The reign of George Strait’s resigned but oddly catchy “I’ve Come to Expect it From You” – now that multiple-week reigns were a thing again – rumbled along for the first week of 1991, much as Strait’s career in general would be one of the vanishingly few to rumble along from the ‘80s into the ‘90s and beyond. He was followed up, predictably and poetically enough, by the wildly cresting Garth Brooks and “Unanswered Prayers.” On one hand that’s not the sort of song you expect to follow up a world-beating, game-changing anthem like “Friends in Low Places” … it was as subdued as that one was rowdy, as specific as “The Dance” was vaguely universal. But part of what made Garth special was his willingness to chunk conventional wisdom and notions of artsy taste out the window, and that approach succeeded for him way, way more often than it failed. Dialing it down and focusing on a little vignette ballad about a chance meeting with an old teenage crush at a local high school football game just made fans love him all the more, because that shit is relatable. Realizing that she ain’t all that and maybe never was, renewing not only your appreciation for your wife but your very trust in God … it’s the big things and the small things, and Garth was savvy as hell at keeping them in balance. He was the tryhard yin to Strait’s confident, steady yang. It’s cool that we all got to enjoy both.
Alabama
hit the easy-listening switch again for “Forever’s as Far as I’ll Go” – not a
bad hook as far as earnest balladry goes – even though that sort of thing was
falling out of fashion. Then again, Paul Overstreet wasn’t an obvious bet for ‘90s-boom
stardom, a veteran Nashville songwriter with a middle-aged vibe, but he’d been
hovering around the top ten for awhile including #1 collaborations with S-K-O
and Tanya Tucker by now. He finally got his one solo #1 with the cheerful
domestic drama “Daddy’s Come Around.” This sort of suburban family
slice-of-life stuff would become prevalent soon enough, but fortunately
sad-bastard honky tonk anthems were back in vogue too: Mark Chesnutt snagged
the first #1 of his budding career with “Brother Jukebox.” A plain-looking
fella from Beaumont, TX with a deep, nuanced twang, he gave the former Keith
Whitley B-side the melancholy warmth it deserved … as a footnote, on the same
debut album, he also recorded “Friends in Low Places” but Garth was just a beat
ahead of him career-wise. Interesting to wonder how things would’ve played out if
Chesnutt’s version hit first … I don’t think the stone-country Chesnutt was cut
out for Garth-style arena-country-rock, but what if his version going out to
radio precluded Garth releasing it?
It's
not like the logic of anything was airtight; Mike Reid was a longtime cross-genre
songwriter (not to mention a Pro Bowl NFL defensive lineman in the early ‘70s)
who performed live but hadn’t recorded much. Hell, Alabama had just had a #1
hit with one of his co-writes (“Forever’s as Far as I’ll Go”) but Reid was up
for a little solo spotlight so he kept “Walk On Faith” for himself. And it’s
not really a conventional country hit for any era: it vaguely sounds like a
cross between a Dire Straits jam and a James Taylor love song. But it’s brisk,
sturdy, and earnest; I’m glad it found its way in even if Reid never had
another major hit as a vocalist.
Alan
Jackson was a much more obvious exemplar for the direction Nashville was
heading at the moment. A tall, lanky, offhandedly handsome Georgia native with
an aw-shucks demeanor and a cool mustache, he was steeped in the sounds of
George Jones and Merle Haggard but always managed to steer clear of sounding
like a rote revivalist. He’d buzzed close to #1 several times since early 1990
and finally grabbed it with the sweet, simple “I’d Love You All Over Again.” Now
that we’ve finally gotten to mention Jackson we can talk “Class of ’89,” a name
a few publications hung on the quartet of Clint Black, Garth Brooks, Travis
Tritt and Alan Jackson, who had all put out their major-label debuts in 1989
and started having hit singles in short order. They did seem to have a slight
head start on folks like Mark Chesnutt and Joe Diffie, in terms of spotlight,
and though they shared certain influences they were different enough in look,
sound and presentation that they certainly didn’t run together. They were all
hovering around 30 at this point but seemed younger, which was not
insignificant when it came to attracting young female fans, not to mention
young male fans looking for an aspirational figure. You might like all of them
– the honky-tonk poet, the charismatic cowboy, the redneck biker, the laconic
everyman – but one of them was bound to be more representative of what you
wanted to be (or, for the thirsty in the audience, what you just plain wanted).
