I seem to recall Dean Martin (on his show) introducing the Rolling Stones for a song and stating, "I've been rolled when I was stoned" which had me thinking it was still a grog related impairment.
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AFLW 2024 - Round 10 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
Country Music
- Thread starter Mitchell Madness
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Lol for so Long I thought rainy day women was another word for a mistress
Actually, by the time Waylon came out with his 'Rainy Day Woman' in the mid 70's, he most probably was literally meaning it as a woman he sees when feeling blue - but the lyrics could work either way.
Thats what I thought as Waylon wasn’t a pot man. Perhaps his version of a “rainy say woman” is a big brick of peruvian booga sugar
I'm back to the history series, but no artist or actual music today - just a pause and a summary of where this is at as we proceeds into the 1980's. If you've followed this whole history through, I've occasionally paused the music to include a general piece outlining where things were at with country music at the time. Examples are -
Post # 146 - The Grand Ole Opry as the catalyst for the rise of Nashville as "Music City".
Post # 175 - The "Motherchurch of country music", Thé Ryman Auditorium.
Post # 354 - Chet Atkins and the development of the Nashville Sound.
Post # 404 - Rise of the Nashville Sound, and the death of the first wave of Rock'n'roll in the late 1950's.
Post # 455 - The Bakersfield Sound of the early 1960's.
Post # 527 - Rehash of the 1960's and setting the scene for the 1970's.
Post # 528 - Influence of the Mississippi Delta
Post # 772 - The rise of the Outlaws, what they were - and were not (busting a few modern day myths).
In addition, post # 181 on Bill Monroe briefly outlined his development of the new sub-genre of Bluegrass, while post # 908 on Mickey Gilley and post # 1,004 on Johnny Lee looks at the influence of the the movie Urban Cowboy on the rise of pop-country.
The Outlaw movement was already declining by 1978 when Waylon's hit song 'Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out of Hand' attributed the decline to pressures from drug (cocaine) use. The movement was falling victim to the same pigeonholing and commercialisation as mainstream country music; Mickey Newbury, a prominent influence on many outlaw artists, rejected the "outlaw" label, stating "I quit playing cowboys when I grew up". Hank Williams also noted in his song 'All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)', that many of the core "outlaws" were growing up and older, abandoning the drugs and hard partying that had driven much of their lives in the 1970s in favour of their home lives and other healthier pursuits. As we have seen here, by 1980 mainstream country music was practically dominated by country pop artists and crossover acts, as epitomised and further popularised by the Urban Cowboy movie.
But by the mid-1980s, country music audiences - even the suburban middle class that got drawn in by pop-country) were beginning to tire of it (maybe just like the followers of this thread?), and by 1985, a NYT article declared country music "dead". The emergence of Neo-Traditionalism changed all that. As the 1980's progressed, a new crop of country artists emerged who eschewed the pop-laden sounds of Nashville. Neo-traditional country took inspiration from country music's traditional roots and particularly emphasised the instrumental background (in contrast to pop influences like synthesisers and disco drum machines etc) and a traditional country vocal style. In addition, the neo-traditional movement encompassed stage presence. Many neo-traditional artists sported styles typical of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.
While this sort of creative renaissance can be attributed to a talented new bunch of country artists, quite a lot of it was also due to a fresh influx of Nashville music executives. Many of these new names came far from Music Row, the established group of labels who dictated what country music was supposed to sound like. Some of these new execs, including Garth Fundis and Jimmy Bowen, were producers and working studio musicians with strong foundations in classic country music.
The new batch of artists found inspiration especially the honky tonk-tinged sounds of Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell (one artist in particular based his sound on Lefty), Ernest Tubb, Ray Price, amongst others and also, in Texas, from the western swing of Bob Wills, while others looked to the bluegrass that Bill Monroe developed from its Appalachian roots. But this new style of country music blended the old school instrumentation with contemporary, smooth production (hence "neo") - afterall the goal wasn't really to resurrect the music of the past but to use the past as a base to develop a new commercially successful sound, appealing to modern-day listeners on radio - and the charts showed people took a liking to the more traditional sound.
There wasn't one sound that defined the Neo-Traditional movement, as different artists made use of different influences -
Bluegrass
Honky tonk
The Blues
Bakersfield Sound
Texas country/dancehall
Western Swing
Rockabilly
But whichever influence or influences the artist chose, an emphasis on traditional instrumental accompaniment (in whole or at least in part - keep in mind the sound was aimed to appeal to the contemporary commercial market of the 1980's, not just re-create the past), was an essential element of the Neo-Traditional movement.
The first Neo-Traditional artist who actually broke through with some chart topping hits did so as early as 1982 - hence he will be coming up next in this history series - but the movement didn't really fully hit its strive until the mid 1980's. So that means the history series ain't quite completely done with pop-country just yet - but it mostly has. Anyway, I'll be back in a couple of days with the first of the neo-traditional performers.
Post # 146 - The Grand Ole Opry as the catalyst for the rise of Nashville as "Music City".
Post # 175 - The "Motherchurch of country music", Thé Ryman Auditorium.
Post # 354 - Chet Atkins and the development of the Nashville Sound.
Post # 404 - Rise of the Nashville Sound, and the death of the first wave of Rock'n'roll in the late 1950's.
Post # 455 - The Bakersfield Sound of the early 1960's.
Post # 527 - Rehash of the 1960's and setting the scene for the 1970's.
Post # 528 - Influence of the Mississippi Delta
Post # 772 - The rise of the Outlaws, what they were - and were not (busting a few modern day myths).
In addition, post # 181 on Bill Monroe briefly outlined his development of the new sub-genre of Bluegrass, while post # 908 on Mickey Gilley and post # 1,004 on Johnny Lee looks at the influence of the the movie Urban Cowboy on the rise of pop-country.
The Outlaw movement was already declining by 1978 when Waylon's hit song 'Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out of Hand' attributed the decline to pressures from drug (cocaine) use. The movement was falling victim to the same pigeonholing and commercialisation as mainstream country music; Mickey Newbury, a prominent influence on many outlaw artists, rejected the "outlaw" label, stating "I quit playing cowboys when I grew up". Hank Williams also noted in his song 'All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)', that many of the core "outlaws" were growing up and older, abandoning the drugs and hard partying that had driven much of their lives in the 1970s in favour of their home lives and other healthier pursuits. As we have seen here, by 1980 mainstream country music was practically dominated by country pop artists and crossover acts, as epitomised and further popularised by the Urban Cowboy movie.
But by the mid-1980s, country music audiences - even the suburban middle class that got drawn in by pop-country) were beginning to tire of it (maybe just like the followers of this thread?), and by 1985, a NYT article declared country music "dead". The emergence of Neo-Traditionalism changed all that. As the 1980's progressed, a new crop of country artists emerged who eschewed the pop-laden sounds of Nashville. Neo-traditional country took inspiration from country music's traditional roots and particularly emphasised the instrumental background (in contrast to pop influences like synthesisers and disco drum machines etc) and a traditional country vocal style. In addition, the neo-traditional movement encompassed stage presence. Many neo-traditional artists sported styles typical of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.
While this sort of creative renaissance can be attributed to a talented new bunch of country artists, quite a lot of it was also due to a fresh influx of Nashville music executives. Many of these new names came far from Music Row, the established group of labels who dictated what country music was supposed to sound like. Some of these new execs, including Garth Fundis and Jimmy Bowen, were producers and working studio musicians with strong foundations in classic country music.
The new batch of artists found inspiration especially the honky tonk-tinged sounds of Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell (one artist in particular based his sound on Lefty), Ernest Tubb, Ray Price, amongst others and also, in Texas, from the western swing of Bob Wills, while others looked to the bluegrass that Bill Monroe developed from its Appalachian roots. But this new style of country music blended the old school instrumentation with contemporary, smooth production (hence "neo") - afterall the goal wasn't really to resurrect the music of the past but to use the past as a base to develop a new commercially successful sound, appealing to modern-day listeners on radio - and the charts showed people took a liking to the more traditional sound.
There wasn't one sound that defined the Neo-Traditional movement, as different artists made use of different influences -
Bluegrass
Honky tonk
The Blues
Bakersfield Sound
Texas country/dancehall
Western Swing
Rockabilly
But whichever influence or influences the artist chose, an emphasis on traditional instrumental accompaniment (in whole or at least in part - keep in mind the sound was aimed to appeal to the contemporary commercial market of the 1980's, not just re-create the past), was an essential element of the Neo-Traditional movement.
The first Neo-Traditional artist who actually broke through with some chart topping hits did so as early as 1982 - hence he will be coming up next in this history series - but the movement didn't really fully hit its strive until the mid 1980's. So that means the history series ain't quite completely done with pop-country just yet - but it mostly has. Anyway, I'll be back in a couple of days with the first of the neo-traditional performers.
Monocle
And the rebuild begins.
- Sep 18, 2003
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What an absolutely totally shit month it’s been for Country Music fans.
Firstly with the passing of J D Souther and then the best Country Music songwriter EVER Kris Kristofferson.
Fell on love with KK’s music in my late teens and been a fan and student of his work ever since.
Both will be up there in that Honky Tonk in the sky, listening to Hank, having a drink with Merle and waiting on Willie to turn up
latter with something to smoke.
As I said, it’s been a sad month.
While I knew this was coming as his health has reportedly been in decline for some time now, it still hurts and has hit me hard.
The lyrics he penned, what a wordsmith and poet.
He was able to write and deliver melancholy, with a level of sophistication and depth.
He had the ability to see and appreciate life as it is, made up with many layers and parts.
He described life’s challenges in word so eloquently and yet so poignantly, that his songs resonated with people from all positions and stations of life and that’s called, mastery of communication.
His passing also opens up another of life’s vagaries, how can you miss someone you never met, so much.
Firstly with the passing of J D Souther and then the best Country Music songwriter EVER Kris Kristofferson.
Fell on love with KK’s music in my late teens and been a fan and student of his work ever since.
Both will be up there in that Honky Tonk in the sky, listening to Hank, having a drink with Merle and waiting on Willie to turn up
latter with something to smoke.
As I said, it’s been a sad month.
While I knew this was coming as his health has reportedly been in decline for some time now, it still hurts and has hit me hard.
The lyrics he penned, what a wordsmith and poet.
He was able to write and deliver melancholy, with a level of sophistication and depth.
He had the ability to see and appreciate life as it is, made up with many layers and parts.
He described life’s challenges in word so eloquently and yet so poignantly, that his songs resonated with people from all positions and stations of life and that’s called, mastery of communication.
His passing also opens up another of life’s vagaries, how can you miss someone you never met, so much.
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Wow - I never expected the Country Roland Band to appear in this thread! Unless one's been to the mostly Spanish speaking South Texas, how does one get to know of them? This band, mixing Spanish lyrics with traditional Mexican, Tejano and Texan country influences (often including the Ray Price shuffle beat), probably had their peak popularity in the 1970's and '89's, with singer Rolando Garcia Jr, using the name "Country Roland", becoming very well known across the Texas South and even beyond. The last 10 years has seen something of a revival in the band under Rolando's son, Rolando Garcia Jr, who has inherited the "Country Roland" name after Senior passed away in 2012. Of course, it helps to know some Spanish to fully follow their music.
Actually, I'm a bit of a fan of the hybrid Latin/Country Tejano music that evolved in South Texas - keeping in mind that Tejanos, descendants of Spanish and Mexican settlers, were in Texas well before the first Anglo-Americans arrived (at this stage, I better avoid being sidetracked into a long rundown of Texan history, and/or an even longer discourse on Texan music history - there are just too many elements to cover). Suffice to say that two of the great Tejano singers, who had big hits performing in a mix of English and Spanish, made it into the history series -
Johnny Rodriguez (posts # 713-716) and Freddy Fender (posts # 764-766),
Now that song, 'Haya En El Rancho Grando' is a Mexican ranchero mariachi standard about the simple joys of ranch life with a bit of humour thrown in. Bing Crosby had a # 6 hit in 1939 with a half English half Spanish rumba version. Gene Autry sang it in one of his cowboy films and recorded it before going off to fly bombers in WW2. Amongst others, Elvis Presley and Dean Martin also recorded it. In Country Roland's version, he's thrown in verses from some famous country songs -
'Pistol Packin Mama', a big 1943 hit for Al Dexter, was also covered by Bing Crosby..
'Blue Moon Of Kentucky', the only non-Texan song snippet here) is a bluegrass waltz written and recorded by the founder of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe in 1947, and later recorded as an up-tempo 4/4 version by Elvis Presley as the B-side of 'That's All Right Mama', becoming his second big hit.
Heaps have recorded it since, even Paul McCartney.
'Drivin Nails In My Coffin' was originally released in 1945 by Jerry Irby and became a hit in 1946 for both Floyd Tillman (# 2) and Ernest Tubb (# 5). Charley Crockett also released a worthy version a couple of years ago.
'Walk-in The Floor Over You' was penned and recorded by Ernest Tubb in 1941 and eventually sold over a million. It's credited with establishing honky tonk as a major country music sub-genre.
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- Dec 26, 2010
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RIP KK. Life's too short (to watch the five and half hour director's cut of "Heaven's Gate" and listen to the countless cover versions of this song.)
I'm finally back to the history with first of the neo-traditionalists. Our next artist was also a true, natural, child prodigy. He was born and named Rickie (but subsequently spelled as Ricky) Skaggs into a musical family in 1954, in the Appalachian heartland of Bluegrass music of rural far Eastern Kentucky. His father played guitar and was a big fan of bluegrass while his mother enjoyed singing and composing songs. Mrs Skaggs would ofttimes sing while doing chores around the house and little Ricky, starting at age 3, would spontaneously join in, singing harmony. Like so many others in this series, Sunday church provided another forum for hearing and singing music, as well as radio - there was no TV for alternative entertainment.
Ricky received his first mini-mandolin as a gift at age 5 after his father, Hobert, heard him harmonising with his mother from across the house as he played with his toys. Two weeks after teaching him the G, C and D chords, Hobert returned from working out of town and was shocked to see young Ricky making chord changes and singing along. He soon earned quite a reputation among the community locals. When the legendary Bill Monroe (posts # 181-183) came 7 months later to nearby Martha, Kentucky for a concert, the crowd kept shouting to let “little Ricky Skaggs” play. At first, Monroe, known for his toughness and prickly temper, ignored the annoying calls, but sensing the audience wasn’t going to let up, he finally relented.
The tall Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass, towered over the pint-sized first-grader he’d just pulled on stage. The kid wasn’t supposed to be part of the show, but Monroe unstrapped his own mandolin and hung it on the boy, adjusting the strap to fit his small frame. Skaggs recalls how the mandolin felt as bulky as an adult guitar. No one could have imagined what a defining moment that would be in the life of the young prodigy. Monroe asked what he wanted to sing. “Ruby,” Skaggs replied - and then astonished Monroe and his band with his performance. Skaggs, speaking years later, recalled how that night changed his life - “It was the first time I had ever been on the stage other than with Mom and Dad or at church. It was the first time I ever played with a band. I went away from there really loving Bill Monroe".
In 1961, at age 7, Ricky's family moved from Kentucky to Nashville. His dad figured if they moved to Music City, Ricky might have a shot at being able to sing on the Grand Ole Opry, a sure ticket to success - but he was ruled too young to audition. However, the elder Skaggs cannily made friends with a security guard who agreed to let him sneak his son in backstage. Ricky brought his mandolin and leaned against the wall to play as the Opry’s members and guests wandered through. In another turning point, none other than bluegrass banjo legend, Earl Scruggs heard him sing and invited Ricky to audition for Flatt & Scruggs' (posts # 194-195) Martha White TV show. Young Ricky, probably copying Earl Scruggs famous inscruitable, deadpan delivery style, performed the bluegrass standards, 'Foggy Mountain Special' and, the highlight of this historic video, from 2m50 in, when he sings “Ruby,” the same bluegrass standard he’d performed the year before on Monroe’s mandolin -
Skaggs commented many years later "I didn't know what Ruby was mad about at the time and had no idea the singer had dug her grave and was waiting to murder her. Not really a song a 5 year old should be singing, but I loved that song".
After this well-received performance on Flatt & Scruggs’ TV show, The Skaggs family moved back to Kentucky about 3 years later and in 1963 went to see the star bluegrass duo The Stanley Brothers (posts # 187-188) in nearby Olive Hill. Again, by popular local demand, little Ricky found himself on stage for a guest appearance and when the Stanley Brothers returned in 1964, he was again invited for up on stage for a performance.
By the middle 1960's, the British beat invasion had begun and even young Ricky, in rural eastern Kentucky, was not immune to its influence - for a time he flirted with electric guitar - and of course he was really good at it. But other changes were taking place. The family moved to the large city of Columbus, Ohio, where Hobert and Ricky, although underage, frequented the Astro Inn to see Earl Taylor - a Bluegrass troubadour who never quite made the big time - perform. It was during this period that Ricky also began a several-year fascination with the fiddle - and was really good at it. In the early part of 1969, the Skaggs family moved back to their eastern Kentucky homeland. There a bevy of old-time musicians continued to inform the now 15 y.o. Ricky Skagg's musical tastes.
