Emmylou Harris had also cut this one), including Willie and Merle who of course could give it all the grizzled grace it deserved. An obliquely poetic tale of crime, brotherhood, and regret, it was easily the oddest thing to top the country charts in 1983 and arguably the very best.   

George Jones went loungier than usual for “I Always Get Lucky With You,” which was a pretty great fit for the sweet-but-kinda-skeevy message of the song, and as per usual there’s no lack of vocal investment. Earl Thomas Conley’s “Your Love’s on the Line” wasn’t one of his strongest tunes, but dude was on a roll … it was good enough to snag another #1. Janie Fricke’s brisk, busy “He’s a Heartache (Looking for a Place to Happen)” hasn’t held up great; she was usually at her strongest milking a heartbroken ballad for all it was worth, but could come off kind of chirpy when up-tempo. The Oak Ridge Boys picked up the pace too, with “Love Song” hearkening back to the gospel-group roots that had evolved into kind of a side hustle during their run as mainstream country hitmakers. Not a great tune, but they were talented enough to do an approximation of black gospel without coming off totally ridiculous.

Ronnie McDowell did sort of an approximation of the Bellamy Brothers with the breezy, tropical-tinged story song “You’re Gonna Ruin My Bad Reputation,” a reformed-playa ballad that’s sweet in execution and smart in lyrical detail. George Strait continued the incipient stages of his decades-long roll with the stately hurt of “A Fire I Can’t Put Out,” milking the old-flame lyrical cliché for all it was worth and then some. John Conlee went bouncier than usual, which was sort of the vibe of the year, with the VSC bop of “I’m Only In It For the Love.” Charley Pride was ready for the variety show stage too on the vaguely disco-ish “Night Games,” finally emboldened to sing about some illicit sex as he drifted into middle age.

Tenderness took over for a stretch. Crystal Gayle’s pensive but tuneful “Baby What About You” was one of her finer moments on record, a smartly spare lover’s lament that showcased her wisely. BJ Thomas sang about getting “New Looks from an Old Lover” with the sort of dusky maturity that probably emboldened a whole generation of rebounding divorcees. Ronnie Milsap reverted to his usual MOR melodic dexterity for the laid-back, catchy “Don’t You Know How Much I Love You.” I know most of us have probably lost count by now, but this was his 23^rd #1 … I know I might come off as a bit dismissive of the man’s catalog, so I’d like to temper that with some credit where it’s due.

Charly McClain didn’t share Milsap’s chart dominance … she’d been trying for a half-decade before she broke through in 1981 with the evergreen “Who’s Cheatin’ Who” and subsequently flitted in and out of the Top 10 before teaming up with chart warhorse Mickey Gilley for the almost psychotically cheerful “Paradise Tonight.” A chipper anthem to two lonelyhearts breaking a streak of bad luck with a barroom hookup so fortunate it starts to sound wholesome, it had a strong whiff of contemporary pop to it (synth handclaps and all) but also served as proof that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Alabama’s empathetic, stripped-down bummer “Lady Down on Love” could’ve been a prequel to that one … a tender character study with a self-recriminating plot twist, it’s one of their best, and possibly one of the most down-tempo songs to ever hit #1. But then it’s back to wholesomely sexy cheerfulness with Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton’s “Islands in the Stream,” which comes off a little like they heard “Paradise Tonight” and said “oh yeah? Watch this.” Highly amplified star power, of course. Instead of approximating modern pop, just outright hijacking an actual Bee Gees song. Cooing and growling sweet poetic nothings about peace unknown and walking the night, slowly losing sight of the real thing … it’s the best kind of cheese, from two superstars that had real-deal chemistry. 

Easing into the holidays, you’ve got Lee Greenwood’s first #1 “Somebody’s Gonna Love You,” the kind of harmlessly smooth, quietly catchy yacht-country he’d eventually be second-best-known for. A year later he’d put out “God Bless the USA,” which astoundingly in retrospect barely cracked the Top 10 even in the gung-ho Reagan years. It’s common in snark circles to write off Greenwood as an opportunistic schmuck, unknown except for the one patriotic hit that ensured he’d have star-spangled mailbox money for life and at least one big gig (usually televised and on the deck of battleship) around early July every year. But this was the first of seven #1 hits, and others came close. They lean pretty watery, in that Eddie Rabbitt/Ronnie Milsap kind of way that was selling at the time. But it should be said that there was more to him than that one hit that’s sat just a couple notches below our actual national anthem in the patriotic-song pantheon for the last few decades.

Barbara Mandrell (who’d have a couple of hit duets with Greenwood in the years to come) continued her variety-show vibes with the cheated-on anthem “One of a Kind Pair of Fools.” Earl Thomas Conley hit one of the highest points in an underrated career with the downbeat, conflicted “Holding Her and Loving You.” It’s not terribly easy to drum up sympathy (“it’s the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do …”) for a two-timer but Conley pulls it off with some pretty nifty word economy and no shortage of pained but not-overdone vocal commitment. Anne Murray went vaguely topical with “A Little Good News,” a folksy anthem wishing away violence and strife with straight-faced lines like “nobody was assassinated in the whole wide world today” that somehow work just fine in context. Janie Fricke narrowed things back down to a more personal struggle with the lingering despair of “Tell Me a Lie,” a tenderly realized invitation for a cheesy barroom come-on just when she needs it most. Fricke did vulnerability really, really well.

