The country music charts of the ‘60s and ‘70s are not like the pop charts of that same era. The pop charts could be invaded from just about any angle: rockers from LA or London, R&B breakouts from Detroit or Philly, country-pop crossovers from Nashville, old-school songwriters from New York, it was a free-for-all. Aside from the occasional interloper from Bakersfield or (eventually) Austin, anything that was going to make it on the country charts had to be filtered through Nashville. It’s not hard to imagine that the Music City radio & records business just got more chummy and incestuous as time went on and money rolled in. It’s a nice feather in the cap of a touring act to say they’ve had a #1, or to be able to rattle off a string of them … if we’re all about making money with these folks, why not spread the glory around a little? Does your gig flyer also need to show how long you had a #1 hit? Maybe that’s why 1974 had 41 #1 hits, whereas 1966 had 11, and the years in between hovered around just a little over 20. And more so than any year, why there’s some undeniable gold, some pretty decent stuff, and some fairly pure dreck, even when you’re just looking at the ones that successfully got all the way up the ladder. Shit, look at the time. Better get going.
Merle
Haggard’s suitably wintry “If We Make It Through December” rung in the New Year
with one of the last four-week runs you’d see in a while. Tom T. Hall’s evergreeen “I Love” had a bit
of a Christmasy vibe itself, albeit from a warmer perspective, a holiday wish
list of things the narrator already has and cherishes. Speaking of enduring, Dolly Parton had
already made her #1 debut a couple years prior, but she was ready to really dig
in and the world was ready to let her.
“Jolene,” unbelievably in retrospect, only held #1 for one week. But it still endures as an alternately frosty
and hot-blooded tale of romantic insecurity, leaving generations to ponder just
how hot Jolene must’ve been to distract a man away from a twentysomething Dolly
Parton, sighing and cooing in an intoxicatingly weird sort of despair over
rumbling minor-key guitar.
Who
knocked that number off its perch? Bill
Anderson, folks. Ol’ Whisperin’ Bill,
not changing a damn thing to keep up with the times with “World of Make Believe.” Stiff and trembly all at once, it’s of a
piece with most of his other hits, and it’s still weird as hell that this was
ever good for one fluke hit, much less a decade-spanning string of them. By all accounts he was a fine songwriter and
an all-around good guy, but as he himself once sang: “Still.” Relative young buck Johnny Rodriguez took
over with a warm, resonant cover of Lefty Frizzell’s “That’s The Way Love
Goes,” and though it’d eventually be overshadowed by Merle Haggard’s ‘80s cover
of the same song, it’s a worthwhile throwback.
Next
up were Tammy Wynette’s lovely, searching “Another Lonely Song” and Charlie
Rich’s winsomely melodic “There Won’t Be Anymore.” Both worthwhile and then some, both by
artists that had nice long well-deserved runs on the charts, but does either
title ring a bell for you unless you were alive, aware, and old enough to
remember listening to country radio by 1974?
It’s interesting how much a #1 hit by a genre-era-defining artist can be
overshadowed by time and bigger, more-remembered hits. #1 singles in their day, B-sides to history I
suppose. “There’s A Honky Tonk Angel
(Who’ll Take Me Back In)” isn’t going to crack most people’s list of ten
most-remembered Conway Twitty songs either, but it’s kind of clunky and sour in
the way that only an anthem to settling for your second choice can be. Some things are forgotten because they’re
forgettable.
Tanya
Tucker continued her youthful momentum with “Would You Lay With Me (In a Field
of Stone),” a heady and poetic mix of text and subtext that still has somewhat
of a foothold in the public imagination today.
For one, it was the first #1 as a songwriter for David Allan Coe, so
it’s sort of the start of one of country music’s messier ongoing legacies. And it’s an almost unimpeachably beautiful
song, but it was also an unnervingly mature choice for the still-teenaged
Tucker at the time … then as now, “lay with me” doesn’t necessarily mean just
taking a nap. It’s certainly not scuzzy,
in the way that some future Coe compositions would be … it’s just a level of
frankness than hits a little different coming from a teenage girl instead of
the more world-weary likes of Twitty, Wynette, etc.
Charlie
Rich’s “A Very Special Love Song” isn’t as charming as his previous #1, just a sweet
little ditty that was enough to top the charts but not necessarily to stick
around. Hank Snow, about a decade and a
half past his heyday, struck gold again with the slight but engaging “Hello
Love” for his final career #1 before the torch was snatched up again by the
much more of-the-moment Merle Haggard, proving again that he could be almost
chillingly pensive but still hit #1 with “Things Aren’t Funny Anymore.”