A chance appearance at a 1970 talent show charted Skagg's destiny. It was there he met his musical soulmate, a like-minded talented prodigy - Keith Whitley, then a young pianist, guitarist and singer who, like Ricky, was enthralled by the music of the Stanley Brothers. Keith and Ricky formed a group known as the Lonesome Mountain Boys, mostly playing old Stanley Brothers songs.and in 1970 they secured a spot on a radio station in nearby Grayson, Kentucky.
In 1970, Skaggs and Whitley were at a bar in West Virginia, waiting to watch bluegrass patriarch, Ralph Stanley perform. When the bluegrass legend called to say he’d be late, the bar owner promptly put the teenage boys on stage to keep the crowd happy. Stanley arrived shortly thereafter - and was floored by the teenagers’ note-perfect renditions of his material. He invited them to join his band, the Clinch Mountain Boys. In short order, they entered the world of professional music, making select appearances with Stanley and, upon graduation from high school in 1971, signed on full-time. So at age 16, Skaggs was traveling with Ralph Stanley to festivals and bars, his star continuing to rise in the bluegrass world.
In their first year with Stanley, Skaggs and Whitley participated in several recording sessions, including the landmark album "Cry From the Cross", reviewed in Bluegrass Unlimited thus - “Anyone who has seen these kids performing with Ralph knows what hair-raising sounds they are capable of, especially on the older Stanley songs ...” The duo, along with their fathers, helped to construct the stage at Ralph’s annual Memorial Day bluegrass festival. The pair also recorded 2 albums of their own - "Tribute to the Stanley Brothers" and "Second Generation Bluegrass"..But at age 18 in 1972, Skaggs got married and left Stanley and the rolling hills of Kentucky for Washington, D.C., briefly taking a job at a power company before refocusing his full attention on music.
Skagg's dalliance with a full-time non-musical job was cut short when an offer came to join the influential progressive bluegrass band, The Country Gentlemen, on fiddle. In short order, he was in the studio with them recording an album. Proximity to the vibrant Washington bluegrass scene landed him numerous opportunities for session work, including the Seldom Scene’s "Old Train" in 1974 and Tony Rice’s "California Autumn" in 1975. Skaggs also released a solo bluegrass album called "That’s It" in 1975.
By 1975, the 20 y.o. Skaggs had already built build a reputation in the Bluegrass world not only for his multi-instrumental mastery and plaintive vocals, but also for creativity and excitement through live appearances and recordings. An offer then came for Skaggs to join noted banjo player J.D. Crowe’s New South Band. The Lexington, Kentucky, band enjoyed steady club work, often consisting of 4 sets per evening, giving Skaggs the opportunity to broaden his repertoire and also hone his skills as an M.C. With Crowe, Ricky participated in what is widely regarded as one of the most influential bluegrass albums ever made, the landmark 1975 self-titled album, "J.D. Crowe and the New South".
By now a veteran sideman in 3 of the nations top bluegrass bands, an increasingly confident and ambitious Skaggs, at age 21, already considered a “recognised master” of one of music's most demanding art forms, was ready to make his own mark by forming the contemporary bluegrass band Boone Creek, bringing him the challenges of leadership while giving him further recording and performing experience. The band, which included 2 young members in Vince Gill and dobro and lap steel master, Jerry Douglas, released 2 albums - "Boone Creek" in 1977 and "One Way Track" in 1978. With Boone Creek, Skaggs wanted to create a music that approached traditional bluegrass with a progressive attitude. To achieve this sound, he added electric guitar, drums, and piano to the traditional bluegrass lineup set by its founder, Bill Monroe.
By the age of 25, in 1979, the restless and ambitious Skaggs was again re-assessing his career, looking to move beyond the commercial limitations of the blue grass sub-genre by seeking an education in classic country. As fate had it, opportunity soon arose when Emmylou Harris (posts # 960-973) sought Skaggs out as a replacement for departing Rodney Crowell in her Hot Band. Harris was Skaggs’ bridge to mainstream country music as he gained working knowledge of a band with electric instruments and drums. Straightaway, he was in the studio for her 1979 album "Blue Kentucky Girl". Subsequent projects included 2 acoustic/bluegrass-inflected albums - "Light of the Stable in 1979 and "Roses in the Snow" in 1980. Skaggs was responsible for adding several Stanley songs to Emmylou’s repertoire, notably 'The Darkest Hour Is Just before Dawn'.
While working in the Hot Band, when Harris took time off to be with her new baby, Ricky also released a new solo album, "Sweet Temptation" in 1979. A fusion of traditional country music with tinges of bluegrass, it attracted the attention of several Nashville producers. On a flight from L.A. to Nashville, a flight attendant upgraded him to 1st class. He tossed his things under the seat and plopped down beside Jim Mazda, who just happened to be a major label, EMI executive. By the end of the flight, Skaggs had played his solo music for Mazza, who told him to bring his songs to Capitol Records. Capitol didn’t sign Skaggs, but referred him to Rick Blackburn at CBS. In 1980, Blackburn sketched Skaggs’ first major label country recording contract offer on a napkin over a dinner in Nashville. Skaggs recalled - “... That’s how it happened. I got signed with CBS. The flight attendant, Jim Mazza being in the seat, you can’t make this up ...".
Shortly thereafter in 1981, Skaggs recorded his first solo country mainstream album, albeit still with a strong bluegrass tinge, "Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine". It quickly became a top seller, peaking at # 2 and going gold. It even found its way onto the pop charts at # 77. Skaggs moved to center stage when singles from his album hit the top of the country charts. His fresh combination of traditional material and modern production, soulful singing and hot picking - really emphasised here - turned out to be a winning combination in an era when the Urban Cowboy movie was peaking in popularity and country music was trending toward pop under its influence, as we've well and truly seen here.
Skaggs first single from the album, a 1951 song by Earl Scruggs,'Don't Get Above Your Raisin', released in 1981, went to # 16. In this Austin City Limits video, Skaggs sports a 5-string electric mandolin built for him by Telecaster dubbed Tne Mandocaster. But the highlight here are the 2 solos by one of the greatest country session guitarists there ever was, Englishmen Ray Flacke, who just takes it out to the stratosphere here - but still keeps it pure country, not an easy task. Also, one of the greatest fiddle players of all time, Bobby Hicks, plays rhythm guitar, rounded out by a neat piano solo by Micky Merritt. So here the influence seems more rockabilly than bluegrass -
"Gettin’ above your raisin” is one of those very common Southern, particularly Appalachian, colloquialisms. The notion is you want to change your social class or you move to a big city then go back home and start "puttin' on city airs" or "acting uppity", then you’re considered to be forsaking the family, you’re forsaking your place and community, you’re forgetting where you came from. There’s even a fear that you’ll become ashamed of where you came from (another still very potent Southern feeling). Kinda like the tall poppy syndrome in Australia, but in a more nuanced, Southern rural or small town way
Released in 1981 as the second single 'You May See Me Walkin', written by Tom Uhr, was Skaggs first original single and became his first Top 10 hit 1981. One of the keys to Skaggs' breakthrough success was his insistence on getting the best possible session musicians, as he knew the accompaniment would be critical to the album's success. In this studio video, we once again have guitarist Ray Flacke, this time with pedal steel wizard, Bruce Brouton -
Skaggs turned again to the catalog of one of the greatest bluegrass bands, Flatt and Scruggs, covering there hit 'Crying My Heart Out Over You' as the 3rd single released from the "Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine" album. With the accompaniment led this time by the late, great Bobby Hicks on fiddle and Broutin again on the pedal steel, it was a runaway success, becoming the first of Skaggs’ # 1 hits. If its arrangement may sound familiar, it’s because Skaggs had been heavily influenced by Emmylou Harris’ landmark bluegrass album "Roses in the Snow". It’s appropriate that his first chart topper was a Lester & Scruggs cover, which he delivers faithfully. The musicianship is outstanding, with a flawless arrangement that Skaggs led very effectively.
This weepy steel guitar and fiddle-driven hit, with a more distinct bluegrass sound than his previous 2 singles, is perhaps the sweetest love (or lost love) song in his catalog. Maybe, as a cover, it's a bit too derivative and safe to make it stand out among Skaggs’ later best work, but it surely came for many as a breath of fresh air amongst all the pop-country dominating country radio at that time -
The master fiddler, here, Bobby Hicks, recently died from a crook heart on August 16, 2024, aged 91.
The 4th single from the "Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine" album 'I Don’t Care', also released in 1982 earned Skaggs his second # 1 hit. It had originally topped the charts for 12 weeks when released by its co-writer Webb Pierce (posts # 249-250). Even more so than on his previous chart-topper, you can hear the stylistic influence of Emmylou Harris, where an old song is redone with a sombre, serious tone -
In 1981, Nashville was still at the height of the Urban Cowboy craze, and there was considerable concern then (as now) that country music was rapidly drifting on an irreversible course towards pop. Therefore, it was nothing short of remarkable that a 27 y.o. tradition-based singer, from a bluegrass background, was signed to a major label and then given free rein to produce his own album, with little interference from label executives. And that it went on to achieve great commercial success and critical acclaim, was even more astounding.
Guitarist and producer Chet Atkins credited Skaggs with "single-handedly saving country music" a somewhat ironic statement from the main architect of the Nashville Sound, but by 1982, conceding the pop influence on country had gone too far, he was pining for a return of a more traditional country sound. Skaggs was happy to oblige with more compelling records on the way, as we'll see in a day or two.
Ricky received his first mini-mandolin as a gift at age 5 after his father, Hobert, heard him harmonising with his mother from across the house as he played with his toys. Two weeks after teaching him the G, C and D chords, Hobert returned from working out of town and was shocked to see young Ricky making chord changes and singing along. He soon earned quite a reputation among the community locals. When the legendary Bill Monroe (posts # 181-183) came 7 months later to nearby Martha, Kentucky for a concert, the crowd kept shouting to let “little Ricky Skaggs” play. At first, Monroe, known for his toughness and prickly temper, ignored the annoying calls, but sensing the audience wasn’t going to let up, he finally relented.
The tall Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass, towered over the pint-sized first-grader he’d just pulled on stage. The kid wasn’t supposed to be part of the show, but Monroe unstrapped his own mandolin and hung it on the boy, adjusting the strap to fit his small frame. Skaggs recalls how the mandolin felt as bulky as an adult guitar. No one could have imagined what a defining moment that would be in the life of the young prodigy. Monroe asked what he wanted to sing. “Ruby,” Skaggs replied - and then astonished Monroe and his band with his performance. Skaggs, speaking years later, recalled how that night changed his life - “It was the first time I had ever been on the stage other than with Mom and Dad or at church. It was the first time I ever played with a band. I went away from there really loving Bill Monroe".
In 1961, at age 7, Ricky's family moved from Kentucky to Nashville. His dad figured if they moved to Music City, Ricky might have a shot at being able to sing on the Grand Ole Opry, a sure ticket to success - but he was ruled too young to audition. However, the elder Skaggs cannily made friends with a security guard who agreed to let him sneak his son in backstage. Ricky brought his mandolin and leaned against the wall to play as the Opry’s members and guests wandered through. In another turning point, none other than bluegrass banjo legend, Earl Scruggs heard him sing and invited Ricky to audition for Flatt & Scruggs' (posts # 194-195) Martha White TV show. Young Ricky, probably copying Earl Scruggs famous inscruitable, deadpan delivery style, performed the bluegrass standards, 'Foggy Mountain Special' and, the highlight of this historic video, from 2m50 in, when he sings “Ruby,” the same bluegrass standard he’d performed the year before on Monroe’s mandolin -
Skaggs commented many years later "I didn't know what Ruby was mad about at the time and had no idea the singer had dug her grave and was waiting to murder her. Not really a song a 5 year old should be singing, but I loved that song".
After this well-received performance on Flatt & Scruggs’ TV show, The Skaggs family moved back to Kentucky about 3 years later and in 1963 went to see the star bluegrass duo The Stanley Brothers (posts # 187-188) in nearby Olive Hill. Again, by popular local demand, little Ricky found himself on stage for a guest appearance and when the Stanley Brothers returned in 1964, he was again invited for up on stage for a performance.
By the middle 1960's, the British beat invasion had begun and even young Ricky, in rural eastern Kentucky, was not immune to its influence - for a time he flirted with electric guitar - and of course he was really good at it. But other changes were taking place. The family moved to the large city of Columbus, Ohio, where Hobert and Ricky, although underage, frequented the Astro Inn to see Earl Taylor - a Bluegrass troubadour who never quite made the big time - perform. It was during this period that Ricky also began a several-year fascination with the fiddle - and was really good at it. In the early part of 1969, the Skaggs family moved back to their eastern Kentucky homeland. There a bevy of old-time musicians continued to inform the now 15 y.o. Ricky Skagg's musical tastes.
A chance appearance at a 1970 talent show charted Skagg's destiny. It was there he met his musical soulmate, a like-minded talented prodigy - Keith Whitley, then a young pianist, guitarist and singer who, like Ricky, was enthralled by the music of the Stanley Brothers. Keith and Ricky formed a group known as the Lonesome Mountain Boys, mostly playing old Stanley Brothers songs.and in 1970 they secured a spot on a radio station in nearby Grayson, Kentucky.
In 1970, Skaggs and Whitley were at a bar in West Virginia, waiting to watch bluegrass patriarch, Ralph Stanley perform. When the bluegrass legend called to say he’d be late, the bar owner promptly put the teenage boys on stage to keep the crowd happy. Stanley arrived shortly thereafter - and was floored by the teenagers’ note-perfect renditions of his material. He invited them to join his band, the Clinch Mountain Boys. In short order, they entered the world of professional music, making select appearances with Stanley and, upon graduation from high school in 1971, signed on full-time. So at age 16, Skaggs was traveling with Ralph Stanley to festivals and bars, his star continuing to rise in the bluegrass world.
In their first year with Stanley, Skaggs and Whitley participated in several recording sessions, including the landmark album "Cry From the Cross", reviewed in Bluegrass Unlimited thus - “Anyone who has seen these kids performing with Ralph knows what hair-raising sounds they are capable of, especially on the older Stanley songs ...” The duo, along with their fathers, helped to construct the stage at Ralph’s annual Memorial Day bluegrass festival. The pair also recorded 2 albums of their own - "Tribute to the Stanley Brothers" and "Second Generation Bluegrass"..But at age 18 in 1972, Skaggs got married and left Stanley and the rolling hills of Kentucky for Washington, D.C., briefly taking a job at a power company before refocusing his full attention on music.
Skagg's dalliance with a full-time non-musical job was cut short when an offer came to join the influential progressive bluegrass band, The Country Gentlemen, on fiddle. In short order, he was in the studio with them recording an album. Proximity to the vibrant Washington bluegrass scene landed him numerous opportunities for session work, including the Seldom Scene’s "Old Train" in 1974 and Tony Rice’s "California Autumn" in 1975. Skaggs also released a solo bluegrass album called "That’s It" in 1975.
By 1975, the 20 y.o. Skaggs had already built build a reputation in the Bluegrass world not only for his multi-instrumental mastery and plaintive vocals, but also for creativity and excitement through live appearances and recordings. An offer then came for Skaggs to join noted banjo player J.D. Crowe’s New South Band. The Lexington, Kentucky, band enjoyed steady club work, often consisting of 4 sets per evening, giving Skaggs the opportunity to broaden his repertoire and also hone his skills as an M.C. With Crowe, Ricky participated in what is widely regarded as one of the most influential bluegrass albums ever made, the landmark 1975 self-titled album, "J.D. Crowe and the New South".
By now a veteran sideman in 3 of the nations top bluegrass bands, an increasingly confident and ambitious Skaggs, at age 21, already considered a “recognised master” of one of music's most demanding art forms, was ready to make his own mark by forming the contemporary bluegrass band Boone Creek, bringing him the challenges of leadership while giving him further recording and performing experience. The band, which included 2 young members in Vince Gill and dobro and lap steel master, Jerry Douglas, released 2 albums - "Boone Creek" in 1977 and "One Way Track" in 1978. With Boone Creek, Skaggs wanted to create a music that approached traditional bluegrass with a progressive attitude. To achieve this sound, he added electric guitar, drums, and piano to the traditional bluegrass lineup set by its founder, Bill Monroe.
By the age of 25, in 1979, the restless and ambitious Skaggs was again re-assessing his career, looking to move beyond the commercial limitations of the blue grass sub-genre by seeking an education in classic country. As fate had it, opportunity soon arose when Emmylou Harris (posts # 960-973) sought Skaggs out as a replacement for departing Rodney Crowell in her Hot Band. Harris was Skaggs’ bridge to mainstream country music as he gained working knowledge of a band with electric instruments and drums. Straightaway, he was in the studio for her 1979 album "Blue Kentucky Girl". Subsequent projects included 2 acoustic/bluegrass-inflected albums - "Light of the Stable in 1979 and "Roses in the Snow" in 1980. Skaggs was responsible for adding several Stanley songs to Emmylou’s repertoire, notably 'The Darkest Hour Is Just before Dawn'.
