Maybe I was getting a little ahead of myself crowing about how the “new traditionalists” were taking over. Of course things never really change that abruptly in country music. Sure, Highway 101’s awesome, rootsy “Somewhere Tonight” might’ve carried over into the first week of 1988, but Exile was waiting in the wings with the weightlessly catchy easy listening of “I Can’t Get Close Enough” right afterwards. Dan Seals, despite looking good in a cowboy hat, was still more James Taylor than George Jones and “One Friend” is as obvious an example as any. Ronnie Milsap was still typically slicker than owl shit, plus snoozier than usual on “Where Do the Nights Go.” KT Oslin had clearly already cracked the door open for earthy female folkies because Kathy Mattea scored her first #1 with “Goin’ Gone.” I generally like Mattea but I’m not sure why that one captured the zeitgeist.
Things
perked back up for a bit. Restless Heart was plenty slick but “Wheels” landed
on the right side of upbeat and breezy, not forgetting that even country-pop
needs a pulse. Rosanne Cash, after years of proving she didn’t need to ride her
famous dad’s name or image, finally paid direct tribute to the old man with a
beautifully realized cover of “Tennessee Flat Top Box.” And despite the
industry tide finally turning against the veteran stars as the ‘80s wrapped up,
Merle Haggard scored a #1 befitting a legend with the winsome, jazz-laced
“Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star.” It was a 34th and final #1 hit,
setting a record for the moment (Hag and Conway Twitty were back-and-forth on
this for a long time) and soon followed by a slide down the country charts into
the nostalgia circuit.
Haggard
would continue to be a solid live draw and as respected-elder as it gets pretty
much up to his passing away in 2016; what he had as an artist couldn’t be
duplicated but it sure as hell resonated. In the ‘80s he was sharing the charts
with younger folks like Strait, Travis, and more we’ll get to later in this
entry that wouldn’t have sounded the same without his influence; if anything,
his influence would be even more pronounced on not only the next round of
genre-defining superstars but also on the fledgling alt-country movement
cropping up in its shadows. Even if you reductively narrow it down to the songs
he took to #1, Haggard’s embrace of his own complexities – tough and tender,
mean and warm, repentant and proud, conservative and iconoclastic - left a
footprint like none other in American music. A highly successful, enduringly
famous man who somehow never forgot what it was like to be poor and desperate,
and could put that to words like no one else.
Tanya
Tucker was one of the few folks around who could summon up a comparable does of
gut-level grit, which could anchor a song as sunny as “I Won’t Take Less Than
Your Love” from drifting into church-camp guilelessness. A trio with the
relatively obscure Paul Davis and Paul Overstreet, it’s a kindhearted little
number about the common thread of selflessness between romantic, paternal, and
divine love, a bit cloying if you’re not in the mood for it but it means well. Alabama
was still going strong and would be for a while; on “Face to Face” they brought
KT Oslin along for the ride for a rare duet. It’s almost too earnest to count
as sexy, although Oslin’s hearty delivery gets it over the line. Randy Travis
picked up his usual tempo for the hearty, humorous swing of “Too Gone Too
Long,” and Ricky Van Shelton slowed his way the hell down for the morose but
empathetic "Life Turned Her That Way.” Recorded in past decades by Little
Jimmie Dickens and Mel Tillis, it held up well to the test of time, largely
forgotten but well worth a dust-off.
The
Judds went back to blues-inflected grooves with “Turn It Loose,” kind of
generic but Wynonna’s committed lead vocal gives it some spark. Reba McEntire
sidestepped her usual anthems of domestic heartache for the annoyingly bouncy
“Love Will Find It’s Way to You,” a variety show country (remember VSC?) time
filler if there ever was one. George Strait went full heartache on “Famous Last
Words of a Fool,” another Dean Dillon gem worth its weight in whiskey-soaked
regret. It was a nice one-week break before Eddie Rabbitt dialed up the VCS knob
to eleven on “I Wanna Dance With You,” a number so aggressively chipper I guess
it just burned right through the other side of my memory bank.