Clint
Black was as honky-tonk poetic as ever on “Loving Blind,” on enough of a roll
that a lyrically-dense meditation on heartache could steamroll to #1 for him as
long as there was plenty of steel guitar on it. Garth Brooks was as charismatic
a cowboy as ever on the roadhouse country shuffle of “Two of a Kind, Workin’ on
a Full House,” and that charisma went a long way towards steering a song that
was maybe a bit too cute into something worth digging. His hyper-twangy
pronunciation of words like “radio” was worth the price of admission. Alabama
was closer to the class of ’79 but big enough (and savvy enough) to endure:
they went back to the well of countrified lyricism and big-production sheen for
“Down Home” and scored a three-week run on top. Dolly Parton was even more of a
throwback to country past at this point, but she proved built to last on the
charming, affectionate duet “Rockin’ Years” with Ricky Van Shelton, who gets
mad props just for not getting blown off the stage by such a legendary
collaborator.
George
Strait scored another touchdown for the relatively old folks with “If I Know
Me,” barely breaking a sweat as usual while milking a relatable lyric for all
it was worth. It held on for a couple of
weeks before ceding to several rounds of relative newbies. Doug Stone, a twangy
crooner out of Marietta, GA, had already broke through at this point with a
couple of fairly hard-country numbers (including his debut “I’d Be Better Off
in a Pine Box”) but it was the softcore office romance of “In a Different
Light” that scored him his first #1. Maybe a fluke, maybe a reminder that
despite some hillbilly posturing this new-country boom was, at heart, suburban
as hell. Diamond Rio, a band that had evolved from basically an Opryland theme
park attraction, got their first trip to the top with the teen-romance memoir
of “Meet in the Middle.” Big hook, lovely harmonies, a little hokey and a lot
catchy, it was another early sign of the genre’s turn towards the safe and
wholesome that would become more obvious as the ‘90s rolled on. Joe Diffie
topped the charts again with “If the Devil Danced (In Empty Pockets),” a
swinging, wryly funny ode to debt that also had one of the era’s most (intentionally)
hilarious music videos.
Speaking
of music videos, Garth Brooks actually managed to stir up a little controversy
with one for “The Thunder Rolls.” The song, a moody minor-key vignette about a
cheated-on wife getting wise to her husband’s bullshit, doesn’t reference
spousal abuse or wifely gunplay. But the video seemed to, and that was enough
to put off cable channels like CMT and TNN who opted not to play the video even
though Brooks was emerging as the genre’s most popular artist. Brooks (who
starred in the video with a bad toupee) was annoyed enough that he stopped
making music videos for awhile – no skin off his back, his albums were
practically selling themselves at this point – and just took the opportunity to
crank out some VHS tapes including the “Thunder Rolls” video alongside his handful
of previous ones. It probably sold a million copies. Ah, the pre-streaming days
… come to think of it, Brooks had another VHS hit with a concert special that
included a performance of “The Thunder Rolls” with an extra verse about
shooting the guy. Pretty intense stuff.