While working in the Hot Band, when Harris took time off to be with her new baby, Ricky also released a new solo album, "Sweet Temptation" in 1979. A fusion of traditional country music with tinges of bluegrass, it attracted the attention of several Nashville producers. On a flight from L.A. to Nashville, a flight attendant upgraded him to 1st class. He tossed his things under the seat and plopped down beside Jim Mazda, who just happened to be a major label, EMI executive. By the end of the flight, Skaggs had played his solo music for Mazza, who told him to bring his songs to Capitol Records. Capitol didn’t sign Skaggs, but referred him to Rick Blackburn at CBS. In 1980, Blackburn sketched Skaggs’ first major label country recording contract offer on a napkin over a dinner in Nashville. Skaggs recalled - “... That’s how it happened. I got signed with CBS. The flight attendant, Jim Mazza being in the seat, you can’t make this up ...".
Shortly thereafter in 1981, Skaggs recorded his first solo country mainstream album, albeit still with a strong bluegrass tinge, "Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine". It quickly became a top seller, peaking at # 2 and going gold. It even found its way onto the pop charts at # 77. Skaggs moved to center stage when singles from his album hit the top of the country charts. His fresh combination of traditional material and modern production, soulful singing and hot picking - really emphasised here - turned out to be a winning combination in an era when the Urban Cowboy movie was peaking in popularity and country music was trending toward pop under its influence, as we've well and truly seen here.
Skaggs first single from the album, a 1951 song by Earl Scruggs,'Don't Get Above Your Raisin', released in 1981, went to # 16. In this Austin City Limits video, Skaggs sports a 5-string electric mandolin built for him by Telecaster dubbed Tne Mandocaster. But the highlight here are the 2 solos by one of the greatest country session guitarists there ever was, Englishmen Ray Flacke, who just takes it out to the stratosphere here - but still keeps it pure country, not an easy task. Also, one of the greatest fiddle players of all time, Bobby Hicks, plays rhythm guitar, rounded out by a neat piano solo by Micky Merritt. So here the influence seems more rockabilly than bluegrass -
"Gettin’ above your raisin” is one of those very common Southern, particularly Appalachian, colloquialisms. The notion is you want to change your social class or you move to a big city then go back home and start "puttin' on city airs" or "acting uppity", then you’re considered to be forsaking the family, you’re forsaking your place and community, you’re forgetting where you came from. There’s even a fear that you’ll become ashamed of where you came from (another still very potent Southern feeling). Kinda like the tall poppy syndrome in Australia, but in a more nuanced, Southern rural or small town way
Released in 1981 as the second single 'You May See Me Walkin', written by Tom Uhr, was Skaggs first original single and became his first Top 10 hit 1981. One of the keys to Skaggs' breakthrough success was his insistence on getting the best possible session musicians, as he knew the accompaniment would be critical to the album's success. In this studio video, we once again have guitarist Ray Flacke, this time with pedal steel wizard, Bruce Brouton -
Skaggs turned again to the catalog of one of the greatest bluegrass bands, Flatt and Scruggs, covering there hit 'Crying My Heart Out Over You' as the 3rd single released from the "Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine" album. With the accompaniment led this time by the late, great Bobby Hicks on fiddle and Broutin again on the pedal steel, it was a runaway success, becoming the first of Skaggs’ # 1 hits. If its arrangement may sound familiar, it’s because Skaggs had been heavily influenced by Emmylou Harris’ landmark bluegrass album "Roses in the Snow". It’s appropriate that his first chart topper was a Lester & Scruggs cover, which he delivers faithfully. The musicianship is outstanding, with a flawless arrangement that Skaggs led very effectively.
This weepy steel guitar and fiddle-driven hit, with a more distinct bluegrass sound than his previous 2 singles, is perhaps the sweetest love (or lost love) song in his catalog. Maybe, as a cover, it's a bit too derivative and safe to make it stand out among Skaggs’ later best work, but it surely came for many as a breath of fresh air amongst all the pop-country dominating country radio at that time -
The master fiddler, here, Bobby Hicks, recently died from a crook heart on August 16, 2024, aged 91.
The 4th single from the "Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine" album 'I Don’t Care', also released in 1982 earned Skaggs his second # 1 hit. It had originally topped the charts for 12 weeks when released by its co-writer Webb Pierce (posts # 249-250). Even more so than on his previous chart-topper, you can hear the stylistic influence of Emmylou Harris, where an old song is redone with a sombre, serious tone -
In 1981, Nashville was still at the height of the Urban Cowboy craze, and there was considerable concern then (as now) that country music was rapidly drifting on an irreversible course towards pop. Therefore, it was nothing short of remarkable that a 27 y.o. tradition-based singer, from a bluegrass background, was signed to a major label and then given free rein to produce his own album, with little interference from label executives. And that it went on to achieve great commercial success and critical acclaim, was even more astounding.
Guitarist and producer Chet Atkins credited Skaggs with "single-handedly saving country music" a somewhat ironic statement from the main architect of the Nashville Sound, but by 1982, conceding the pop influence on country had gone too far, he was pining for a return of a more traditional country sound. Skaggs was happy to oblige with more compelling records on the way, as we'll see in a day or two.
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By 1982, 27 y.o. Ricky Skaggs, after a decade of performing professionally at Bluegrass, had branched out to become a mainstream country star with two # 1 hits. In the process, he had brought traditional, roots music back into mainstream country. Skaggs, with his Bluegrass soaked background, would have been an unlikely star in any era, but during the Urban Cowboy days, it was an especially impressive feat. The first of a truck load of awards came his way when the ACM named him as best new male vocalist for 1981. In 1982, his band took out the ACM Touring Band of the Year and the CMA awarded Skaggs Best New Artist (a year late perhaps). He also became a member of the Grand Ole Opry, the youngest musician ever to be inducted at that time.
Whatever fears there may have been about a second year slump after Skaggs' breakthrough 1981 "Waitin' For The Sun To Shine' album were quickly alleviated, when 1982's "Highways & Heartaches" quickly outsold its predecessor, becoming Skaggs’ only platinum album, producing 3 more #1 singles and one that just missing the top spot, at #2. A roster of top-notch musicians was again assembled for this project, from pianist Buck White (Skagg’s father-in-law) to steel-guitarist Weldon Myrick, who had played in Connie Smith’s band, to Dobro master player Jerry Douglas, and Sharon White (Skaggs’ wife) who provided the background vocals on several tracks. And then, of course, there is Skaggs himself, providing not only the lead vocals but also playing several instruments, including guitar, mandolin and fiddle.
As we’ve noted before in this series, a commercial breakthrough does wonders for a rising artist’s confidence. Skaggs returned to the studio as a bona fide mainstream star, and his 1982 "Highways & Heartaches" demonstrates his increasing assertiveness and vision. He doesn’t sound like he’s singing over Emmylou Harris’ backing tracks anymore. However, he learned all the right lessons from Harris, as evidenced by his sophisticated taste in material, starting with the Guy Clarke penned 'Heartbroke'.
Previously recorded by Rodney Crowell, the tune was also cut by rising Texan singer, George Strait, not knowing it had just been recorded by Skaggs just 2 weeks earlier. It was Skaggs' version that defined the song, taking Clark’s previously dead-on arrival singlegoing, adding a few upbeat production flourishes to the recording, and hey presto - it shot all the way to # 1. In keeping with his policy of not recording any songs he wouldn't feel comfortable singing in front of his parents, Skaggs changed one line to omit a cuss word - “… pride is a bitch …” to the radio and mass-market friendly “… pride when you’re rich …”. Taking a Guy Clark (posts # 848-856) song to the top of the charts in 1982 demonstrates astonishingly good taste, and his growing skill as a producer is evident -
A vintage country song, 'I Wouldn't Change You If I Could' was originally recorded in 1959 by Jim Eanes (better known for bluegrass than mainstream country, though he recorded and performed both styles) and credited himself as the songwriter
(it was actually penned by Arthur Q. Smith, a great songwriter but a notorious alcoholic, who always sold his songs for a "song", usually for his bar tab for the night). It was more successfully recorded by Skaggs, released in January 1983 as the second single from his "Highways & Heartaches" album, becoming his fourth #1.
It's another track that allowed Skaggs to demonstrate he could handle mid-tempo, vocal-oriented material as effectively as scorching instrumental fare. But the track is still perfectly framed in pedal steel and twin fiddles, adding just the right traditional touch for yet another # 1 hit. Skaggs thankfully did little to modernise the song for the eighties and the arrangement is strong. The instrumentation is still where Skaggs has always shined the brightest.
Skaggs' tender rendition of this classic country ballad captures the sweetness and vulnerability of young love. The song's simple arrangement of acoustic guitar and fiddle allows the lyrics to shine, evoking a gentle nostalgia for simpler times.
Written by Larry Cordle but first recorded by Skaggs, 'Highway 40 Blues' was released in 1983 as the 3rd single from the "Highways & Heartaches" album, resulting in Skaggs' 5th consecutive # 1. Skaggs is probably the only commercially successful artist of his generation who could have even attempted 'Highway 40 Blues' as a single and gotten away with it, let alone go all the way to # 1. The song tells the story of a traveling musician who's wandered the highway for years and "... squandered youth in search of truth ...", but it's the impressive instrumental solos that dominate the track and make it something truly special, with Skaggs' inimitable touch. Furthermore, Skaggs masterfully proves that the steel guitar can in fact, also be used in bluegrass music.
Inspired by the winding State Highway 40 in Kentucky (not the Interstate freeway 40 that runs from California all the way to
North Carolina, where key parts were destroyed by floods caused by Hurricane Helene last week) this bluegrass-flavoured wandering man’s anthem captures a dreamer on his way down, looking for home now that his money has run out and his fantasies of stardom are further away than they’ve ever been. The song conveys classic narrative tropes regarding the notorious highway ballad archetype. Cordle was an inspired wordsmith and he’s especially adept at capturing the moral and spiritual prices paid along the way when you fall short of your dream. Skaggs counters the darkness of the lyric with a jaunty production and the vocal performance of a false narrator - listen closely and you’ll hear how he’s singing about letting his dream go, but he sounds happiest when singing about the prices he’s paid for chasing it, suggesting he’ll be back on the other side of the highway soon, heading away from home and giving his fantasy one more shot. The call of the open road can be hypnotic -
"...You know I've rambled all around / Like a rolling stone from town to town /
Met pretty girls I have to say / But none of them could make me stay /
Well I've played the music halls and bars / Had fancy clothes and big fine cars /
Things a country boy can't use / Dixieland, I sure miss you / Got the Highway 40 blues ..." -
The then little known songwriter, Larry Cordle, would go on to become a bluegrass icon and also a surprisingly successful country songwriter, penning the CMA Song of the Year winning 'Murder On Music Row' and writing excellent singles for Kathy Mattea ('Lonesome Standard Time') and Diamond Rio ('Mama Don’t Forget to Pray For Me'). It is to Skaggs’ eternal credit that he encouraged Cordle to pursue his craft. Skaggs’ version of “Highway 40 Blues” remains Cordle’s highest charting single as a songwriter, 41 years since it topped both the U.S. and Canadian charts.
'You've Got A Lover',written by Shake Russell and released in 1978. was the 4th single released by Skaggs on his "Highways & Heartaches" album, released in 1983, reaching #2 in the U.S. and # 1 in Canada. Grounded more in classic country storytelling than bluegrass picking, it tells the painful story of a man whose heart has been broken knowing that his lover found a new man. Paul Franklin’s steel tears heighten the heartbreak in Skaggs’s plaintive mountain voice -
Skaggs maintained his status on the country charts in 1983 with his next studio album, "Don't Cheat in Our Hometown", which, just like his previous album, "Highways & Heartaches", also topped the album chart. Skaggs' combination of bluegrass, honky tonk and classic country was really challenging the reign of pop-country at the centre of country music in the early to mid-'80s. The album provided Skaggs with 3 more big hits.
As we saw yesterday, Skaggs had a long career before his solo stardom, and he effectively weds his past and his present with his revival of 'Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown' - penned by Ray Pennington and Roy E. Marcum it was originally recorded by The Stanley Brothers in 1963. Skaggs first recorded it in 1971, when he was part of the bluegrass duo with fellow Hall of Famer Keith Whitley.
Skaggs brought the tempo down for the first single and title song of his 6th studio album. 'Don't Cheat in Our Hometown'. Released in 1983, features a decidedly traditional slant, with steel, a classic groove and the high lonesome sound of Skaggs' lead vocal. Skaggs is a bit of a sad sack on this one, as he plays the cuckold husband reduced to begging his wife to do her cheating in another town to save him face with his friends. Skaggs plays the pathetic part well, carrying himself with just enough dignity to keep from fully humiliating himself. It's also good advice - in a town where everyone knows everyone, cheating just ain't a good idea - best to look further afield, to a different town, for that! -
So that's today's quota. Skaggs finished 1983, after having chalked up 2 more # 1 hits - 3 in Canada - and his third single reaching # 2, by being awarded his first Grammy - for the Best Instrumental Performance. He and his band also won the CMA Instrumental Group of the Year - a credit not just to himself, of course, but to the fine group of musicians he had assembled. The importance of having high quality instrumentation and emphasis on the accompaniment and not just the vocal, was a lesson not lost to the rising ride of neo-traditional artists soon to follow the course set by Skaggs in returning country music to a distinctive country sound. For now, as we leave off at the end of 1983, it was Skaggs, now with six # 1 hits behind him, still leading the way.
Whatever fears there may have been about a second year slump after Skaggs' breakthrough 1981 "Waitin' For The Sun To Shine' album were quickly alleviated, when 1982's "Highways & Heartaches" quickly outsold its predecessor, becoming Skaggs’ only platinum album, producing 3 more #1 singles and one that just missing the top spot, at #2. A roster of top-notch musicians was again assembled for this project, from pianist Buck White (Skagg’s father-in-law) to steel-guitarist Weldon Myrick, who had played in Connie Smith’s band, to Dobro master player Jerry Douglas, and Sharon White (Skaggs’ wife) who provided the background vocals on several tracks. And then, of course, there is Skaggs himself, providing not only the lead vocals but also playing several instruments, including guitar, mandolin and fiddle.
As we’ve noted before in this series, a commercial breakthrough does wonders for a rising artist’s confidence. Skaggs returned to the studio as a bona fide mainstream star, and his 1982 "Highways & Heartaches" demonstrates his increasing assertiveness and vision. He doesn’t sound like he’s singing over Emmylou Harris’ backing tracks anymore. However, he learned all the right lessons from Harris, as evidenced by his sophisticated taste in material, starting with the Guy Clarke penned 'Heartbroke'.
Previously recorded by Rodney Crowell, the tune was also cut by rising Texan singer, George Strait, not knowing it had just been recorded by Skaggs just 2 weeks earlier. It was Skaggs' version that defined the song, taking Clark’s previously dead-on arrival singlegoing, adding a few upbeat production flourishes to the recording, and hey presto - it shot all the way to # 1. In keeping with his policy of not recording any songs he wouldn't feel comfortable singing in front of his parents, Skaggs changed one line to omit a cuss word - “… pride is a bitch …” to the radio and mass-market friendly “… pride when you’re rich …”. Taking a Guy Clark (posts # 848-856) song to the top of the charts in 1982 demonstrates astonishingly good taste, and his growing skill as a producer is evident -
A vintage country song, 'I Wouldn't Change You If I Could' was originally recorded in 1959 by Jim Eanes (better known for bluegrass than mainstream country, though he recorded and performed both styles) and credited himself as the songwriter
(it was actually penned by Arthur Q. Smith, a great songwriter but a notorious alcoholic, who always sold his songs for a "song", usually for his bar tab for the night). It was more successfully recorded by Skaggs, released in January 1983 as the second single from his "Highways & Heartaches" album, becoming his fourth #1.
It's another track that allowed Skaggs to demonstrate he could handle mid-tempo, vocal-oriented material as effectively as scorching instrumental fare. But the track is still perfectly framed in pedal steel and twin fiddles, adding just the right traditional touch for yet another # 1 hit. Skaggs thankfully did little to modernise the song for the eighties and the arrangement is strong. The instrumentation is still where Skaggs has always shined the brightest.
Skaggs' tender rendition of this classic country ballad captures the sweetness and vulnerability of young love. The song's simple arrangement of acoustic guitar and fiddle allows the lyrics to shine, evoking a gentle nostalgia for simpler times.
Written by Larry Cordle but first recorded by Skaggs, 'Highway 40 Blues' was released in 1983 as the 3rd single from the "Highways & Heartaches" album, resulting in Skaggs' 5th consecutive # 1. Skaggs is probably the only commercially successful artist of his generation who could have even attempted 'Highway 40 Blues' as a single and gotten away with it, let alone go all the way to # 1. The song tells the story of a traveling musician who's wandered the highway for years and "... squandered youth in search of truth ...", but it's the impressive instrumental solos that dominate the track and make it something truly special, with Skaggs' inimitable touch. Furthermore, Skaggs masterfully proves that the steel guitar can in fact, also be used in bluegrass music.