KT
Oslin continued on her welcome but improbable roll with “I’ll Always Come
Back,” another self-penned touchstone of grown-up romance and charm. She may
have been later to the party but she was certainly of a piece with longtime chart
ruler Rosanne Cash, who joined up with her then-husband Rodney Crowell on “It’s
Such a Small World.” Not to be confused with the aggravating Disney ride
soundtrack, this was the first single off of Crowell’s landmark Diamonds
& Dirt album, which would briefly hold a record for the most
consecutive #1s off of a country album. Crowell might’ve seemed like an offbeat
choice for a sudden mainstream solo push: as a songwriter, he’d been scoring
cuts on big albums since the mid-‘70s, backing up cohorts like Emmylou Harris
and his wife Cash as a bandmate and producer, and gradually accumulating a
reputation as one of the best and most distinctive writers this side of
Kristofferson. But although this phenomenon has largely disappeared in the
sheen of youthful glamor and limited competencies that is modern country-pop,
for decades it was pretty common in Nashville for someone who’d been kicking
ass in the shadows for a decade or two to get called up to the big leagues. With
Crowell it certainly ended up being a good bet, at least in the short
term.
Highway
101 continued to be torchbearers for modern honky tonk, punching up with the
gritty goodness of “Cry, Cry, Cry,” equal parts toughness and despair. Eddy
Raven went more genial with “I’m Gonna Get You,” a catchy bit of country-pop
brought back down to earth by some nice Cajun-inflected fiddles. A Lafayette,
Louisiana native, Raven’s knack for working bits of Cajun sound and imagery
into his work made him more distinctive than the average journeyman country
singer and gave him a niche avenue to explore when the hits eventually dried
up. Kathy Mattea continued to play the hot hand with maybe her most-remembered
tune, “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses.” She might’ve been more coffeehouse
folkie than honky tonk angel, but the indelible tale of a soon-retired trucker
and his lady love was about as country as it needs to get.
Earl
Thomas Conley continued his subtly winning ways with “What She Is (Is a Woman
in Love),” giving his own pen a rest to borrow one from the great Bob McDill,
who was probably already kind of missing Don Williams having big hits. Randy
Travis’ hot streak continued unabated with the classic “I Told You So,” a hooky
but layered lament about reaping what one sows. Like “Forever and Ever Amen,”
it scored a then-rare two-week run on top. And then it was time for a first run
at the top for The Desert Rose Band with “He’s Back and I’m Blue.” A crew of
roots-rock veterans out of California headed up by no less a luminary than
Chris Hillman, a former Byrd and Flying Burrito Brother, their noble mission to
bring those old bluegrass and Bakersfield influences full circle back to the
top of the country charts proved successful for a little while. They’d already
come close a couple of times with subtle bangers like “One Step Forward,” but
this sweet little slow-dancer with lots of earthy harmonies scored them a #1.
Tanya
Tucker continued to be on a bit of a comeback roll; “If It Don’t Come Easy” had
a bit of that VSC razzle-dazzle but Tucker’s lived-in, committed vocal kept it
down to earth enough. Alabama never lost enough momentum to need a comeback;
“Fallin’ Again” was a slight departure from the soft-rock stuff they’d been
drifting towards on their singles, sounding in structure and production like an
earnest Bob Seger knockoff. The earthy side of arena rock served them well; the
song didn’t have much of a hook, but the sound holds up great. Rosanne Cash
continued to class up the joint; “If You Change Your Mind” isn’t one of her
best-remembered hits, but it does bring to mind mid-period Beatles with its
melodic tightness, lyrical economy and unforced sweetness. Vern Gosdin – one of
the very last examples of a hard-country vet getting a relatively late-life run
at the charts – grizzled up the joint with the wry Ernest Tubb nod “Set ‘Em Up
Joe.” Ricky Van Shelton was right on his heels, grabbing that hard-country
torch and lighting up the mournful waltz of “Don’t We All Have the Right,” a
ruefully clever obscurity from the legendary Roger Miller. If the younger crowd
that the New Traditionalists were roping in started getting into Ernest Tubb
and Roger Miller, noble mission accomplished.