Alan
Jackson didn’t really do intense. “Don’t Rock the Jukebox” was the lead-off
single from his second album and would pretty much be his signature song; it
didn’t have the crossover momentum of “Friends in Low Places” but it did fine
and then some, with a three-week run at #1 and a baked-in mission statement
that Jackson would loyally adhere to. Much like the Garth tune, it was a
simple-ish song that still seemed to speak to a moment when country music was
starting to look like a movement, a value system, a statement of identity even
though it was starting to break through regional and demographic lines more
than it had since the Urban Cowboy fad. Ricky Van Shelton wasn’t quite as
on-the-nose with “I Am a Simple Man” but the vibe was similar, a masculine dude
crooning over a nice bar-band groove about hard work and good women. And good
women like Trisha Yearwood were elbowing their way into the mix too: “She’s in
Love With the Boy” mixed in a whiff of youthful desire and rebellion with a big
helping of small-town wholesomeness. Alongside
the aforementioned Dolly Parton duet and a not-yet-mentioned Reba McEntire tune,
this was a rare female-artist hit in a boys-club kind of year … the balance
would be better-calibrated over the next few years, then eventually get way
back out of whack in a way I guess we can discuss if and when we can bring
ourselves to talk about 2000s mainstream country.
If
and when we do, we’ll still be talking about George Strait for awhile … here he
is again, calmly charming his way to the top with “You Know Me Better Than
That,” which was in keeping with the other recent hits about good ol’ country
dudes who didn’t need your black tie affairs and rocked jukeboxes and big-city
nonsense. This gal was trying to drag George to ballets and symphony halls, man
… she sounds awful. Strait remained irreplaceable, but plenty of folks
who were starting to join him at the top would be doing so for quite some time:
Brooks & Dunn scored their first #1 with “Brand New Man.” They weren’t
youngsters, really; Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn had been knocking around
Nashville as songwriters and aspiring artists for at least a decade apiece
before somebody decided they might do better teamed up, sort of like a way more
fun S-K-O. Dunn had the big rangy radio-friendly twang; Brooks was just
passable as a vocalist, but a savvy songwriter and dynamic stage presence. “Brand New Man” was a bracing, big-hearted,
and optimistic blast. Another multitalented guy who’d been knocking around on
the edges of the Nashville scene, Lionel Cartwright, scored a big-hearted hit
himself with “Leap of Faith” but his run to the top proved to be considerably
less enduring.
These
would be the last upbeat numbers to rise to the top until the year was almost
gone. Clint Black scored with one of my personal favorites, the wearily
beautiful “Where Are You Now,” just letting the bottom drop out of his voice on
some notes of profound melancholy. Ricky Van Shelton scored his last #1 with a
sad-sack installment in the aforementioned Wholesome Three-Act Country (WTAC) genre;
unlike George Strait’s “Love Without End, Amen,” “Keep it Between the Lines” wasn’t
a career-boosting shot in the arm. I guess the last verse about single
fatherhood just bummed everyone out a little too much. Van Shelton’s a gifted
vocalist and made the most out of some timeless material during his run at and
near the top; he wasn’t quite as distinctive as a Randy Travis or Dwight Yoakam,
and as his career wound down there was talk of alcohol problems and other
personal issues that probably weren’t helping. A couple of years later he’d be
out of the Top 40 entirely, trying his hand at gospel records and indie
releases and pretty much retiring circa 2006.
Despite
all the outlaw posturing and motorcycle photo shoots, Travis Tritt usually did
best chart-wise with soft-rock balladry that he could give an extra edge with
his brawny vocals. “Anymore” totally could’ve been a Michael Bolton song, but
thankfully Tritt recorded it himself. It’s really good, but it’s hard to
mentally divorce it from Tritt’s Reba-esque penchant for trying to act in
overwrought music videos, in this case portraying a traumatized wheelchair-bound
Vietnam vet ignoring the letters of his estranged love and the encouragement of
his burly roommate to pull his shit together and call her. To quote a
later-career Tritt hit, I’m sure everyone had good intentions. Alan Jackson
gave a more laconic performance in the video for the lovely, simple “Someday,”
he was just fixing up an old car so his woman wouldn’t give up and leave him
out of disappointment. Hate to spoil the ending for you, but the video’s
happier than the song.