Inspired by the winding State Highway 40 in Kentucky (not the Interstate freeway 40 that runs from California all the way to
North Carolina, where key parts were destroyed by floods caused by Hurricane Helene last week) this bluegrass-flavoured wandering man’s anthem captures a dreamer on his way down, looking for home now that his money has run out and his fantasies of stardom are further away than they’ve ever been. The song conveys classic narrative tropes regarding the notorious highway ballad archetype. Cordle was an inspired wordsmith and he’s especially adept at capturing the moral and spiritual prices paid along the way when you fall short of your dream. Skaggs counters the darkness of the lyric with a jaunty production and the vocal performance of a false narrator - listen closely and you’ll hear how he’s singing about letting his dream go, but he sounds happiest when singing about the prices he’s paid for chasing it, suggesting he’ll be back on the other side of the highway soon, heading away from home and giving his fantasy one more shot. The call of the open road can be hypnotic -
"...You know I've rambled all around / Like a rolling stone from town to town /
Met pretty girls I have to say / But none of them could make me stay /
Well I've played the music halls and bars / Had fancy clothes and big fine cars /
Things a country boy can't use / Dixieland, I sure miss you / Got the Highway 40 blues ..." -
The then little known songwriter, Larry Cordle, would go on to become a bluegrass icon and also a surprisingly successful country songwriter, penning the CMA Song of the Year winning 'Murder On Music Row' and writing excellent singles for Kathy Mattea ('Lonesome Standard Time') and Diamond Rio ('Mama Don’t Forget to Pray For Me'). It is to Skaggs’ eternal credit that he encouraged Cordle to pursue his craft. Skaggs’ version of “Highway 40 Blues” remains Cordle’s highest charting single as a songwriter, 41 years since it topped both the U.S. and Canadian charts.
'You've Got A Lover',written by Shake Russell and released in 1978. was the 4th single released by Skaggs on his "Highways & Heartaches" album, released in 1983, reaching #2 in the U.S. and # 1 in Canada. Grounded more in classic country storytelling than bluegrass picking, it tells the painful story of a man whose heart has been broken knowing that his lover found a new man. Paul Franklin’s steel tears heighten the heartbreak in Skaggs’s plaintive mountain voice -
Skaggs maintained his status on the country charts in 1983 with his next studio album, "Don't Cheat in Our Hometown", which, just like his previous album, "Highways & Heartaches", also topped the album chart. Skaggs' combination of bluegrass, honky tonk and classic country was really challenging the reign of pop-country at the centre of country music in the early to mid-'80s. The album provided Skaggs with 3 more big hits.
As we saw yesterday, Skaggs had a long career before his solo stardom, and he effectively weds his past and his present with his revival of 'Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown' - penned by Ray Pennington and Roy E. Marcum it was originally recorded by The Stanley Brothers in 1963. Skaggs first recorded it in 1971, when he was part of the bluegrass duo with fellow Hall of Famer Keith Whitley.
Skaggs brought the tempo down for the first single and title song of his 6th studio album. 'Don't Cheat in Our Hometown'. Released in 1983, features a decidedly traditional slant, with steel, a classic groove and the high lonesome sound of Skaggs' lead vocal. Skaggs is a bit of a sad sack on this one, as he plays the cuckold husband reduced to begging his wife to do her cheating in another town to save him face with his friends. Skaggs plays the pathetic part well, carrying himself with just enough dignity to keep from fully humiliating himself. It's also good advice - in a town where everyone knows everyone, cheating just ain't a good idea - best to look further afield, to a different town, for that! -
So that's today's quota. Skaggs finished 1983, after having chalked up 2 more # 1 hits - 3 in Canada - and his third single reaching # 2, by being awarded his first Grammy - for the Best Instrumental Performance. He and his band also won the CMA Instrumental Group of the Year - a credit not just to himself, of course, but to the fine group of musicians he had assembled. The importance of having high quality instrumentation and emphasis on the accompaniment and not just the vocal, was a lesson not lost to the rising ride of neo-traditional artists soon to follow the course set by Skaggs in returning country music to a distinctive country sound. For now, as we leave off at the end of 1983, it was Skaggs, now with six # 1 hits behind him, still leading the way.
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We left left Ricky Skaggs yesterday at the end of 1983 with the first single, the # 1 hit title song from his 6th studio album, "Don't Cheat in Our Hometown" album. This also produced 2 more chart-topping singles, released in 1984 - the Mel Tillis penned “Honey (Open That Door),” and Bill Monroe’s 'Uncle Pen'. Let's get straight to them.
Honky tonk great Webb Pierce (posts # 249-250) recorded the Mel Tillis (posts # 648-657) penned 'Honey (Open That Door)' for his 1962 album "Hideaway Heart". It was also a non-charted single by Pierce released in 1974. Ricky Skaggs did what songwriter Tillis and Pierce couldn’t pull off - making 'Honey (Open That Door)' into a big hit - and one of his most spirited. Honey' is one of Mel Tillis' cleverest compositions, and Skaggs has a ball with it. It doesn’t hurt Skaggs is (once again) backed by stellar musicianship and lovely harmony vocals from the Whites. Now Skaggs isn’t terribly convincing as a wild man - which makes this all the more fun, as he plays the sad loser to perfection, begging his partner to let him back into the house after he's "... lost everything but my name..." in an ill-fated all-night poker game. Turns out the wild life just isn’t for him, and he’ll take sleeping on the floor as a win, as long as he’s indoors.
The track contains some sweet instrumental fills and solos but really centres around Skaggs' vocal performance, as well as some enormous harmony vocal stacks that sounds panoramic. As for the lyrics, note when the narrator first thought he got an actualproblem -
"... I honky tonked around Dallas / I got in a poker game / Somebody musta been a cheatin' /
I lost everything but my name / Well, I walked halfway to Memphis / I finally got back home /
But I'd been better off where I was / 'Cause here's where things went wrong ..." -
It’s difficult to overstate how impressive it was Ricky Skaggs got a pure bluegrass cover of 'Uncle Pen' to # 1 in 1984. We’re still a year away from the infamous 1985 New York Times article claiming country music was dead, yet here he is covering the father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe (posts # 181-183) brilliantly and being fully embraced by the then pop-country dominated radio. Skaggs gives a big nod to his roots (as we saw 2 days back, his first stage performance was with Monroe, using Monroe's famous mandolin, at age 6) with this, which Bill Monroe wrote as a tribute to his uncle and musical mentor, Pendleton (post # 183). The uptempo, tune is a perfect match for Skaggs' vocal and instrumental skills, and it gave him a # 1 hit that was quite unlike the kind of music that was being recorded by any of his contemporaries. Skaggs gives his strongest vocal performance on a radio single so far, and the musicianship is simply extraordinary -
Known primarily for its now classic title track, Skaggs' 7th studio album, "Country Boy" has held up beautifully since its release in 1984. Another # 1 one gold selling album, it wasn’t as prolific as the string of single releases from the 3 albums that preceded it, but it stands as a strong collection in Skaggs’ catalog.
'Something In My Heart' is fine slice of neo-traditional country, something you would imagine as a Ray Price orifginal from the 1950's, but it ain't so - Wayland Patton penned it specifically for Skaggs and it was released in 1984 as the first single of 2 from his "Country Boy" album and just missed topping the chart, reaching #2 - but got to # 1 in Canada, his 8th consecutive Canadian # 1. The honky tonk track is most pleasant on the ear (at least to my honky tonk loving ear), even if it's not quite memorable enough to stand out among Skaggs’ most iconic hits -
Perhaps the most defining song of Skaggs' career is the album's title song 'Country Boy', which brings together all of the elements that make his music special. It features long instrumental interludes that may very well be the hottest bluegrass-style solos ever to appear on a commercial # 1 hit, his 9th in both the U.S. and Canada, while none other than the father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe, appears in the entertaining video as Skaggs' Uncle Pen - a humorous nod to his # 1 song above.
Besides the single’s excellent use of storytelling and classical bluegrass techniques, 'Country Boy' also has a memorable music video that includes cameos from Monroe, including him doing an Appalachian jig (itself traced far back to traditional Scottish
and Irish jigs) in a NYC subway of all places to film the hard edged mountain man, Monroe. His dancing along with the urban breakdancing of some locals suggests a common origin! The video also has the then high profile NYC mayor Ed Koch (one of the very few good ones they've had) leaning on a taxi and actor David Keith. The creative video for 'Country Boy' has helped it endure more than other Skaggs classic, and it deserves every bit of its evergreen status.
The theme of a country boy gone to the city but still being a country boy at heart (I should know!) goes all the way back to early Carter Family songs. It almost always works because of the way that nostalgia evokes a rose coloured glasses view of the past, softening out the rough edges as you long for days gone by. 'Country Boy' fits perfectly into Skaggs’ persona. Perhaps joining Emmylou’s Hot Band was his “country comes to town” moment. Fact is, he sings and plays spectacularly well and every moment of 'Country Boy' is pure bluegrass euphoria, presented in a way that was palatable to country radio playlists that still predominantly playing pop-country, though the winds of change were now sweeping through -
"Live in London" was Skaggs' first live album,released in 1985, and just like his 3 previous studio albums, it went all the way to
# 1. This is one of the most compelling live albums of its era, the one Skaggs album to have if you only get one - it's still worth seeking out. Much like with his former bandleader, Emmylou Harris’ live album a few years earlier, Skaggs was uniquely positioned to make such an exceptional live album.. Because it's a live recording, the picking is just that much more exciting and the album serves as an unofficial "best-of". Its highlights include 'Heartbroke' 'Uncle Pen' and a version of 'Don't Get Above Your Raising' that features noted country groupie fan Elvis Costello.
Skaggs' own stellar band supported his already impressive musicianship, and his history of balancing classic country, bluegrass and new material lent itself well to also incorporating songs that hadn’t been included on previous albums. So here, Skaggs expanded his repertoire to include some Louisiana influences for 'Cajun Mion', written, upon Skaggs’ own request, by Jim Rushing, the second single released from "Live in London". It was another excellent showcase for Skaggs and his top-notch band, and another # hit.. he adds some Louisiana flavour to this cross between a country hit and a bluegrass breakdown.
it’s understandable why Skaggs chose to have a Cajun-flavored track in his set list. His band gets a chance to cut loose. It’s the band’s work that’s most compelling here, the Cajun accordion, although kept in the background, that makes 'Cajun Moon' one of the most delightful, upbeat love songs in his entire catalogue. Skaggs’ initially tentative vocal blossoms when it reaches the chorus. The Cajun accordion, a very loud instrument even without an amplifier, is here kept in the background (for me, little bit too much so) with the rest of the band -
"The moon is full and my heart is high / I love to dance, oh me, oh my / Gonna have more fun than a tree in a coon /
Tonight's the dance of the cajun moon / Pick ups and wagons 'round the river road shack / Bonfires draw in a crowd out back / Step through the door and I see my cherie / That's when I feel her mama's eyes on me ..." -
If you ever find yourself in Louisiana, you will, of course, find a number of Cajun clubs and bars in the New Orleans French Quarter (along with all the jazz, rock and country bars) But for the real authentic experience, head over the Mississippi and up the road to the Cajun heartland of Lafayette. Ask around there and you may well find yourself lucky enough to be partying and dancing on the banks of a bayou with a willing cherie by a bon fire under a moon filled night to the contagious Cajun dance music, going hog wild.
That's all for today. As we finish for now in 1986, the 32 y.o. Ricky Skaggs and his band had already collected a raft of rewards, including the CMA Instrumental Group of the Year for 3 consecutive years - 1983, 1984, 1985 and the CMA's p most prestigious award, the Entertainer of the Year for 1985. He and his band were also named the ACM Touring Band of the Year for 5 consecutive years - 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986 and Best Specialty Instrument (Mandolin) in 1984 (and will again in 1987. And to top it all the off, Skaggs had by now won 3 Grammys for Best Instrumental Performance – 1983, 1984 and 1986.
Tomorrow will chart Ricky Skaggs' extraordinary and still unfinished career up to the present day - including a defining change in direction which ensured his production of chart topping commercial hit came to a thudding end. Yet his standing and respect in the music world, especially amongst his peers, went still higher as he followed his heart and his art instead of chasing the next commercial hit - and in doing so, has cemented his own place in American music history.
Honky tonk great Webb Pierce (posts # 249-250) recorded the Mel Tillis (posts # 648-657) penned 'Honey (Open That Door)' for his 1962 album "Hideaway Heart". It was also a non-charted single by Pierce released in 1974. Ricky Skaggs did what songwriter Tillis and Pierce couldn’t pull off - making 'Honey (Open That Door)' into a big hit - and one of his most spirited. Honey' is one of Mel Tillis' cleverest compositions, and Skaggs has a ball with it. It doesn’t hurt Skaggs is (once again) backed by stellar musicianship and lovely harmony vocals from the Whites. Now Skaggs isn’t terribly convincing as a wild man - which makes this all the more fun, as he plays the sad loser to perfection, begging his partner to let him back into the house after he's "... lost everything but my name..." in an ill-fated all-night poker game. Turns out the wild life just isn’t for him, and he’ll take sleeping on the floor as a win, as long as he’s indoors.
The track contains some sweet instrumental fills and solos but really centres around Skaggs' vocal performance, as well as some enormous harmony vocal stacks that sounds panoramic. As for the lyrics, note when the narrator first thought he got an actualproblem -
"... I honky tonked around Dallas / I got in a poker game / Somebody musta been a cheatin' /
I lost everything but my name / Well, I walked halfway to Memphis / I finally got back home /
But I'd been better off where I was / 'Cause here's where things went wrong ..." -
It’s difficult to overstate how impressive it was Ricky Skaggs got a pure bluegrass cover of 'Uncle Pen' to # 1 in 1984. We’re still a year away from the infamous 1985 New York Times article claiming country music was dead, yet here he is covering the father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe (posts # 181-183) brilliantly and being fully embraced by the then pop-country dominated radio. Skaggs gives a big nod to his roots (as we saw 2 days back, his first stage performance was with Monroe, using Monroe's famous mandolin, at age 6) with this, which Bill Monroe wrote as a tribute to his uncle and musical mentor, Pendleton (post # 183). The uptempo, tune is a perfect match for Skaggs' vocal and instrumental skills, and it gave him a # 1 hit that was quite unlike the kind of music that was being recorded by any of his contemporaries. Skaggs gives his strongest vocal performance on a radio single so far, and the musicianship is simply extraordinary -
Known primarily for its now classic title track, Skaggs' 7th studio album, "Country Boy" has held up beautifully since its release in 1984. Another # 1 one gold selling album, it wasn’t as prolific as the string of single releases from the 3 albums that preceded it, but it stands as a strong collection in Skaggs’ catalog.
'Something In My Heart' is fine slice of neo-traditional country, something you would imagine as a Ray Price orifginal from the 1950's, but it ain't so - Wayland Patton penned it specifically for Skaggs and it was released in 1984 as the first single of 2 from his "Country Boy" album and just missed topping the chart, reaching #2 - but got to # 1 in Canada, his 8th consecutive Canadian # 1. The honky tonk track is most pleasant on the ear (at least to my honky tonk loving ear), even if it's not quite memorable enough to stand out among Skaggs’ most iconic hits -
Perhaps the most defining song of Skaggs' career is the album's title song 'Country Boy', which brings together all of the elements that make his music special. It features long instrumental interludes that may very well be the hottest bluegrass-style solos ever to appear on a commercial # 1 hit, his 9th in both the U.S. and Canada, while none other than the father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe, appears in the entertaining video as Skaggs' Uncle Pen - a humorous nod to his # 1 song above.
Besides the single’s excellent use of storytelling and classical bluegrass techniques, 'Country Boy' also has a memorable music video that includes cameos from Monroe, including him doing an Appalachian jig (itself traced far back to traditional Scottish
and Irish jigs) in a NYC subway of all places to film the hard edged mountain man, Monroe. His dancing along with the urban breakdancing of some locals suggests a common origin! The video also has the then high profile NYC mayor Ed Koch (one of the very few good ones they've had) leaning on a taxi and actor David Keith. The creative video for 'Country Boy' has helped it endure more than other Skaggs classic, and it deserves every bit of its evergreen status.
The theme of a country boy gone to the city but still being a country boy at heart (I should know!) goes all the way back to early Carter Family songs. It almost always works because of the way that nostalgia evokes a rose coloured glasses view of the past, softening out the rough edges as you long for days gone by. 'Country Boy' fits perfectly into Skaggs’ persona. Perhaps joining Emmylou’s Hot Band was his “country comes to town” moment. Fact is, he sings and plays spectacularly well and every moment of 'Country Boy' is pure bluegrass euphoria, presented in a way that was palatable to country radio playlists that still predominantly playing pop-country, though the winds of change were now sweeping through -
"Live in London" was Skaggs' first live album,released in 1985, and just like his 3 previous studio albums, it went all the way to
# 1. This is one of the most compelling live albums of its era, the one Skaggs album to have if you only get one - it's still worth seeking out. Much like with his former bandleader, Emmylou Harris’ live album a few years earlier, Skaggs was uniquely positioned to make such an exceptional live album.. Because it's a live recording, the picking is just that much more exciting and the album serves as an unofficial "best-of". Its highlights include 'Heartbroke' 'Uncle Pen' and a version of 'Don't Get Above Your Raising' that features noted country groupie fan Elvis Costello.