Sonny
James hadn’t let a broken streak discourage him; “Is It Wrong (For Loving You)”
ranks as one of his better singles, a dreamy yet self-assured number with a
nice melodic streak to it. “Country
Bumpkin,” the second #1 for the kind-of-forgotten Cal Smith, was even better;
spiked with some nicely incongruous distorted guitar, and buoyed by Smith’s
warm and cleverly-phrased baritone voice, the three-act tale of a barroom
encounter turned enduring love stops just sly of maudlin while it hits you in
the heart. Meanwhile, Melba Montgomery’s
“No Charge” goes so far past the maudlin line it must look like just a little
dot in the rearview. Better-remembered
for some solid George Jones duets, Montgomery sounds like she’s putting on a
hokey mee-maw voice for this mostly-recited tale of a little boy invoicing his
mom for some chores and her passively-aggressively shooting one back at him for
all of her parental duties, though it’s meant to be warm and cute I guess. The sonic equivalent of one of those Precious
Moments statues, except if you were forced to stare at one for three solid
minutes, “No Charge” sucks.
Ronnie
Milsap’s “Pure Love” might be kind of hokey by some standards, if nothing else
because he seems so damn cheerful throughout, but his first #1 has a sunny
charm and even some nice melodic drive to it, at least to these ears. Back before they had Garth Brooks to pick on,
some would-be pundits liked to blame Milsap for the watering-down of country
music; I don’t see how he’s much poppier than Lynn Anderson or Freddie Hart, at
least at this phase of his career, so maybe it was just his eventual longevity
they resented (you’re going to see his name a lot here). Dolly Parton’s evergreen “I Will Always Love
You” was up next, a simple-on-the-surface country-pop song that benefits
endlessly from the tender ache in Parton’s delivery on the verses and delicate
but unmistakable vocal ramp-up on the choruses.
Keep in mind that Dolly Parton’s fairly unmistakable sex appeal hadn’t
necessarily become part of her image yet at this point, even though she never
really lost her knack for being able to sell this kind of vulnerability and
humility. It’s too bad this version has
been somewhat overshadowed by Whitney Houston’s airhorn-subtle ‘90s pop megahit
cover of it … Parton wasn’t one to complain about the royalties, but here’s
hoping her absolute gem is never lost to history.
The
fact that it was only #1 for one week speaks to the moving-right-along pace the
country charts were starting to move at.
Charlie Rich was back with the rueful balladry of “I Don’t See Me In
Your Eyes Anymore,” a solid but not unforgettable addition to his mid-70s hot
streak. After a week he ceded to Waylon
Jennings, the future outlaw legend scoring his first #1 with “This Time.” He’d been cracking the Top 10 for almost a
decade at this point, gradually bucking the system as his image drifted into a
shaggier, edgier take on what a country star looks and sounds like; though
Jennings doesn’t have a long history of giving a shit what everyone else
thinks, it had to be emboldening to see his orneriness rewarded instead of shuttled
down the charts to irrelevance. Solid
song, too, although he’ll have more iconic ones down the line.
Mickey
Gilley swung in next with “Room Full of Roses.”
The cousin of country-rock hellraiser Jerry Lee Lewis was much more
savvy businessman than his fiery malcontent cuz, but he was capable of cooking
up a similarly sly and soulful vibe on his best work (including this one) and
would eventually be a fairly influential figure in the whole Urban Cowboy
movement. Anne Murray took over with her
gender-flipped, easy-listening take on George Jones’s “She Thinks I Still
Care,” as pillowy-soft a version of an anguished masterpiece of honky-tonk
irony as you’re ever gonna hear. Bobby
Bare’s take on the Shel Silverstein romp “Marie Leveau” was neither pillowy nor
anguished; a jokey (but still nicely funky) live recording with plenty of
audience cheers and chuckles, the tale of a no-good womanizer and a gnarly old
voodoo witch has held up as a bit of a kitsch classic. It was a fun little stretch; Donna Fargo’s
“You Can’t Be A Beacon (If Your Light Don’t Shine)” had all the catchy
sunniness of a church-camp singalong, then up next was the decidedly earthier
“Rub It In” by Billy “Crash” Craddock.
Craddock was a bit more of an overt, vaguely Elvis-ish sex symbol for
the ladies than most of his contemporaries, already nearly two decades into his
career by 1974 but playing the fun-loving stud role to the hilt with songs like
“Rub It In” that were almost too direct to be labeled “suggestive.”