Garth
Brooks was vocal about being a pretty omnivorous music fan: he loved George
Strait and George Jones, sure, but also Queen and James Taylor and Kiss and other
unfashionable-by-then stuff like Billy Joel. “Shameless” wasn’t one of Joel’s
big hits, and we were in one of the few windows in recent country music history
where repurposing a soft-rock number wouldn’t be encouraged, but Brooks had the
benefit of the doubt and then some. As big-production ballads go it’s a good
one; Brooks didn’t have a technically gifted voice, but I’d argue he brought
considerably more soul and personality to the song than its originator could. Randy
Travis was still hanging in with the sweet if sleepy “Forever Together.” He’d
written it with even-younger gun Alan Jackson while the latter was opening for
the former on tour, which must’ve felt a little like getting stuck with
training your replacement. Reba McEntire got in on the late-’91 slow-jam party
as well with “For My Broken Heart,” a big but sort of generic ballad elevated
by her performance as well as the relatable hook: no matter how hard life
wallops you it also doesn’t give you much space to recover.
“For
My Broken Heart” gave way to, appropriately enough, “My Next Broken Heart.”
Brooks & Dunn mercifully picked up the tempo with the eminently danceable honky-tonk
shuffle, the sort of unforced soulful cleverness that the best up-tempo country
music always displayed. It was easy to
imagine George Jones or Merle Haggard singing it a lifetime ago, but then again
it wasn’t explicitly retro: it was becoming sort of the sound of a new era. Sure,
there are some purists you’ll never please, but if you were a longtime country
fan worried that the slide into watered-down crossover stuff was inexorable, it
had to be an encouraging note to end a year on.
THE
TREND?
It
sure looked like we were getting close to complete turnover from the early ‘80s
to the early ‘90s. Past rounds of young stars – George Strait and Reba McEntire
in the early ‘80s, The Judds and Randy Travis in the mids, - didn’t so much
take over as they did assimilate into a field of long-haul stars. But the ones
that swung in with the dawn of the ‘90s just seemed to get bigger faster, not
to mention more numerous, a brush-popper-clad wave that would wash a lot of
their predecessors off the charts. Strait, McEntire, and Alabama somehow
managed to stay too big to fall for quite some time, but they were exceptions.
There’s that odd little anomaly of Mike Reid and Lionel Cartwright sneaking in
for a #1 apiece, but both hits – along with new ones from Diamond Rio and
Trisha Yearwood and stuff like “Unanswered Prayers” – hinted at a conservative
undercurrent of small-town wholesomeness that would get stronger over time,
leaving the jukebox even less rocked than the hard-country true believers who
were enjoying their day in the sun.
THE
RANKING
- Where Are You Now – Clint Black
- Brand New Man – Brooks & Dunn
- Loving Blind – Clint Black
- Rockin’ Years – Dolly Parton & Ricky Van Shelton
- If I Know Me – George Strait
- If the Devil Danced in Empty Pockets – Joe Diffie
- My Next Broken Heart – Brooks & Dunn
- Shameless – Garth Brooks
- Don’t Rock the Jukebox – Alan Jackson
- I’d Love You All Over Again – Alan Jackson
- Walk On Faith – Mike Reid
- Anymore – Travis Tritt
- Someday – Alan Jackson
- Two of a Kind, Workin’ On a Full House – Garth Brooks
- Brother Jukebox – Mark Chesnutt
- You Know Me Better than That – George Strait
- The Thunder Rolls – Garth Brooks
- She’s In Love With the Boy – Trisha Yearwood
- I Am a Simple Man – Ricky Van Shelton
- Down Home – Alabama
- Meet in the Middle – Diamond Rio
- Forever Together – Randy Travis
- Forever’s As Far As I’ll Go - Alabama
- Unanswered Prayers – Garth Brooks
- Leap of Faith – Lionel Cartwright
- For My Broken Heart – Reba McEntire
- Keep it Between the Lines – Ricky Van Shelton
- Daddy’s Come Around – Paul Overstreet
- In a Different Light - Doug Stone
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