Time
for a trio of eye-themed songs. George Strait took an inevitable trip to #1
with one of his loveliest ballads, “Baby Blue.” A tender triumph in any context,
it got extra resonance with fans who were aware Strait’s teenage daughter had
passed away in a car accident in 1986; it’s clearly more of a song about
romantic loss than family love, but all the same it echoes. Speaking of things
retroactively given more gravity by tragedy … Keith Whitley scored the first of
a remarkable, almost game-changing run of #1s with the indelible “Don’t Close
Your Eyes.” A young singer who’d come up on the bluegrass scene, someone saw a
solo artist goldmine in the handsome, curly-headed kid with the angelic twang.
He’d already reached the top ten a couple of times but once the Bob
McDill-penned number about a forlorn lover wishing his girl would quit treating
him like a second choice landed in his hands, it made for an undeniable
masterpiece. Rounding out the eye songs for now, Restless Heart scored one of
their most memorable hits with “The Bluest Eyes in Texas.” Another Eagles
knockoff, more or less, but then again I’m not sure how you make a
harmony-driven pop-country-rock mishmash without echoing the Eagles at least a
little. Can’t say they didn’t do it well.
Eddie
Rabbitt went full-on oldies-cover and, true to form, he looked outside the
country field for it. “The Wanderer” was an early-60s hit for Dion, a catchy little
anthem celebrating one’s own studliness with a vaguely bluesy swagger
(meanwhile, “Runaround Sue” was a slut I guess). Rabbitt’s version made sense;
most of the once-young listeners of early rock & roll had probably migrated
over to country radio by this point anyway, probably scandalized by the likes
of Madonna and Motley Crue and Prince and whatnot ruling the pop-rock roost. Rodney
Crowell had bits of influence from lots of genres, but typically back then he
channeled it into intelligently-penned but unmistakably country numbers like “I
Couldn’t Leave You if I Tried.” It’s not exactly retro, but it’s not hard at
all to imagine Buck Owens or George Jones singing it 25 years prior. You could
say the same for Highway 101 and “(Do You Love Me) Just Say Yes,” equal parts
radio-sweet and roadhouse-tough. The band’s been a bit lost to history but they
were really on to something for a while there.
Eddy
Raven drifted back into the Jimmy Buffett vein (I’m not complaining … I like
vintage Buffett a lot) with “Joe Knows How to Live,” a vaguely tropical and
wryly funny tale of an envy-inspiring work buddy who’s romancing honeys down in
Mexico on his PTO. Not saying a generic love song isn’t plenty sometimes, but
it’s nice to hear specific little slice-of-life tales like this in the mix …
Tom T. Hall, the king of that sort of thing, had been off the charts for a
while now of course. Dan Seals went a bit more intense than usual – which is to
say, still at least a little breezy – on “Addicted,” an empathetic number about
a hard-luck gal’s love life. Earl Thomas Conley went a little dreamier than
usual, cleverly accomplished by bringing in the great Emmylou Harris (who had
mostly fallen off the charts at this point) for a duet on another Bob McDill
classic, “We Believe in Happy Endings.” It had been a top ten hit for Johnny
Rodriguez a decade prior, but Conley and Harris pretty much took it and ain’t
giving it back. It’s not an obvious pairing, but it sure was a worthwhile one. Randy
Travis remained in the new vanguard of constant chart presences; “Honky Tonk
Moon” was almost Leon Redbone-esque in its sleepy retro charm, although Travis
wasn’t one to let novelty or irony seep into his sincere affection for classic
country.