Conway
Twitty and Loretta Lynn were also great at cooking up some middle-aged
sexuality together (at least on record … in person they were just good friends
as far as anyone knows) but you wouldn’t guess it from “As Soon As I Hang Up
the Phone.” A gimmicky number about a dying
affair, it leans way too hard on the “hey Conway’s on the phone!” novelty
without seemingly noticing that “Conway’s really hard to understand” is part of
the Faustian bargain. “Old Man From the
Mountain” was Merle Haggard’s next ride to #1, which is well-deserved because
unlike some of his pensive then-recent chart-toppers, it’s brisk and catchy in
its orneriness and the whole “could you at least take a break from cheating
while I’m off work” message is amusingly direct in its low-bar-to-clear insistence.
It
was sort of a palate cleanser for one of the straightest shots of monumental
heartbreak to ever top the country charts: George Jones’ “The Grand Tour” is
eloquently merciless in its depiction of sadness and loss, but still somehow
gut-level relatable, and it leaves enough room for interpretation to even let a
little mystique in. Did his beloved (and
their baby by extension) leave by choice or just up and perish? “Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends,” a
Kris Kristofferson classic interpreted by Ronnie Millsap, was more wistful than
tortured but it still was an elegant jab to some raw nerves. And while the next in line, Don Williams’
autumnal ballad “I Wouldn’t Want to Live If You Didn’t Love Me,” sounds like a
happier counterpoint, the implied depths of despair if things don’t work out is
right there in the title. September
1974 was quite a heyday for country drama.
Waylon
Jennings had another week at the top with “I’m a Ramblin’ Man,” simple on paper
but amplified by the swagger of the performance, more in the tradition of
hyper-macho blues classics than more-vulnerable country numbers. It’s endured as one of his signature numbers
and probably sounded borderline punk-rock in 1974 country-chart context. “I Love My Friend” by Charlie Rich was way
more low-key, a paean to a one-night stand so warm and tender that it almost
sounds wholesome. That may not be
Waylon-brand badass, but it’s still pretty badass. Nashville warhorse Porter Wagoner found that
his protégé Dolly Parton’s rise lifted his boat as well; “Please Don’t Stop
Loving Me” was his first trip to #1 in quite awhile. It’s held up well, maybe partly from not being
as overplayed as some of the era’s other hits, although the erstwhile
“Wagonmaster” sounds a bit anonymous in comparison to Parton and that’s
probably not just with the benefit of hindsight.
The
never-anonymous Conway Twitty (if that is his real name) came roaring
back with another of his lover-man classics, “I See the Want To in Your
Eyes.” I wonder if the more puritanical white
southern voices of the day – who were probably at least aware of some of the
bigger country hits by demographic coincidence – railed against the sexual
frankness in songs like this one, or if they gave the Conways of the world a
pass for at least keeping the language clean and not being as openly dissolute
as their rock & roll and R&B contemporaries. Or maybe they just wrote off the whole
country music industry as mostly drinkin’-and-cheatin’ songs but largely let it
be because there were scarier cultural menaces to tackle. The rise of heavy metal, punk rock, and even
rap were all more or less just around the corner; Conway singing hearty ballads
about his latest fling might not have been an especially big fish to fry.
Mickey
Gilley had another one-week run with “I Overlooked an Orchid,” clever and
sincere if not exactly monumental, which is kind of par for the course for Gilley. He’s a gifted singer and musician, but he
wasn’t big on grabbing that next heartwrenching gear like Twitty, Rich, Jones
etc. seemed so consistently adept at.
Dolly Parton pretty much lived in at least third gear, at least vocally,
and so while her self-penned “Love is Like A Butterfly” might be more delicate
acoustic-folk than country, her voice fairly glows with twangy joy even in
sparse surroundings. Tom T. Hall was a much
more plain-spoken singer, leaning more on his considerable gifts as a songwriter,
and even though “Country Is” doesn’t carry his usual cleverness it’s still an
engaging listen, running down a list of the experiences and values that make
for a “country” existence without sounding overly judgmental or corny about it. Modern songwriters still have a really,
really hard time pulling off a similar trick even though half the songs on the
radio since 2001 or so seem to amount to just singing about how countrified one
is.
The
tail end of 1974 bore out the realization that country was a lot of
things. Loretta Lynn hit for the first
time in awhile with “Trouble in Paradise,” which updated her sound with subtle
touches of pop and funk without making her sound out of place. John Denver scored with the first big salvo
of a career that would briefly but dominantly straddle country, pop, and folk
music; crazy to think that humble, wistful numbers like “Back Home Again” would
conquer the world, but they quietly damn sure would. Chart mainstay Charlie Rich boomeranged back
to the top with “She Called Me Baby,” which was also humble and wistful but
clearly that’s where the John Denver similarities end. Denver’s run of #1s would score him the CMA
Entertainer of the Year award the next year; ’74 winner Charlie Rich, goaded
into presenting it onstage, would proceed to publicly light the announcement
envelope on fire in front of God and everybody in a possibly-drunk show of
protest. It slowed down Rich’s career
more than it did Denver’s, and it’s still a little weird that the
R&B-influenced, genre-bending Rich thought the painstakingly rustic Denver
was kind of a blight on country music’s good name.