As the year closes out we get John Anderson again with “Black Sheep,” which is an absolute roadhouse blast of a country-rock anthem. A cleverly-sketched POV tale from a blue-collar plugger with a waitress wife and a bunch of high-toned rich siblings that either ignore or look down on him, there’s just not a thing about it that doesn’t work. Anderson’s grinning, nasal-honk delivery. Those awesomely specific detailed lyrics about jacuzzis and big ol’ Japanese yachts. Even the sax solo doesn’t muck up the relentless bar-band chug. It just rips, and still holds up like a million bucks today.

And then there’s Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers (Larry’s always gotta remind everyone who’s boss) with the relatively toothless “Houston (Means I’m One Day Closer to You).” I wondered if this was all over the radio during my childhood because I grew up in the Houston metropolitan area, but in reflection it looks like it was huge everywhere. It got a two-week run at the top in an era when that was increasingly rare. It’s catchy enough I guess; it was a good year for upbeat ditties of various sorts, and “Houston” is about as ditty as it gets.            

THE TREND?

The mix of veterans and upstarts continued apace, with Reba McEntire as the year’s breakthrough right on the heels of Strait, Skaggs, et al. And this might not have been a consistent theme – there were still plenty of sad songs and waltzes to go around – but along with the mini-wave of newer artists there also seemed to be a trend to more fun, upbeat, good-humored numbers.  “Dixieland Delight,” “Swingin’,” “Jose Cuervo,” “Islands in the Stream,” “Black Sheep” … hell, even the haunting “Pancho and Lefty” has a chorus that’s fun to sing along with. Maybe the country music industry was getting a little more aware of the non-listener’s stereotype of country music as wall-to-wall sad bastard laments about cheatin’ hearts. But even the great Hank Williams was also all about the “Hey Good Lookin’” and “Honky Tonkin’” in between bouts of haunted despair. Perhaps while Nashville was trying to draw in younger listeners with younger artists, they were also trying to pull some happier listeners with happier songs. 

THE RANKING:

1. Pancho and Lefty – Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard
2. Black Sheep – John Anderson
3. Going Where the Lonely Go – Merle Haggard
4. Islands in the Stream – Kenny Rogers with Dolly Parton
5. Til I Gain Control Again – Crystal Gayle
6. A Fire I Can’t Put Out – George Strait
7. Dixieland Delight - Alabama
8. Swingin’ – John Anderson
9. Holding Her and Loving You – Earl Thomas Conley
10. Lady Down on Love - Alabama
11. Lost His Love (On Our Last Date) – Emmylou Harris
12. I Always Get Lucky With You – George Jones
13. The Rose – Conway Twitty
14. Love is On a Roll – Don Williams
15. Baby What About You – Crystal Gayle
16. Highway 40 Blues – Ricky Skaggs
17. If Hollywood Don’t Need You (Honey I Still Do) – Don Williams
18. You’re the First Time I’ve Thought About Leaving – Reba McEntire
19. You Take Me For Granted – Merle Haggard
20. You’re Gonna Ruin My Bad Reputation – Ronnie McDowell
21. The Closer You Get – Alabama
22. Tell Me a Lie – Janie Fricke
23. When I’m Away From You – The Bellamy Brothers
24. Lucille (You Won’t Do Your Daddy’s Will) – Waylon Jennings
25. A Little Good News – Anne Murray
26. Jose Cuervo – Shelly West
27. Your Love’s On the Line – Earl Thomas Conley
28. Can’t Even Get the Blues – Reba McEntire
29. I Wouldn’t Change You if I Could – Ricky Skaggs
30. I’m Only In It For the Love – John Conlee
31. Don’t You Know How Much I Love You – Ronnie Milsap
32. Night Games – Charley Pride
33. New Looks From an Old Lover – BJ Thomas
34. Our Love is On the Faultline – Crystal Gayle
35. Why Baby Why – Charley Pride
36. Whatever Happened to Old Fashioned Love – BJ Thomas
37. Paradise Tonight – Charly McClain and Mickey Gilley
38. Common Man – John Conlee
39. We’ve Got Tonight – Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton
40. He’s A Heartache (Looking For A Place to Happen) – Janie Fricke
41. Houston (Means That I’m One Day Closer to You) – Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers
42. One of a Kind Pair of Fools – Barbara Mandrell
43. Somebody’s Gonna Love You – Lee Greenwood
44. Love Song – The Oak Ridge Boys
45. Fool For Your Love – Mickey Gilley
46. You Can’t Run From Love – Eddie Rabbitt
47. Inside – Ronnie Milsap
48. Talk To Me – Mickey Gilley
49. American Made – The Oak Ridge Boys
50. Faking Love – TG Sheppard

DOWN THE ROAD ...

Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant is about as classic-rock-royalty as it gets; as much as his old warhorse band liked reshaping or flat-out copycatting old Delta blues, I guess it wasn't the only American music genre he had a soft spot for. His relatively recent team-ups with onetime bluegrass prodigy turned somewhat-of-a-country-star Alison Krauss revealed that the sweet-voiced acoustic maestra had kind of a complementary thing for gracefully aging arena rockers too. Their collaborations were big with the Grammy voters and the NPR-ish roots-music crowd and tastefully repurposed a well-curated mix of early rock and pop tunes, folk nuggets and singer-songwriter fare, and at least one stone country classic in Merle Haggard's "Going Where the Lonely Go." Steering into the wistful dreaminess of it all instead of trying to match Hag's hard-lonesome delivery - a tall order even for talents on the level of Plant and Krauss - they handled it beautifully.