One
of the young artists who’d squeezed into the big-label mainstream alongside
Travis was Dwight Yoakam. Compared to Travis’ courtly approach, Yoakam must’ve
seemed like a bit of a gamble: his main allegiances were to the harder-edged
Bakersfield country sound, the bluegrass of his Kentucky birthplace, the
cowpunk wildness of the L.A. nightclubs where he caught on as a live act …
pretty much everything but the commercial country-pop of the ‘70s and ‘80s, in
other words. But as noted in a recent entry, there were elements in Nashville
looking for edgier young artists poised to earn younger fans and critical
respect for a genre that was often pigeonholed by the mainstream as formulaic
middle-aged entertainment. Edgy and traditional weren’t mutually exclusive
goals for Yoakam, and once he got his shot seemed to come to the table pretty
fully-formed; he’d scored a few exciting top ten hits before “Streets of
Bakersfield” notched him an unconventional #1. A poetic hard-luck tale written
by Homer Joy, Yoakam roped in his ultimate hero (and Bakersfield icon) Buck
Owens to duet on a song he’d recorded himself decades prior; it was an
affectionate move but also kind of a risky one, in the sense that Owens had
been somewhere between forgotten and sidelined for years by then. Audiences
were more likely to remember him hosting cornball Hee Haw episodes
instead of dominating the Billboard charts and influencing the Beatles. But
Dwight remembered, and had the aesthetic nerve to frame what must have been a
dream duet with trebly Mexican-inflected guitar licks and the dreamy spark of
Flaco Jimenez on Tex-Mex accordion. All these choices, and the down-to-earth
brilliance of the lyrics, just add up to one of the greatest three minutes of
music ever put to tape. Yoakam has never stopped making great music but I’m not
sure if even he has ever topped this one.
Nobody
else in 1988 was gonna top it either but the rest of the year was pleasantly
stinker-free. Tanya Tucker’s sweet, wholesome for-better-or-worse song “Strong
Enough to Bend” gained some depth from her usual flinty delivery. The Oak Ridge
Boys’ “Gonna Take a Lot of River” had more spark than might’ve been expected
from a middle-aged harmony group, buoyed by some chugging Cajun
instrumentation. T. Graham Brown, best known for working up a bluesy sweat,
sounded somehow both soulful and effortless on the warmhearted “Darlene.” Rosanne
Cash was a regular visitor to the top of the charts by now, but it’s still
pretty impressive that she got there again with a song as lyrically ambitious
as “Runaway Train.” Tight, dynamic, and conventionally beautiful as a record, it’s
still a densely lyrical poetic meditation on … well, I’m not sure, but it all
sounds really poignant. It was written by folk music veteran John Stewart (of
the Kingston Trio, not the Daily Show guy) but it also sounded like what
Cash would be turning to a year or two later. She’d always been one of the
smarter, more progressive voices in the country chart room, and was about to
take a turn for the even more introspective and esoteric.
Ricky
Van Shelton sounded simultaneously warm and heartbroken on “I’ll Leave This
World Loving You,” a fine little anthem of one-sided romantic commitment. Reba
McEntire went all torchy on the similarly regretful “I Know How He Feels,” an
outside-looking-in take on an ex’s new love. George Strait took things back in
a relentlessly cheerful direction with a cover of the old Tommy Collins/Faron
Young mover “If You Ain’t Lovin’ (You Ain’t Livin’),” wonderfully packed with
folksy little couplets about gravy trains and four-bit cigars that I’m glad
weren’t lost to history. Restless Heart steered things back to wistful with
probably their best song ever, “A Tender Lie.” It had their usual big
production and pillowy soft-rock harmonies, but it also managed to capture the
sort of humility and heartbreak that great country music deserves. Of course,
Keith Whitley could muster up that sort of soul in his sleep; “When You Say
Nothing at All” might be an unambiguously sweet number about lovers so well-matched
they’re borderline psychic, but Whitley’s indelible twang gave it even more
dimension. An undercurrent of past hurt and struggle, enough bitter to make the
sweet all the better. He already sounded like a man who’d definitely lived some
life, a voice that you sure wished would’ve lived a much longer one.