Billy
Swan’s cheery, kinda-groovy “I Can Help” somehow escaped Charlie Rich’s public
wrath, despite sounding to these ears more like roller-rink-friendly R&B
than traditional country. That’s no
slam: it’s an enduring winner, and interestingly enough meant that Swan was now
tied with his employer Kris Kristofferson for who had the most #1’s as a lead
vocalist. Even though the song was big
enough to score #1 on the pop charts as well, Swan quickly went back to his old
job as Kristofferson’s bass and keyboard player when he couldn’t score a
followup hit after a few tries. Fun
fact: “I Can Help” was written by Swan on an RMI organ that Kristofferson and
Rita Coolidge had given him as a wedding gift.
One gets the sense that Kris Kristofferson’s inner circle circa 1974 was
not a half bad place to be.
Lynn
Anderson closed out the year at #1 with “What A Man My Man Is.” So the year ended with a bit of a clunk, or
at least on a less legendary note than the dizzying genre peaks and
near-forgotten gems that buoyed it. No
big deal though … 1975 would mostly be playing with a slightly reshuffled deck,
albeit with a few important new wild cards in the mix.
THE
TREND?
Mainstays continued to stay, mainly. But if you look closely, you can see some relatively new (or at least new to #1) artists starting to drop some of their signature tunes (Dolly Parton, obviously, and Waylon Jennings, John Denver, Ronnie Millsap, perhaps Mickey Gilley) while some of the fixtures seem to be easing into the B-side portion of their careers. Is “Trouble In Paradise” one of the first ten or so songs you’d think of when you think of Loretta Lynn? Were guys like Merle Haggard and Charlie Rich still doing their best work or were they coasting on cache a bit? Either way, it seems like a nicely diverse year, with stone-country classics from George Jones and Tammy Wynette sitting alongside fun, funky excursions from folks like Billy “Crash” Craddock, Bobby Bare and Billy Swan. Any music snob who looked at country music and said it all sounded the same wasn’t really listening.
THE RANKING
- I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton)
- Jolene (Dolly Parton)
- The Grand Tour (George Jones)
- Would You Lay With Me (In A Field of Stone) (Tanya Tucker)
- I Love (Tom T. Hall)
- Another Lonely Song (Tammy Wynette)
- There Won’t Be Anymore (Charlie Rich)
- I’m A Ramblin’ Man (Waylon Jennings)
- Country Bumpkin (Cal Smith)
- Old Man From the Mountain (Merle Haggard)
- That’s The Way Love Goes (Johnny Rodriguez)
- This Time (Waylon Jennings)
- I Can Help (Billy Swan)
- Love Is Like A Butterfly (Dolly Parton)
- I See the Want To In Your Eyes (Conway Twitty)
- Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends (Ronnie Milsap)
- Things Aren’t Funny Anymore (Merle Haggard)
- Marie Laveau (Bobby Bare)
- Country Is (Tom T. Hall)
- Pure Love (Ronnie Milsap)
- Back Home Again (John Denver)
- I Love My Friend (Charlie Rich)
- There’s A Honky Tonk Angel (Who’ll Take Me Back In) (Conway Twitty)
- Trouble In Paradise (Loretta Lynn)
- A Very Special Love Song (Charlie Rich)
- Rub It In (Billy “Crash” Craddock)
- Hello Love (Hank Snow)
- You Can’t Be A Beacon if Your Light Don’t Shine (Donna Fargo)
- I Don’t See Me In Your Eyes Anymore (Charlie Rich)
- I Overlooked an Orchid (Mickey Gilley)
- What A Man My Man Is (Lynn Anderson)
- Is It Wrong (For Loving You) (Sonny James)
- I Wouldn’t Want to Live If You Didn’t Love Me (Don Williams)
- Room Full of Roses (Mickey Gilley)
- He Thinks I Still Care (Anne Murray)
- Please Don’t Stop Loving Me (Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton)
- She Called Me Baby Baby (Charlie Rich)
- As Soon As I Hang Up the Phone (Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty)
- No Charge (Melba Maxwell)
- World of Make Believe
(Bill Anderson)