Skaggs' own stellar band supported his already impressive musicianship, and his history of balancing classic country, bluegrass and new material lent itself well to also incorporating songs that hadn’t been included on previous albums. So here, Skaggs expanded his repertoire to include some Louisiana influences for 'Cajun Mion', written, upon Skaggs’ own request, by Jim Rushing, the second single released from "Live in London". It was another excellent showcase for Skaggs and his top-notch band, and another # hit.. he adds some Louisiana flavour to this cross between a country hit and a bluegrass breakdown.
it’s understandable why Skaggs chose to have a Cajun-flavored track in his set list. His band gets a chance to cut loose. It’s the band’s work that’s most compelling here, the Cajun accordion, although kept in the background, that makes 'Cajun Moon' one of the most delightful, upbeat love songs in his entire catalogue. Skaggs’ initially tentative vocal blossoms when it reaches the chorus. The Cajun accordion, a very loud instrument even without an amplifier, is here kept in the background (for me, little bit too much so) with the rest of the band -
"The moon is full and my heart is high / I love to dance, oh me, oh my / Gonna have more fun than a tree in a coon /
Tonight's the dance of the cajun moon / Pick ups and wagons 'round the river road shack / Bonfires draw in a crowd out back / Step through the door and I see my cherie / That's when I feel her mama's eyes on me ..." -
If you ever find yourself in Louisiana, you will, of course, find a number of Cajun clubs and bars in the New Orleans French Quarter (along with all the jazz, rock and country bars) But for the real authentic experience, head over the Mississippi and up the road to the Cajun heartland of Lafayette. Ask around there and you may well find yourself lucky enough to be partying and dancing on the banks of a bayou with a willing cherie by a bon fire under a moon filled night to the contagious Cajun dance music, going hog wild.
That's all for today. As we finish for now in 1986, the 32 y.o. Ricky Skaggs and his band had already collected a raft of rewards, including the CMA Instrumental Group of the Year for 3 consecutive years - 1983, 1984, 1985 and the CMA's p most prestigious award, the Entertainer of the Year for 1985. He and his band were also named the ACM Touring Band of the Year for 5 consecutive years - 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986 and Best Specialty Instrument (Mandolin) in 1984 (and will again in 1987. And to top it all the off, Skaggs had by now won 3 Grammys for Best Instrumental Performance – 1983, 1984 and 1986.
Tomorrow will chart Ricky Skaggs' extraordinary and still unfinished career up to the present day - including a defining change in direction which ensured his production of chart topping commercial hit came to a thudding end. Yet his standing and respect in the music world, especially amongst his peers, went still higher as he followed his heart and his art instead of chasing the next commercial hit - and in doing so, has cemented his own place in American music history.
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So today will bring the career of Ricky Skaggs right up to now, starting from 1986, the year in which the neo-traditional movement really took hold to dominate the country music charts, 5 years after Skaggs had really started it all with the first of his chart topping bluegrass tinged hits, The last of his chart topping hits are featured - and then we will, though only in brief, leaving much out (such as his successful side career in producing records), try to cover the most important, consequential part of Skaggs' remarkable music career - the last 30 years.
As we seen, with songs like yesterdays 'Something In My Heart', Skaggs, despite all his Bluegrass influence, also made himself at home with fiddle and pedal-steel soaked honky tonk songs and here we have another perfect example. 'I've Got A New Heartache' reached # 2 when the great Texan, Ray Price (posts # 269-275) released it as the first single off his "Greatest Hits" compilation album way back in 1956. Three decades later, in 1986, with the second single released from his "Live in London" album, Skaggs brought the song back to the Top 10 -
Skaggs finally joined forces with his second wife that he married in 1981 (and still is, with 2 children), Sharon White, of the country music vocal group The Whites, from Fort Worth, Texas. Formed in 1972, they consist of sisters Sharon and Cheryl White and their father, Buck White. Though it was just their first-ever duet, 'Love Can't Ever Get Better Than This' scored a solid success - Skaggs shines as a duet partner, In addition to reaching the Top 10, it also earned them a CMA Award for Vocal Duo of the Year in 1987 -
Skaggs returned to #1 in 1989 after an absence of 2 years with the first single from his 10th studio album. His 11th and last # 1 in the U.S. (12th in Canada), written by Hillary Kanter and Even Stevens, 'Lovin' Only Me' features a mid-tempo groove, big harmony vocals and twangy guitars that are in the classic style but just different enough from the rest of Skaggs' output to stand out. 'Lovin’ Only Me' sounds like the prototypical Alan Jackson record, with a muscular traditional country sound that marries country’s insistence on being felt with rock’s insistence on being heard. Skaggs navigates the production with ease, turning in a more forceful performance than was typical of his hits from earlier in the decade -
Skaggs could’ve continued through the nineties as a mainstream country star just fine, even if he no longer had chart toppers. But it turns out it was no longer his jam. It’s telling his final # 1 hit came from an album called "Kentucky Thunder" because after just 2 more Top 29 hits, Skaggs fully embraced his bluegrass roots. Skaggs was bluegrass music’s hottest young picker and singer in the 1970s, both heir apparent to the reigning legends and a leader of the progressive bluegrass movement, before he successfully adapted his sound to become the mainstream country star from 1981, the vanguard of the neo-traditional movement that was to sweep through country music as the decade progressed. Indeed, by 1987 the major competition to Skaggs in the charts no longer came from pop country, but by the new wave of neo-traditionalists that Skaggs had paved the way for.
Throughout the 1980s, Skaggs was a major mainstream country star. Eleven #1 hits (12 in Canada), 8 CMA and ACM awards, a member of the Grand Ole Opry, and fronting one of the most successful touring acts around, he was a true ambassador of the genre, onstage and in the studio. And yet, as that mainstream country sound became more engineered and polished, country music was still too pop for Skaggs. He didn't much like the slick sounds and massive tours. Skaggs had become more and more enamoured with the bluegrass roots of his upbringing, where the legends of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs and Dr. Ralph Stanley reign supreme.
By the middle 1990s, a host of younger new traditionalists, in a sound dubbed "New Country", had grabbed the spotlight. So in 1996, with nothing new to prove in the country field, Skaggs gave up his mainstream career and made the bold move to return to his musical roots, shifting his creative focus back to acoustic bluegrass, and by doing so, he become bluegrass’s leading ambassador. Since the 1990's, Skaggs has become the undisputed leader of the progressive bluegrass movement and its reigning living legend. Just as Bill Monroe was the founder and father of Bluegrass, Ricky Skaggs has become the godfather of Bluegrass.
Skaggs christened his new Bluegrass band Kentucky Thunder. Their first album, 1997's "Bluegrass Rules!", sold over 200,000 copies, proving that bluegrass was still a viable commercial product. The Grammy-winning collection took home the International Bluegrass Music Association awards for Album of the Year and also the Instrumental Group of the Year in 1998, and award they repeated in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, as well as Recorded Event of the Year in 2000 and 2008, Instrumental Album of the Year in 2000 and Gospel Recorded Performance in 2012. Indeed, Skaggs has also followed Bill Monroe in incorporating a lot of Gospel into his Bluegrass - in accordance with his strong old Southern and/or Appalachian old time religion he was brought up with, and which he started publicly speaking about from the 1990's onwards - and still does.
In the decades since, Skaggs' chart-topping mainstream country music fame has become almost incidental, nestled in between 2 lengthy and impactful bluegrass runs that are ultimately a bigger, more important, part of his musical legacy. However, I found that featuring selections from the almost 30 years of Bluegrass from Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder just doesn't suit the format I've adopted for this history series. Skaggs' bluegrass is best consumed live, of course, in small, intimate venues, (avoiding any amplification of the acoustic instruments), or alternatively listening to albums - but not on singles of a few minutes. I'm sure any Bluegrass enthusiasts will already have at least one or maybe quite a few more, Skaggs albums, so this avoidance to this essential part of his music legacy here won't really matter.
A melting pot of roots, string, gospel and mountain music, bluegrass has remained one of the last vestiges of that “lonesome” sound that still rings true in our country hearts. The foundations of bluegrass are more folk, more mountainous and old-time, with sounds and characteristics that immediately take you back to the mountains.And nobody blurs the lines between classic country and bluegrass as well as Ricky Skaggs. With the release of the "Hearts Like Ours" in 2014, a dream came true for Ricky Skaggs and his wife, celebrated artist Sharon White of The Whites. Previously in 1987 the pair won a CMA Vocal Duo of the Year award for 'Love Can’t Ever Get Better Than This' (as shown above) but White was touring with her family band and Skaggs was on fire with his solo career, so releasing a full project wasn’t possible at the time. This first-ever studio album was produced by Skaggs and White and features the couple dueting on handpicked country love songs.
As a musician, Skaggs is a brilliant, virtuoso traditionalist but is still willing to mix genres, recording and touring with many different artists such as Bruce Hornsby and Ry Cooder. In 2015, Skaggs, Cooder and Sharon White embarked upon the critically acclaimed ‘Cooder-White-Skaggs – Songs for the Good People’ tour that featured the trio singing gospel, blues and country along with superior musicianship. Skaggs played his first full country show in Nashville in 20 years in 2017 then appeared on the long running Country’s Family Reunion TV show, backed by a studio band of Nashville's finest session musician veterans, all well known in the industry (though the pedal steel starts on the wrong note on this unrehearsed performance below). During this 2018 show, Skaggs and his wife Sharon and her sister, Cheryl White, performed 'I'll Take the Blame', written by Bluegrass legend Carter Stanley and first recorded by The Stanley Brothers and The Clinch Mountain Boys way back in 1961. Skaggs had previously recorded 'I'll Take The Blame' back in 1978, with Emmylou Harris providing the backing harmony. As I didn't include that in my selection, here is Skaggs, aged 64 and going strong, with Sharon and Cheryl White -
Skaggs played his first full country show in Nashville in 20 years in 2017. 2018 was a stellar year for Skaggs, with no less than 3 more HoF inductions - the National Fiddler HoF, IBMA’s Bluegrass Music HoF and country music’s greatest honor, the Country Music HoF. Along with his 3 previous inductions into the Kentucky Music HoF, the Gospel Music Association’s Gospel Music HoF and the Musicians HoF, all 6 awards display his ability to masterfully cross genres with versatility in styles and instrumental prowess.
Three days back, there was a description about his first meeting with Bill Monroe as a 6 y.o. Prodigy. Here's another later description of it by Skaggs - "There was I, when I was 6 years old. My parents brought me to see Bill Monroe play. I’d only been playing mandolin for about a year, but folks in the crowd kept yelling up to the stage, “Let Ricky Skaggs play.” They kept doing it, and finally Monroe had enough of it and called for me to come up. He didn’t know who Ricky Skaggs was. I go down and Bill pulled me up onstage like a sack of potatoes. He sat me down and asked me what I played. I told him mandolin and he took off his F5 (mandolin) and placed it around me. It was so prophetic to me what that meant. It was like he was passing the baton, even at 6 years old, to a young kid that would grow up some day and play his music and tell people about him. I didn’t think any of that back then, I had no idea what my future held, but I became aware of who he was in that moment. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was his way of passing the music on to the next generation".
Just before Bill Monroe died in 1996, Skaggs promised him he would do his part to keep Monroe's legacy - bluegrass music, the very music Skaggs had grown up with from a young boy until his mid-twenties - alive. His 1996 deathbed promise to Monroe was - “I will play this music as long as I live. Don’t worry about it. It’s in good hands.
So here, from Skaggs induction into the Country Music HoF in 2018, we have, not so much a great piece of music (Skaggs seems somewhat tentatively careful and perhaps somewhat overcome by the significance of the occasion), but a great piece of music history, as he is presented with perhaps the most famous and valuable instrument in country music history (even more so than Willie Nelson's Trigger), none other than Bill Monroe's 100 year old mandolin- the very same one Skaggs had played 58 years earlier! No wionder he seems nervous here as he plays the national anthem of country music, 'Will The Circle Be Unbroken' (posts # 675 & 679) -
At the induction, Skaggs said - "Mr Monroe kicked the doors open for all of us. I made him a promise that I would tell people what a rocking cat he was. I’ve done that". Skaggs got to play Bill Monroe's mandolin again in 2022 for a fun raising event after the Covid lockdown in Nashville ended.
Speaking at Skaggs' induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, Garth Brooks, who played a large role in getting Skaggs inducted, credits the Kentucky native for paving the way for the neo-traditionalist movement, which made room for himself and others, including Alan Jackson and Clint Black, who broke through in the early 1990s - “There was a cowboy out of Texas holding the fort down and a cowgirl out of Oklahoma (referencing George Strait and Reba McEntire in the early ‘80s) holding the fort down, and they needed help. Here came a kid playing country and bluegrass music out of Kentucky. And for me, I think George, Reba and Ricky held the fort down long enough for traditional country to make a comeback.”.
in 2020, Skaggs was awarded the prestigious National Medal of Arts for his contributions to the American music industry - This is the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the U.S. government. As a virtuoso of the mandolin and fiddle, Skaggs creates and produces bluegrass music that preserves the musical legacy of the most talented artists of his generation. The singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist (about the only thing he hasn't done is write songs) Skaggs has earned an astounding 15 Grammys and 29 nominations over his career - so far. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, the Musicians Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (Skaggs jokes all that’s left is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame).
So, having omitted much due to being just too much to include in this format, it's time to leave again, with Skaggs still touring, mostly across the South (he is set to perform at the Grand Ole Opry several times from next week), and still being accompanied by the high quality Kentucky Thunder Band at most of his concerts, Skaggs, at age 70, and in apparent good health, living a healthy life, is showing no signs of disappearing from performing. His reputation is set in stone as a country music great, the spearhead of the neo-traditional movement, a mandolin and guitar virtuoso and Bill Monroe's heir as the godfather of Bluegrass.
So that's it for now, with another break from this history series. But as Skaggs started his 11 chart toppers in 1981, just keep in mind that this was still within the period when pop-country had the ascendancy.... so with that warning, it's goodbye for now.
Addendum - Being amongst the most awarded country musicians, here's a list, covering Ricky Skaggs' major awards - omitting many more from lesser institutions -
As we seen, with songs like yesterdays 'Something In My Heart', Skaggs, despite all his Bluegrass influence, also made himself at home with fiddle and pedal-steel soaked honky tonk songs and here we have another perfect example. 'I've Got A New Heartache' reached # 2 when the great Texan, Ray Price (posts # 269-275) released it as the first single off his "Greatest Hits" compilation album way back in 1956. Three decades later, in 1986, with the second single released from his "Live in London" album, Skaggs brought the song back to the Top 10 -
Skaggs finally joined forces with his second wife that he married in 1981 (and still is, with 2 children), Sharon White, of the country music vocal group The Whites, from Fort Worth, Texas. Formed in 1972, they consist of sisters Sharon and Cheryl White and their father, Buck White. Though it was just their first-ever duet, 'Love Can't Ever Get Better Than This' scored a solid success - Skaggs shines as a duet partner, In addition to reaching the Top 10, it also earned them a CMA Award for Vocal Duo of the Year in 1987 -
Skaggs returned to #1 in 1989 after an absence of 2 years with the first single from his 10th studio album. His 11th and last # 1 in the U.S. (12th in Canada), written by Hillary Kanter and Even Stevens, 'Lovin' Only Me' features a mid-tempo groove, big harmony vocals and twangy guitars that are in the classic style but just different enough from the rest of Skaggs' output to stand out. 'Lovin’ Only Me' sounds like the prototypical Alan Jackson record, with a muscular traditional country sound that marries country’s insistence on being felt with rock’s insistence on being heard. Skaggs navigates the production with ease, turning in a more forceful performance than was typical of his hits from earlier in the decade -
Skaggs could’ve continued through the nineties as a mainstream country star just fine, even if he no longer had chart toppers. But it turns out it was no longer his jam. It’s telling his final # 1 hit came from an album called "Kentucky Thunder" because after just 2 more Top 29 hits, Skaggs fully embraced his bluegrass roots. Skaggs was bluegrass music’s hottest young picker and singer in the 1970s, both heir apparent to the reigning legends and a leader of the progressive bluegrass movement, before he successfully adapted his sound to become the mainstream country star from 1981, the vanguard of the neo-traditional movement that was to sweep through country music as the decade progressed. Indeed, by 1987 the major competition to Skaggs in the charts no longer came from pop country, but by the new wave of neo-traditionalists that Skaggs had paved the way for.
Throughout the 1980s, Skaggs was a major mainstream country star. Eleven #1 hits (12 in Canada), 8 CMA and ACM awards, a member of the Grand Ole Opry, and fronting one of the most successful touring acts around, he was a true ambassador of the genre, onstage and in the studio. And yet, as that mainstream country sound became more engineered and polished, country music was still too pop for Skaggs. He didn't much like the slick sounds and massive tours. Skaggs had become more and more enamoured with the bluegrass roots of his upbringing, where the legends of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs and Dr. Ralph Stanley reign supreme.
By the middle 1990s, a host of younger new traditionalists, in a sound dubbed "New Country", had grabbed the spotlight. So in 1996, with nothing new to prove in the country field, Skaggs gave up his mainstream career and made the bold move to return to his musical roots, shifting his creative focus back to acoustic bluegrass, and by doing so, he become bluegrass’s leading ambassador. Since the 1990's, Skaggs has become the undisputed leader of the progressive bluegrass movement and its reigning living legend. Just as Bill Monroe was the founder and father of Bluegrass, Ricky Skaggs has become the godfather of Bluegrass.