THE
TREND?
It
didn’t happen all at once, but it’s sure starting to look different here isn’t
it? I’m not into doing mathematical deep dives so I’m not going to calculate
the average age of the chart-topping artists here versus a couple of years
prior, but a lot of longtime names are conspicuous by their absence (Willie,
Dolly, Jones, Kenny, Twitty) and a lot of new landmarks are being laid down by ridiculously
promising talents like Keith Whitley and Dwight Yoakam that make the likes of
Strait and Reba seem like the old guard by comparison. Granted, some of the
“newbies” are music biz vets getting repurposed for a run at the charts (Rodney
Crowell, Desert Rose Band, KT Oslin) but they still felt fresh enough in the
moment; meanwhile, one Bakersfield legend is notching the last of an astounding run of hits (“Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star” sure sounds like a curtain call) and
another is more or less reminding people he's still alive with a quick cameo on
a chart he used to dominate. The country-pop warhorses like Milsap and Rabbitt
are kind of on their last legs as pretty much every new face that hits the
chart seems more connected to the classic country of bygone eras (also note the
covers of Johnny Cash, Faron Young, and um … Dion?) than anything they did. I
bet it seemed like a youthful takeover of the genre was almost complete; I
wonder if they knew it was really only getting started?
- Streets of Bakersfield – Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens
- Don’t Close Your Eyes – Keith Whitley
- Runaway Train – Rosanne Cash
- When You Say Nothing at All – Keith Whitley
- It’s Such a Small World – Rodney Crowell and Rosanne Cash
- Baby Blue – George Strait
- Tennessee Flat Top Box – Rosanne Cash
- Famous Last Words of a Fool – George Strait
- Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star – Merle Haggard
- I’ll Always Come Back – KT Oslin
- If You Ever Change Your Mind – Rosanne Cash
- Too Gone Too Long – Randy Travis
- Set ‘Em Up Joe – Vern Gosdin
- A Tender Lie – Restless Heart
- I Couldn’t Leave You if I Tried – Rodney Crowell
- Honky Tonk Moon – Randy Travis
- Do You Love Me (Just Say Yes) – Highway 101
- I’ll Leave This World Loving You – Ricky Van Shelton
- He’s Back and I’m Blue – The Desert Rose Band
- Strong Enough to Bend – Tanya Tucker
- Don’t We All Have the Right – Ricky Van Shelton
- Joe Knows How to Live – Eddy Raven
- I Told You So – Randy Travis
- We Believe in Happy Endings – Earl Thomas Conley and Emmylou Harris
- Cry Cry Cry – Highway 101
- If You Ain’t Lovin’ (You Ain’t Livin’) – George Strait
- Darlene – T Graham Brown
- What She Is (Is a Woman in Love) – Earl Thomas Conley
- Bluest Eyes In Texas – Restless Heart
- Life Turned Her That Way – Ricky Van Shelton
- Addicted – Dan Seals
- I Know How He Feels – Reba McEntire
- Gonna Take a Lot of River – The Oak Ridge Boys
- Fallin’ Again - Alabama
- I’m Gonna Get You – Eddy Raven
- I Won’t Take Less Than Your Love – Tanya Tucker with Paul Davis and Paul Overstreet
- One Friend – Dan Seals
- Wheels – Restless Heart
- If it Don’t Come Easy – Tanya Tucker
- The Wanderer – Eddie Rabbitt
- Turn it Loose – The Judds
- Face to Face - Alabama
- Where Do the Nights Go – Ronnie Milsap
- Goin’ Gone – Kathy Mattea
- I Can’t Get Close Enough – Exile
- Love Will Find It’s Way to You – Reba McEntire
- I Wanna Dance With You – Eddie Rabbitt
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