Skaggs christened his new Bluegrass band Kentucky Thunder. Their first album, 1997's "Bluegrass Rules!", sold over 200,000 copies, proving that bluegrass was still a viable commercial product. The Grammy-winning collection took home the International Bluegrass Music Association awards for Album of the Year and also the Instrumental Group of the Year in 1998, and award they repeated in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, as well as Recorded Event of the Year in 2000 and 2008, Instrumental Album of the Year in 2000 and Gospel Recorded Performance in 2012. Indeed, Skaggs has also followed Bill Monroe in incorporating a lot of Gospel into his Bluegrass - in accordance with his strong old Southern and/or Appalachian old time religion he was brought up with, and which he started publicly speaking about from the 1990's onwards - and still does.
In the decades since, Skaggs' chart-topping mainstream country music fame has become almost incidental, nestled in between 2 lengthy and impactful bluegrass runs that are ultimately a bigger, more important, part of his musical legacy. However, I found that featuring selections from the almost 30 years of Bluegrass from Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder just doesn't suit the format I've adopted for this history series. Skaggs' bluegrass is best consumed live, of course, in small, intimate venues, (avoiding any amplification of the acoustic instruments), or alternatively listening to albums - but not on singles of a few minutes. I'm sure any Bluegrass enthusiasts will already have at least one or maybe quite a few more, Skaggs albums, so this avoidance to this essential part of his music legacy here won't really matter.
A melting pot of roots, string, gospel and mountain music, bluegrass has remained one of the last vestiges of that “lonesome” sound that still rings true in our country hearts. The foundations of bluegrass are more folk, more mountainous and old-time, with sounds and characteristics that immediately take you back to the mountains.And nobody blurs the lines between classic country and bluegrass as well as Ricky Skaggs. With the release of the "Hearts Like Ours" in 2014, a dream came true for Ricky Skaggs and his wife, celebrated artist Sharon White of The Whites. Previously in 1987 the pair won a CMA Vocal Duo of the Year award for 'Love Can’t Ever Get Better Than This' (as shown above) but White was touring with her family band and Skaggs was on fire with his solo career, so releasing a full project wasn’t possible at the time. This first-ever studio album was produced by Skaggs and White and features the couple dueting on handpicked country love songs.
As a musician, Skaggs is a brilliant, virtuoso traditionalist but is still willing to mix genres, recording and touring with many different artists such as Bruce Hornsby and Ry Cooder. In 2015, Skaggs, Cooder and Sharon White embarked upon the critically acclaimed ‘Cooder-White-Skaggs – Songs for the Good People’ tour that featured the trio singing gospel, blues and country along with superior musicianship. Skaggs played his first full country show in Nashville in 20 years in 2017 then appeared on the long running Country’s Family Reunion TV show, backed by a studio band of Nashville's finest session musician veterans, all well known in the industry (though the pedal steel starts on the wrong note on this unrehearsed performance below). During this 2018 show, Skaggs and his wife Sharon and her sister, Cheryl White, performed 'I'll Take the Blame', written by Bluegrass legend Carter Stanley and first recorded by The Stanley Brothers and The Clinch Mountain Boys way back in 1961. Skaggs had previously recorded 'I'll Take The Blame' back in 1978, with Emmylou Harris providing the backing harmony. As I didn't include that in my selection, here is Skaggs, aged 64 and going strong, with Sharon and Cheryl White -
Skaggs played his first full country show in Nashville in 20 years in 2017. 2018 was a stellar year for Skaggs, with no less than 3 more HoF inductions - the National Fiddler HoF, IBMA’s Bluegrass Music HoF and country music’s greatest honor, the Country Music HoF. Along with his 3 previous inductions into the Kentucky Music HoF, the Gospel Music Association’s Gospel Music HoF and the Musicians HoF, all 6 awards display his ability to masterfully cross genres with versatility in styles and instrumental prowess.
Three days back, there was a description about his first meeting with Bill Monroe as a 6 y.o. Prodigy. Here's another later description of it by Skaggs - "There was I, when I was 6 years old. My parents brought me to see Bill Monroe play. I’d only been playing mandolin for about a year, but folks in the crowd kept yelling up to the stage, “Let Ricky Skaggs play.” They kept doing it, and finally Monroe had enough of it and called for me to come up. He didn’t know who Ricky Skaggs was. I go down and Bill pulled me up onstage like a sack of potatoes. He sat me down and asked me what I played. I told him mandolin and he took off his F5 (mandolin) and placed it around me. It was so prophetic to me what that meant. It was like he was passing the baton, even at 6 years old, to a young kid that would grow up some day and play his music and tell people about him. I didn’t think any of that back then, I had no idea what my future held, but I became aware of who he was in that moment. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was his way of passing the music on to the next generation".
Just before Bill Monroe died in 1996, Skaggs promised him he would do his part to keep Monroe's legacy - bluegrass music, the very music Skaggs had grown up with from a young boy until his mid-twenties - alive. His 1996 deathbed promise to Monroe was - “I will play this music as long as I live. Don’t worry about it. It’s in good hands.
So here, from Skaggs induction into the Country Music HoF in 2018, we have, not so much a great piece of music (Skaggs seems somewhat tentatively careful and perhaps somewhat overcome by the significance of the occasion), but a great piece of music history, as he is presented with perhaps the most famous and valuable instrument in country music history (even more so than Willie Nelson's Trigger), none other than Bill Monroe's 100 year old mandolin- the very same one Skaggs had played 58 years earlier! No wionder he seems nervous here as he plays the national anthem of country music, 'Will The Circle Be Unbroken' (posts # 675 & 679) -
At the induction, Skaggs said - "Mr Monroe kicked the doors open for all of us. I made him a promise that I would tell people what a rocking cat he was. I’ve done that". Skaggs got to play Bill Monroe's mandolin again in 2022 for a fun raising event after the Covid lockdown in Nashville ended.
Speaking at Skaggs' induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, Garth Brooks, who played a large role in getting Skaggs inducted, credits the Kentucky native for paving the way for the neo-traditionalist movement, which made room for himself and others, including Alan Jackson and Clint Black, who broke through in the early 1990s - “There was a cowboy out of Texas holding the fort down and a cowgirl out of Oklahoma (referencing George Strait and Reba McEntire in the early ‘80s) holding the fort down, and they needed help. Here came a kid playing country and bluegrass music out of Kentucky. And for me, I think George, Reba and Ricky held the fort down long enough for traditional country to make a comeback.”.
in 2020, Skaggs was awarded the prestigious National Medal of Arts for his contributions to the American music industry - This is the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the U.S. government. As a virtuoso of the mandolin and fiddle, Skaggs creates and produces bluegrass music that preserves the musical legacy of the most talented artists of his generation. The singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist (about the only thing he hasn't done is write songs) Skaggs has earned an astounding 15 Grammys and 29 nominations over his career - so far. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, the Musicians Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (Skaggs jokes all that’s left is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame).
So, having omitted much due to being just too much to include in this format, it's time to leave again, with Skaggs still touring, mostly across the South (he is set to perform at the Grand Ole Opry several times from next week), and still being accompanied by the high quality Kentucky Thunder Band at most of his concerts, Skaggs, at age 70, and in apparent good health, living a healthy life, is showing no signs of disappearing from performing. His reputation is set in stone as a country music great, the spearhead of the neo-traditional movement, a mandolin and guitar virtuoso and Bill Monroe's heir as the godfather of Bluegrass.
So that's it for now, with another break from this history series. But as Skaggs started his 11 chart toppers in 1981, just keep in mind that this was still within the period when pop-country had the ascendancy.... so with that warning, it's goodbye for now.
Addendum - Being amongst the most awarded country musicians, here's a list, covering Ricky Skaggs' major awards - omitting many more from lesser institutions -
NATIONAL MEDAL OF ARTS
- National Medal of Arts Recipient – 2020
COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME
- Artist-In-Residence, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum – 2013
- Country Music Hall of Fame Member – Class of 2018
GRAMMY AWARDS (15 TOTAL)
- Best Country Instrumental Performance – 1983, 1984, 1986
- Best Country Vocal Collaboration (with Vince Gill & Steve Wariner) – 1991
- Best Country Vocal Collaboration for “Same Old Train” – 1998
- Best Bluegrass Album (for Bluegrass Rules!) – 1998
- Best Bluegrass Album (for Ancient Tones) – 1999
- Best Southern, Country, or Bluegrass Gospel Album of the Year (for Soldier of the Cross) – 2000
- Best Country Performance by a Group or Duo with Vocals (for song, “A Simple Life”) – 2003
- Best Bluegrass Album (for Brand New Strings) – 2004
- Best Musical Album for Children – Various Artists (for Songs From the Neighborhood: The Music of Mister Rogers) – 2005
- Best Bluegrass Album (for Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder Instrumentals) – 2006
- Best Southern, Country, or Bluegrass Gospel Album of the Year (with The Whites for Salt of the Earth) – 2007
- Best Bluegrass Album (for Honoring the Fathers of Bluegrass) – 2008
- Best Contemporary Christian Music Album (as producer for Love Remains by Hillary Scott & The Scott Family) – 2016
INTERNATIONAL BLUEGRASS MUSIC ASSOCIATION (IBMA) HALL OF FAME
- IBMA Hall of Fame Member 2018 inductee
INTERNATIONAL BLUEGRASS MUSIC ASSOCIATION (IBMA) AWARDS
- Album of the Year (for Bluegrass Rules!) – 1998
- Instrumental Group of the Year (with Kentucky Thunder) – 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
- Recorded Event of the Year (for Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza) – 2000
- Instrumental Album of the Year (for Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza) – 2000
- Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year for song “Singing As We Rise” – The Gibson Brothers with Ricky Skaggs – 2012
- Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year for song “Sacred Memories” – Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers with Ricky Skaggs and Sharon White Skaggs – 2017 (tie)
COUNTRY MUSIC ASSOCIATION (CMA) AWARDS
- Male Vocalist of the Year – 1982
- Horizon Award – 1982
- Instrumental Group of the Year – 1983, 1984, 1985
- Entertainer of the Year – 1985
- Vocal Duo of the Year (with Sharon White Skaggs) – 1987
- Vocal Event of the Year (with Mark O’Connor & New Nashville Cats) – 1991
ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC (ACM) AWARDS
- New Male Vocalist – 1981
- Touring Band of the Year – 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986
- Best Specialty Instrument (Mandolin) – 1984, 1987
- Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award – 2012
MUSICIANS HALL OF FAME
- Musicians Hall of Fame Member 2016 inductee
TNN/MUSIC CITY NEWS AWARDS
- Bluegrass Act of the Year – 1982, 1983, 1984
- Star of Tomorrow – 1983
- Instrumentalist of the Year – 1988, 1989, 1990
- Vocal Collaboration of the Year (with Vince Gill & Patty Loveless) – 1996
GOSPEL MUSIC ASSOCIATION (GMA) HALL OF FAME
- GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame Member 2012 inductee
GOSPEL MUSIC ASSOCIATION (GMA) DOVE AWARDS
- Bluegrass Recorded Song of the Year for “Are You Afraid to Die?” – 2001
- Bluegrass Recorded Album of the Year for Salt of the Earth with The Whites – 2008
AMERICANA MUSIC ASSOCIATION (AMA) AWARDS
- Lifetime Achievement Award, Instrumentalist – 2015
And many other awards too numerous to mention here
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PatsFitztrick
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I’ve seen that footage of Ricky playing Bill’s mandolin a few times now, and for this old Bluegrass tragic, it still stirs the emotions.
So too does this tribute by Lorraine Jordon and Carolina Road, who wrote this song about that historic night.
So too does this tribute by Lorraine Jordon and Carolina Road, who wrote this song about that historic night.
Now that's the perfect post to conclude on with Ricky Skaggs.
Monocle
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Thanks Professor K for the Ricky Skaggs posts, I thoroughly enjoyed the read and listen.
Got a thrill out of the clip with Ricky and his wife and sister in law, Sharron and Cheryl - The Whites, it drew a big smile listening to the band with the backing of Mike Johnson on pedal steel - great player and "The Sherriff" the Late Jimmy Clapp on his famous red fender another fine musician.
One of the truely wonderful things about grassroots country and bluegrass musicians, is their want for younger musicians to come through and learn the craft.
It was fitting that just as a very young Ricky Skaggs at the age of 6, was up on stage with Bill Monroe then I remember watching Ricky introducing a 10 year old Carson Peters to the audience at the Grand Ole Opry as he and Rickys band played Bill Monroes 'Blue Moon of Kentucky"....it was quite something.
Got a thrill out of the clip with Ricky and his wife and sister in law, Sharron and Cheryl - The Whites, it drew a big smile listening to the band with the backing of Mike Johnson on pedal steel - great player and "The Sherriff" the Late Jimmy Clapp on his famous red fender another fine musician.
One of the truely wonderful things about grassroots country and bluegrass musicians, is their want for younger musicians to come through and learn the craft.
It was fitting that just as a very young Ricky Skaggs at the age of 6, was up on stage with Bill Monroe then I remember watching Ricky introducing a 10 year old Carson Peters to the audience at the Grand Ole Opry as he and Rickys band played Bill Monroes 'Blue Moon of Kentucky"....it was quite something.
Thank you, Monocle - you seem to really know your stuff here. And I'm real glad you raised the Carson Peters appearance with Skaggs at the Opry - for I came so close to including it into my selection and I meant to at least still mention it. So you've provided the perfect excuse to show it here, alongside showing the 7 year old Skaggs again with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs in 1961 -
Fast foward 63 years to 2014, with Skaggs passing on the Bluegrass torch to 10 year old Carson Peters -
I see Carson Peters is following in Skaggs footsteps in 2 ways - he tours with his traditional (all-acoustic, no pedal steel, no drums) Bluegrass band, Iron Mountain all-acoustic, and also tours solo playing classic country (with pedal-steel and drums), perhaps with greater commercial success in mind, just as Skaggs did in the 1980's.
I'm also just about ready for the next history instalment, though I'm sure it'll have a lot less interest than Ricky Skaggs. Nevertheless, she was a major 1980's star in the U.S. and also Canada, so I feel compelled to include her in the series, though she was, and still is, largely unknown in Australia, with only a couple of her early duet records released here, before she became a star. Ricky Skaggs had a key role (actually severe roles) in her first solo album to break through to success.
So I've already partially introduced the next featured artist as we step just a little bit more in the 1980's. She didn't have a typical country music background as she wasn't from the South, nor were her parents - in contrast to the Bakersfield Sound artists of California, all who had solidly Southern roots, or others like John Prine, born and raised in Chicago but who always identified himself as a Kentuckian like his parents). Her surname Fricke (pronounced as 2 syllables like Frickey) shows she is of German ancestry, common to northern Indiana. And, as to be expected from her Northern heritage, she didn't grow up with country music. However, in other areas, her background was typical for country music - she came from a musical and farming family, sang at church and eventually, she fortuitously made her way to Nashville and country music.
Born well away from the South, in rural Northern Indiana in 1947, Janie Fricke grew up in a family of music lovers on a 160 hectare farm in Northern Indiana - “We were country people. We were always working the land and everything. I would turn on the radio at night when I was trying to go to sleep. And I would just sing along with all the songs on the radio, learned harmony parts and learned a tonal quality value for the voice". Apart from the radio, Fricke's earliest musical influences came from T.V. variety shows, such as The Ed Sullivan Show (the famed long running, top-rating evening show that launched Elvis, The Beatles, and many more to national attention in the U.S) - “You got to watch people like Dionne Warwick and Connie Francis and all of the headliners of the day. So, I learned all of their music and their techniques of singing. I was just amazed at how wonderful their voices were and what they were able to do with their voices. So, I just studied that. And I sang along with the radio continuously".
Fricke began her career singing in "... a little church up the road ...”. She first learned to play piano and then guitar as a child. Her mother was a very proficient piano player who performed each week at her church and was also a useful critic - “... she was always saying, ‘Jane, you’re shrill or you’re sharp or whatever.’ So, I would have to change my tone and be sure that I was singing right on pitch”. Brought up in the North, she had little interest in country music - “My family was always encouraging me to sing all of the pop songs of the time, so we were buying sheet music and I was singing Dusty Springfield and Rita Coolidge - anything that was a strong pop song at the time. So I was not your average country singer growing up on the farm and just singing country music. Musically, I was trained to read music and play the piano."
As a teenager, Fricke sang at high school events and local coffeehouses. She then attended Indiana University, majoring in elementary education. Her college musical influences were broad ranging, from the Andrew Sisters and Barbra Streisand to Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and Judy Collins -“All those people influenced me in a different way. So, I didn’t have one favourite. I collected all their albums. I still have some of those original albums that I bought back in those days". But while she still loved singing at university, she didn't believe she could make a viable career of it.
That changed, however, when she successfully auditioned for the university's famed choral group, the Singing Hoosiers (Hoosier being a term for Indiana residents). This wasn't just any university chorale ensemble, but considered the nations most prestigious, touring widely in the U.S. and Europe. Then after rehearsal one day, she saw a bulletin board advert looking for a vocalist to record station breaks and commercial jingles for a local radio station. Fricke, who by now had decided she "... wasn't cut out to be a teacher", landed the gig and found she was well-suited for the job. In time, she moved up to recording vocals for national ad campaigns as one of the marketing industry’s most successful jingle singers. Her voice became known to millions as the voice for such advertising giants as United Airlines, Coca-Cola, 7-Up, and the Red Lobster restaurant chain.
After graduating from college in 1972, she moved to L.A., aiming to find work as a backing singer for the major recording studios. But, lacking local contacts, and not really fitting in with the urban L.A. lifestyle, she found limited opportunities. But she did win a local T.V. talent contest. Watching the contest that day was a country music producer who offered Fricke a secretarial job if she moved to Nashville. Fricke accepted and moved to Nashville in 1975. Once she got their, working as a secretary, she successfully auditioned for The Lea Jane Singers, Nashville's leading studio quartet that added background vocals to recording sessions. Fricke was admitted into the quartet, singing soprano. She went to work providing background vocals for major country artists such as Loretta Lynn, Eddie Rabbitt, Crystal Gayle, Ronnie Milsap, Barbara Mandrell, Mel Tillis and others.
Fricke also kept her hand in radio commercial work, which gave her a national profile and she quickly became Nashville's most successful backing vocalist, lending her voice to studio sessions with Elvis Presley, Conway Twitty, Tanya Tucker, and Al Green. After a year in Nashville, Fricke got her first major exposure in 1976, when famed Countrypolitan producer Billy Sherrill teamed her with longtime Texan B-grade star Johnny Duncan, who had been charting mostly in the lower reaches over the decade, with only 3 Top 20 hits since 1967 (not enough to get his own spot in this history series apart from his cameo appearance here). It was the 28 y.o. Fricke that was pivotal in Duncan's stardom, albeit briefly, brightly shine - and he in turn made Fricke
Fricke had a memorable vocal cameo on Duncan's single 'Stranger', helping to make it Duncan's most successful single yet, going to # 4 in 1976. Featuring harmony vocals, and a solo line at a key point in the song's third verse by Fricke. The follow up single was even more successful - 'Thinkin' of a Rendezvous', written by Bobby Braddock and Sonny Throckmorton, was Duncan's first # 1, topping the charts in both the U.S. and Canada. The song - about a family man who meets up with a woman, a long-time friend with whom he had a secret affair more than a year earlier - was the first of 2 Duncan-Fricke duets to top the charts -
Duncan with Fricke followed up with 'It Couldn't Have Been Any Better', which also went all the way to # 1 in both the U.S. and Canada in early 1977.
Although the last Duncan-Fricke duet to top the charts, the two enjoyed several more duet hits in 1977. Whereas she had not been given label credit on the earlier hits, Fricke was moved up to co-start billing with Duncan on the recording of 'Come a Little Bit Closer'. Originally it was a # 3 Pop hit in 1964 for the rock'n'roll group, Jay and the Americans, their biggest ever, and who also recorded a Spanish version. It was the the first Top 10 hit by the pop/rock songwriting team of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who, amongst many others, wrote most of the Monkees big hits. Duncan and Fricke's cover reached # 4 in the U.S. and # 2 in Canada. Then in 1978, Fricke was again providing the backing harmony for Duncan's 'She Can Put Her Shoes Under My Bed Anytime', which topped both the U.S. and Canadian charts. All up, from 1976 to 1978, with their light brand of pop-country, Duncan and Fricke had 7 Top 5 hits, 3 of which topped the charts in both the U.S. and Canada. Once this partnership ended due to Friske's own burgeoning solo career, Duncan soon returned to his previous lower chart levels.
Following Fricke's success as a backing and harmony singer, and her crucial role in lifting Johny Duncan from being a decade long B-level star to briefly being right in the A-grade spotlight, but which also brought her vocal talents to the forefront, Her work on Duncan’s records caught the attention of Columbia Records, who courted her for a solo deal. Fricke was hesitant to become a lead singer, but Columbia finally pressed her to record a solo album. Released in early 1978, her debut studio album "Singer of Songs" was a collection of new songs. The album showed she still had some work to do to express herself as a solo artist, not just as a technically correct studio and harmony singer.
Ironically, the one cover from the album 'Please Help Me, I'm Fallin' (In Love with You), a cover of the major hit by Hank Locklin (post # 359). became Fricke's first major solo hit, reaching # 12 and doing even better in Canada (where she was, for a time, more popular than the U.S.), peaking at # 4. Songwriter Don Robertson wrote about the delicate point in which a person wants to stay committed to their marriage, but realises the attraction and temptation to another is becoming too much for him to resist - so he begs for the temptress to desist -
Fricke had the vocals sufficient to make this her first major solo hit but the general critics consensus on her debut album was that her vocals, while strong and technically spot-on, promised more than what she actually delivered. Transitioning from a backing and harmony singer to a lead vocalist was still a work in process. Producer Billy Sherrill advised her to establish an identity by focusing on one style, and Fricke began to record a generous selection of ballads.
Fricke next collaborated with The Silver Fox, Charlie Rich,and for this, I'll just repeat what I said in post # 711 - ‘On My Knees’ was Rich's 10th - and final - # 1 hit as he, along with Janie Fricke, performed this ballad in 1978. While this was Rich’s final # 1 single, it marked the first in which Fricke got equal billing. The lyrical plea from Rich to the love interest in this tale, performed by Fricke, sees a man see the error of his ways, wanting to reunite with his lover in hopes their second round at romance will bring back the magic they once shared together. In my experience, that never quite works in reality -
Her collaboration with Johnny Duncan, as detailed above, kept Fricke going strong through 1978, but she still couldn’t sustain a successful solo career in the late 1970's. None of her albums during this period charted in the U.S., including her 2nd record 'Love Notes', the single 'I'll Love Away Your Troubles for Awhile' from it went to # 7 in Canada and # 14 in the U.S. However, the other 4 singles released from this and her her third album, 1979's "From The Heart", all failed to crack the atop 20. "From The Heart" also didn't trouble the U.S. charts - but did reach the Top 10 in Canada, confirming Fricke's greater popularity there at the time.
October 1980 saw the release of Fricke and Johhny Duncan's only studio album as a duo, "Nice 'n' Easy". The album was actually recorded in sessions at Columbia's Nashville Studio between 1975 and 1980. Of the 10 tracks comprised "Nice 'n' Easy", 5 of the songs had been recorded and released previously, with the success as outlined above - so with nothing notable here, the also album didn't make the charts.
Transitioning from background to lead vocalist is tricky, and it took some time for Fricke to fully find her own voice. Her solo career took off slowly. But Fricke’s solo fortunes really began to soar with the release of her 4th LP in November 1980, the more traditional country oriented "I’ll Need Someone To Hold Me When I Cry" found her working with a new producer, Jim Ed Norman, and recording stronger material. This was Fricke’s first charting album and a huge step in the right direction.
Although the Urban Cowboy pop-country trend was by now en vogue in Nashville, Janie actually bucked the commercial trend and went in a more traditional direction. Although not eschewing string arrangements entirely, the songs on this album are much less slickly produced than her earlier work. There is audible steel and fiddle throughout - the latter instrument being played by a virtuoso artist just hitting the the big time himself - Ricky Skaggs who also provided background vocals on the album’s first single and Janie’s breakthrough hit, the Chick Rains penned 'Down To My Last Broken Heart', which climbed to #2, just missing the top spot, in late 1980 -
The album's title track, 'I'll Need Someone to Hold Me When I Cry', written by Bob McDill and Wayland Holyfield, was originally recorded by Don Williams (posts # 757-759) in 1977. Fricke's versionwas released in 1981 as the 3rd single and reached #4 - and once again, Fricke did even better in Canada, going all the way to #1. With its simple lyric and relatively stripped down-production, with Ricky Skaggs on fiddle, it provided a fresh contrast to the en vogue pop soaked Urban Cowboy sound -
So we leave Janie Fricke off in 1981, with Janie Fricke, at age 33, having steadily built her career, from church and singing pop songs in local coffeehouses, to joining the famed choral group, The Singing Hoosiers, at Indiana University, to becoming a leading singer of advertising jingles in major national advertisements, but otherwise spending 3 fruitless years in L.A. before the offer to come to Nashville and her switch to country music. She then spent another 6 years progressing from her admission into The Lea Jane Singers, Nashville's leading studio quartet, to become Nashville's leading backing singer, eventually getting co-billing while briefly making Texan Johnny Duncan into a genuine star with her vocals added to his.
It’s estimated she sang on as many as 5,000 records in the seventies, including hits by Elvis Presley and particularly with Johnny Duncan. Finally, she really found her voice as a solo singer. Janie Fricke's first successful solo album, 1981's mainly traditional country 'I'll Need Someone to Hold Me When I Cry', in which another rising star, Ricky Skaggs, provided backing vocals and fiddle, spawning a # 2 and a # 4 hit in 1981 (with one more release from her next album still to come in 1981) and she maintained her comparatively greater popularity in Canada, where she had her first solo # 1 hit. But much more success was to come, as will be seen.
Born well away from the South, in rural Northern Indiana in 1947, Janie Fricke grew up in a family of music lovers on a 160 hectare farm in Northern Indiana - “We were country people. We were always working the land and everything. I would turn on the radio at night when I was trying to go to sleep. And I would just sing along with all the songs on the radio, learned harmony parts and learned a tonal quality value for the voice". Apart from the radio, Fricke's earliest musical influences came from T.V. variety shows, such as The Ed Sullivan Show (the famed long running, top-rating evening show that launched Elvis, The Beatles, and many more to national attention in the U.S) - “You got to watch people like Dionne Warwick and Connie Francis and all of the headliners of the day. So, I learned all of their music and their techniques of singing. I was just amazed at how wonderful their voices were and what they were able to do with their voices. So, I just studied that. And I sang along with the radio continuously".
Fricke began her career singing in "... a little church up the road ...”. She first learned to play piano and then guitar as a child. Her mother was a very proficient piano player who performed each week at her church and was also a useful critic - “... she was always saying, ‘Jane, you’re shrill or you’re sharp or whatever.’ So, I would have to change my tone and be sure that I was singing right on pitch”. Brought up in the North, she had little interest in country music - “My family was always encouraging me to sing all of the pop songs of the time, so we were buying sheet music and I was singing Dusty Springfield and Rita Coolidge - anything that was a strong pop song at the time. So I was not your average country singer growing up on the farm and just singing country music. Musically, I was trained to read music and play the piano."
As a teenager, Fricke sang at high school events and local coffeehouses. She then attended Indiana University, majoring in elementary education. Her college musical influences were broad ranging, from the Andrew Sisters and Barbra Streisand to Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and Judy Collins -“All those people influenced me in a different way. So, I didn’t have one favourite. I collected all their albums. I still have some of those original albums that I bought back in those days". But while she still loved singing at university, she didn't believe she could make a viable career of it.
That changed, however, when she successfully auditioned for the university's famed choral group, the Singing Hoosiers (Hoosier being a term for Indiana residents). This wasn't just any university chorale ensemble, but considered the nations most prestigious, touring widely in the U.S. and Europe. Then after rehearsal one day, she saw a bulletin board advert looking for a vocalist to record station breaks and commercial jingles for a local radio station. Fricke, who by now had decided she "... wasn't cut out to be a teacher", landed the gig and found she was well-suited for the job. In time, she moved up to recording vocals for national ad campaigns as one of the marketing industry’s most successful jingle singers. Her voice became known to millions as the voice for such advertising giants as United Airlines, Coca-Cola, 7-Up, and the Red Lobster restaurant chain.
After graduating from college in 1972, she moved to L.A., aiming to find work as a backing singer for the major recording studios. But, lacking local contacts, and not really fitting in with the urban L.A. lifestyle, she found limited opportunities. But she did win a local T.V. talent contest. Watching the contest that day was a country music producer who offered Fricke a secretarial job if she moved to Nashville. Fricke accepted and moved to Nashville in 1975. Once she got their, working as a secretary, she successfully auditioned for The Lea Jane Singers, Nashville's leading studio quartet that added background vocals to recording sessions. Fricke was admitted into the quartet, singing soprano. She went to work providing background vocals for major country artists such as Loretta Lynn, Eddie Rabbitt, Crystal Gayle, Ronnie Milsap, Barbara Mandrell, Mel Tillis and others.
Fricke also kept her hand in radio commercial work, which gave her a national profile and she quickly became Nashville's most successful backing vocalist, lending her voice to studio sessions with Elvis Presley, Conway Twitty, Tanya Tucker, and Al Green. After a year in Nashville, Fricke got her first major exposure in 1976, when famed Countrypolitan producer Billy Sherrill teamed her with longtime Texan B-grade star Johnny Duncan, who had been charting mostly in the lower reaches over the decade, with only 3 Top 20 hits since 1967 (not enough to get his own spot in this history series apart from his cameo appearance here). It was the 28 y.o. Fricke that was pivotal in Duncan's stardom, albeit briefly, brightly shine - and he in turn made Fricke
Fricke had a memorable vocal cameo on Duncan's single 'Stranger', helping to make it Duncan's most successful single yet, going to # 4 in 1976. Featuring harmony vocals, and a solo line at a key point in the song's third verse by Fricke. The follow up single was even more successful - 'Thinkin' of a Rendezvous', written by Bobby Braddock and Sonny Throckmorton, was Duncan's first # 1, topping the charts in both the U.S. and Canada. The song - about a family man who meets up with a woman, a long-time friend with whom he had a secret affair more than a year earlier - was the first of 2 Duncan-Fricke duets to top the charts -
Duncan with Fricke followed up with 'It Couldn't Have Been Any Better', which also went all the way to # 1 in both the U.S. and Canada in early 1977.
Although the last Duncan-Fricke duet to top the charts, the two enjoyed several more duet hits in 1977. Whereas she had not been given label credit on the earlier hits, Fricke was moved up to co-start billing with Duncan on the recording of 'Come a Little Bit Closer'. Originally it was a # 3 Pop hit in 1964 for the rock'n'roll group, Jay and the Americans, their biggest ever, and who also recorded a Spanish version. It was the the first Top 10 hit by the pop/rock songwriting team of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who, amongst many others, wrote most of the Monkees big hits. Duncan and Fricke's cover reached # 4 in the U.S. and # 2 in Canada. Then in 1978, Fricke was again providing the backing harmony for Duncan's 'She Can Put Her Shoes Under My Bed Anytime', which topped both the U.S. and Canadian charts. All up, from 1976 to 1978, with their light brand of pop-country, Duncan and Fricke had 7 Top 5 hits, 3 of which topped the charts in both the U.S. and Canada. Once this partnership ended due to Friske's own burgeoning solo career, Duncan soon returned to his previous lower chart levels.
Following Fricke's success as a backing and harmony singer, and her crucial role in lifting Johny Duncan from being a decade long B-level star to briefly being right in the A-grade spotlight, but which also brought her vocal talents to the forefront, Her work on Duncan’s records caught the attention of Columbia Records, who courted her for a solo deal. Fricke was hesitant to become a lead singer, but Columbia finally pressed her to record a solo album. Released in early 1978, her debut studio album "Singer of Songs" was a collection of new songs. The album showed she still had some work to do to express herself as a solo artist, not just as a technically correct studio and harmony singer.
Ironically, the one cover from the album 'Please Help Me, I'm Fallin' (In Love with You), a cover of the major hit by Hank Locklin (post # 359). became Fricke's first major solo hit, reaching # 12 and doing even better in Canada (where she was, for a time, more popular than the U.S.), peaking at # 4. Songwriter Don Robertson wrote about the delicate point in which a person wants to stay committed to their marriage, but realises the attraction and temptation to another is becoming too much for him to resist - so he begs for the temptress to desist -
Fricke had the vocals sufficient to make this her first major solo hit but the general critics consensus on her debut album was that her vocals, while strong and technically spot-on, promised more than what she actually delivered. Transitioning from a backing and harmony singer to a lead vocalist was still a work in process. Producer Billy Sherrill advised her to establish an identity by focusing on one style, and Fricke began to record a generous selection of ballads.
Fricke next collaborated with The Silver Fox, Charlie Rich,and for this, I'll just repeat what I said in post # 711 - ‘On My Knees’ was Rich's 10th - and final - # 1 hit as he, along with Janie Fricke, performed this ballad in 1978. While this was Rich’s final # 1 single, it marked the first in which Fricke got equal billing. The lyrical plea from Rich to the love interest in this tale, performed by Fricke, sees a man see the error of his ways, wanting to reunite with his lover in hopes their second round at romance will bring back the magic they once shared together. In my experience, that never quite works in reality -
Her collaboration with Johnny Duncan, as detailed above, kept Fricke going strong through 1978, but she still couldn’t sustain a successful solo career in the late 1970's. None of her albums during this period charted in the U.S., including her 2nd record 'Love Notes', the single 'I'll Love Away Your Troubles for Awhile' from it went to # 7 in Canada and # 14 in the U.S. However, the other 4 singles released from this and her her third album, 1979's "From The Heart", all failed to crack the atop 20. "From The Heart" also didn't trouble the U.S. charts - but did reach the Top 10 in Canada, confirming Fricke's greater popularity there at the time.
October 1980 saw the release of Fricke and Johhny Duncan's only studio album as a duo, "Nice 'n' Easy". The album was actually recorded in sessions at Columbia's Nashville Studio between 1975 and 1980. Of the 10 tracks comprised "Nice 'n' Easy", 5 of the songs had been recorded and released previously, with the success as outlined above - so with nothing notable here, the also album didn't make the charts.
Transitioning from background to lead vocalist is tricky, and it took some time for Fricke to fully find her own voice. Her solo career took off slowly. But Fricke’s solo fortunes really began to soar with the release of her 4th LP in November 1980, the more traditional country oriented "I’ll Need Someone To Hold Me When I Cry" found her working with a new producer, Jim Ed Norman, and recording stronger material. This was Fricke’s first charting album and a huge step in the right direction.
Although the Urban Cowboy pop-country trend was by now en vogue in Nashville, Janie actually bucked the commercial trend and went in a more traditional direction. Although not eschewing string arrangements entirely, the songs on this album are much less slickly produced than her earlier work. There is audible steel and fiddle throughout - the latter instrument being played by a virtuoso artist just hitting the the big time himself - Ricky Skaggs who also provided background vocals on the album’s first single and Janie’s breakthrough hit, the Chick Rains penned 'Down To My Last Broken Heart', which climbed to #2, just missing the top spot, in late 1980 -
The album's title track, 'I'll Need Someone to Hold Me When I Cry', written by Bob McDill and Wayland Holyfield, was originally recorded by Don Williams (posts # 757-759) in 1977. Fricke's versionwas released in 1981 as the 3rd single and reached #4 - and once again, Fricke did even better in Canada, going all the way to #1. With its simple lyric and relatively stripped down-production, with Ricky Skaggs on fiddle, it provided a fresh contrast to the en vogue pop soaked Urban Cowboy sound -
So we leave Janie Fricke off in 1981, with Janie Fricke, at age 33, having steadily built her career, from church and singing pop songs in local coffeehouses, to joining the famed choral group, The Singing Hoosiers, at Indiana University, to becoming a leading singer of advertising jingles in major national advertisements, but otherwise spending 3 fruitless years in L.A. before the offer to come to Nashville and her switch to country music. She then spent another 6 years progressing from her admission into The Lea Jane Singers, Nashville's leading studio quartet, to become Nashville's leading backing singer, eventually getting co-billing while briefly making Texan Johnny Duncan into a genuine star with her vocals added to his.
It’s estimated she sang on as many as 5,000 records in the seventies, including hits by Elvis Presley and particularly with Johnny Duncan. Finally, she really found her voice as a solo singer. Janie Fricke's first successful solo album, 1981's mainly traditional country 'I'll Need Someone to Hold Me When I Cry', in which another rising star, Ricky Skaggs, provided backing vocals and fiddle, spawning a # 2 and a # 4 hit in 1981 (with one more release from her next album still to come in 1981) and she maintained her comparatively greater popularity in Canada, where she had her first solo # 1 hit. But much more success was to come, as will be seen.
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We start today with just a quick catch-up on Janie Fricke's personal life. In 1980, Fricke began a relationship with Randy Jackson, a music manager, agent and promoter, who began his career as a talent agent, later worked with Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty until becoming the road manager for Johnny Rodriguez and an agent for Charley Pride. They wed in 1982. Jackson later also became Fricke's manager. The pair lived on a historic farm in a 150 year old houseHouse in Lancaster Texas (since gobbled up by the Dallas suburban sprawl) which the Texas Landmark Historical Society designated as an historic landmark as 100 years or so earlier, it was the house that Pat Garrett, the famous sheriff who brought down Billy the Kid, was reared. After they bought the house in 1981, Fricke and Jackson extensively renovated it. On its grounds, they established an informal zoo of sorts, home to a variety of animals including goats, horses, buffalo, an alligator, an ostrich and doberman pinschers.
Today's Janie Fricke music selection, covering 1981 to 1982, serves as a reminder that though Ricky Skaggs broke through in this time with his bluegrass tinged traditional country sound, sparking the movement later to be dubbed as neo-traditional, the early 1980's was still mainly in thrall to Urban Cowboy pop-country, augmented by big romantic themed power ballads of love and the like. The pedal-steel and fiddle was cast aside in these recordings for piano and violins and drum beat machines.
So, with that, as a listening guide, today's selection starts with a straight-up enough country tune, but is then followed by 3 songs soaked with the early 1980's pop-country production (so there's your warning - the singing itself is top-natch, but the accompaniment ... hmm), then finishes off with a rollicking number best described as country rock.
"Sleeping With Your Memory", Fricke's 6th studio album, was released in 1981 and spawned 2 successful singles, both selected below, the first being the mildly risqué 'Do Me with Love' and the second, 'Don't Worry 'Bout Me Baby', a country chart-topper that by all rights should have landed on the pop chart (my way of saying it's as much, if not more, pop than country. Not selected here is an inspired country version of Simon & Garfunkel's 'Homeward Bound', with a spot of banjo to make the song sound like it could have come from the country canon, while the title track is a wistful ballad of heartbreak that doesn't succumb to schmaltz.
Just like Fricke's 1980 "I’ll Need Someone To Hold Me When I Cry" album, Ricky Skaggs plays and sings on several songs. But overall, "Sleeping With Your Memory" takes a decisive turn towards that early 1980's pop-country sound compared with her previous album. The result was increased airplay for Fricke on radio, resulting in more charting success – the commercial ends justifying the means.
The lead single, ‘Do Me With Love’, penned by John Schweers, was released in November 1981 as the second single from the album. A bright, breezy, perky slice of country, without too much pop production, this rather charming song (featuring Ricky Skaggs on backing vocals although he is not very audible) was a well-deserved hit, peaking at #4 in the U.S. and once again topping the Canadian chart, making this her third consecutive # 1 solo hit in Canada, despite not yet having had one in her homeland -
"... I've taken some wrong roads and I've lost track / Of lovers who gave their hearts then wanted them back /
So I need someone who needs someone too / But spare me the memories, if you're just passing through ..." -
By 1982, at age 34, Fricke had fully developed and adapted her vocals to being a solo act, not just hitting the notes with flawless diction, but also mastering expressing emotions - and her career was fast heating right up. After several years of charting Top 10 and Top 5 hits, and thrice topping the Canadian charts, she finally hit #1 in the U.S. with 'Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me Baby', the final single from the "Sleeping With Your Memory".
Written by singer-songwriters Deborah Allen, Bruce Channel and Kieran Kane (of The O'Kanes), it's a perfect example of the style (warning - pop-country) that made Fricke a leading female vocalist of the decade, melding the confidence of a more worldly 1980's lady with the countrypolitan pop production that so many male acts had found success with at the time. If we ignore the pop-soaked accompaniment, there’s something sweet and fragile about Fricke’s vocals here, suggesting she’s overstating the likelihood she’ll actually be fine like she pleas if this second attempt with her lover ends as poorly as their first go around evidently did -
"... It makes no difference how it all works out / This night with you is all I'm thinking about / ... Don't Worry 'Bout Me Baby /
For telling me lies / How can I make you understand / If I can't have it all, I'll take what I can ..." -
Only a few weeks after 'Don’t Worry ’bout Me Baby' topped the chart, Fricke was named the CMA Female Vocalist of the Year in 1982.
Fricke’s next single, 'It Ain’t Easy Being Easy' a strong pop-country ballad (this could've been so much better with a pedal-steel and fiddle in the accompaniment) quickly followed suit. Written by Mark Gray, Les Taylor and Shawna Harrington-Burkhart, it was Fricke's second solo # 1 in 1982 and her 4th in Canada. One can read the lyrics and think the woman in this song ain’t easy - she’s just being walked all over and shouldering the blame and shame for the man who has done her wrong. But Fricke's delivery kinda deconstructs the country victim queen archetype. Her vocal performance on 'It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Easy' is vulnerable, for sure, but there’s also a toughness to it shining through on the song’s most self-aware lines. She’s not walking away from her wandering man yet, but she’s conscious of the injustice he’s inflicting upon her, trading pleasure tonight for a heartache tomorrow, and she’s doing so with clear eyes -
"... I might end up lonely again / But once you were my only friend /
So I'll hold you and cry with the truth in my eyes / Hoping you'll love me again ..." -
The success of 'It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Easy' was quickly followed by Fricke's 7th studio album, "It Ain’t Easy", released just a month later in 1982. Produced by Bob Montgomery, this became Fricke's most successful selling album thus far, reaching the Top 15. A similarly styled ballad that was equally as strong, 'You Don't Know Love' written by Don King and Beckie Foster, was released in early 1983 as the 2nd single from the album and reached # 4 in 1983 -
'He's A Heartache' (Looking for a Place to Happen), written by Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley, was released in 1983 as the 3rd single from the "It Ain’t Easy" album and scored Fricke her 3rd # 1 in (and her 5th in Canada). In this light-hearted Fricke borrows heavily from the Juice Newton template here, and here it works for her. Heavily influenced by the production on Newton's big pop and country crossover hit 'Queen of Hearts', with a turbo charged acoustic guitar hook as the up-tempo record’s engine. But it’s got a much easier storyline to follow and it’s a surprisingly liberated one for its time. The gist is this - the singer is warning a female friend of hers the man she’s eyeing off isn’t in it for the long haul. She warns not to fall in love with him, because he doesn’t stick around. But here’s the kicker - she basically tells her friend to hook up with him anyway -
"... If he wants to hold you, let it be / Don’t pass up the opportunity / To know him / You won’t forget him all your life ..." -
So sure, he’s a rambling, philandering louse, never to be trusted. But, hey, he’s great in bed and as long as you don’t catch feelings, you can have a whole lot of fun with him. Heck, Fricke, as the singer herself “... Well, I might as well tell someone else /
I know I'll never have him to myself / Not likely / But I wouldn't mind just one more night ...” with him -
I mentioned above Janie Fricke was named the CMA’s Female Vocalist of the Year in 1982. She backed this up by being winning this award again in 1983 and was also awarded the ACM Top Female Vocalist for 1983.
Friske's vocals, coached first when still a child from her mother, drove her from her university years with The Singing Hoosiers, to a leading singer of advertising jingles to being a member of The Lea Jane Singers, Nashville's leading studio quartet, then becoming Nashville's leading backing singer, to achieving equal billing with stars such as Charlie Rich and finally to a multiple chart topping solo act. And there's more chart toppers tomorrow, her sound becoming synonymous with the first half of the 1980's - but as the mid-eighties arrived, and with it the eclipse of the pop-country sound of the early 1980's, how will Janie Fricke react? Tomorrow's will bring the remainder of her music career right up to now.
Today's Janie Fricke music selection, covering 1981 to 1982, serves as a reminder that though Ricky Skaggs broke through in this time with his bluegrass tinged traditional country sound, sparking the movement later to be dubbed as neo-traditional, the early 1980's was still mainly in thrall to Urban Cowboy pop-country, augmented by big romantic themed power ballads of love and the like. The pedal-steel and fiddle was cast aside in these recordings for piano and violins and drum beat machines.
So, with that, as a listening guide, today's selection starts with a straight-up enough country tune, but is then followed by 3 songs soaked with the early 1980's pop-country production (so there's your warning - the singing itself is top-natch, but the accompaniment ... hmm), then finishes off with a rollicking number best described as country rock.
"Sleeping With Your Memory", Fricke's 6th studio album, was released in 1981 and spawned 2 successful singles, both selected below, the first being the mildly risqué 'Do Me with Love' and the second, 'Don't Worry 'Bout Me Baby', a country chart-topper that by all rights should have landed on the pop chart (my way of saying it's as much, if not more, pop than country. Not selected here is an inspired country version of Simon & Garfunkel's 'Homeward Bound', with a spot of banjo to make the song sound like it could have come from the country canon, while the title track is a wistful ballad of heartbreak that doesn't succumb to schmaltz.
Just like Fricke's 1980 "I’ll Need Someone To Hold Me When I Cry" album, Ricky Skaggs plays and sings on several songs. But overall, "Sleeping With Your Memory" takes a decisive turn towards that early 1980's pop-country sound compared with her previous album. The result was increased airplay for Fricke on radio, resulting in more charting success – the commercial ends justifying the means.
The lead single, ‘Do Me With Love’, penned by John Schweers, was released in November 1981 as the second single from the album. A bright, breezy, perky slice of country, without too much pop production, this rather charming song (featuring Ricky Skaggs on backing vocals although he is not very audible) was a well-deserved hit, peaking at #4 in the U.S. and once again topping the Canadian chart, making this her third consecutive # 1 solo hit in Canada, despite not yet having had one in her homeland -
"... I've taken some wrong roads and I've lost track / Of lovers who gave their hearts then wanted them back /
So I need someone who needs someone too / But spare me the memories, if you're just passing through ..." -
By 1982, at age 34, Fricke had fully developed and adapted her vocals to being a solo act, not just hitting the notes with flawless diction, but also mastering expressing emotions - and her career was fast heating right up. After several years of charting Top 10 and Top 5 hits, and thrice topping the Canadian charts, she finally hit #1 in the U.S. with 'Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me Baby', the final single from the "Sleeping With Your Memory".
Written by singer-songwriters Deborah Allen, Bruce Channel and Kieran Kane (of The O'Kanes), it's a perfect example of the style (warning - pop-country) that made Fricke a leading female vocalist of the decade, melding the confidence of a more worldly 1980's lady with the countrypolitan pop production that so many male acts had found success with at the time. If we ignore the pop-soaked accompaniment, there’s something sweet and fragile about Fricke’s vocals here, suggesting she’s overstating the likelihood she’ll actually be fine like she pleas if this second attempt with her lover ends as poorly as their first go around evidently did -
"... It makes no difference how it all works out / This night with you is all I'm thinking about / ... Don't Worry 'Bout Me Baby /
For telling me lies / How can I make you understand / If I can't have it all, I'll take what I can ..." -
Only a few weeks after 'Don’t Worry ’bout Me Baby' topped the chart, Fricke was named the CMA Female Vocalist of the Year in 1982.
Fricke’s next single, 'It Ain’t Easy Being Easy' a strong pop-country ballad (this could've been so much better with a pedal-steel and fiddle in the accompaniment) quickly followed suit. Written by Mark Gray, Les Taylor and Shawna Harrington-Burkhart, it was Fricke's second solo # 1 in 1982 and her 4th in Canada. One can read the lyrics and think the woman in this song ain’t easy - she’s just being walked all over and shouldering the blame and shame for the man who has done her wrong. But Fricke's delivery kinda deconstructs the country victim queen archetype. Her vocal performance on 'It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Easy' is vulnerable, for sure, but there’s also a toughness to it shining through on the song’s most self-aware lines. She’s not walking away from her wandering man yet, but she’s conscious of the injustice he’s inflicting upon her, trading pleasure tonight for a heartache tomorrow, and she’s doing so with clear eyes -
"... I might end up lonely again / But once you were my only friend /
So I'll hold you and cry with the truth in my eyes / Hoping you'll love me again ..." -
The success of 'It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Easy' was quickly followed by Fricke's 7th studio album, "It Ain’t Easy", released just a month later in 1982. Produced by Bob Montgomery, this became Fricke's most successful selling album thus far, reaching the Top 15. A similarly styled ballad that was equally as strong, 'You Don't Know Love' written by Don King and Beckie Foster, was released in early 1983 as the 2nd single from the album and reached # 4 in 1983 -
'He's A Heartache' (Looking for a Place to Happen), written by Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley, was released in 1983 as the 3rd single from the "It Ain’t Easy" album and scored Fricke her 3rd # 1 in (and her 5th in Canada). In this light-hearted Fricke borrows heavily from the Juice Newton template here, and here it works for her. Heavily influenced by the production on Newton's big pop and country crossover hit 'Queen of Hearts', with a turbo charged acoustic guitar hook as the up-tempo record’s engine. But it’s got a much easier storyline to follow and it’s a surprisingly liberated one for its time. The gist is this - the singer is warning a female friend of hers the man she’s eyeing off isn’t in it for the long haul. She warns not to fall in love with him, because he doesn’t stick around. But here’s the kicker - she basically tells her friend to hook up with him anyway -
"... If he wants to hold you, let it be / Don’t pass up the opportunity / To know him / You won’t forget him all your life ..." -
So sure, he’s a rambling, philandering louse, never to be trusted. But, hey, he’s great in bed and as long as you don’t catch feelings, you can have a whole lot of fun with him. Heck, Fricke, as the singer herself “... Well, I might as well tell someone else /
I know I'll never have him to myself / Not likely / But I wouldn't mind just one more night ...” with him -
I mentioned above Janie Fricke was named the CMA’s Female Vocalist of the Year in 1982. She backed this up by being winning this award again in 1983 and was also awarded the ACM Top Female Vocalist for 1983.
Friske's vocals, coached first when still a child from her mother, drove her from her university years with The Singing Hoosiers, to a leading singer of advertising jingles to being a member of The Lea Jane Singers, Nashville's leading studio quartet, then becoming Nashville's leading backing singer, to achieving equal billing with stars such as Charlie Rich and finally to a multiple chart topping solo act. And there's more chart toppers tomorrow, her sound becoming synonymous with the first half of the 1980's - but as the mid-eighties arrived, and with it the eclipse of the pop-country sound of the early 1980's, how will Janie Fricke react? Tomorrow's will bring the remainder of her music career right up to now.
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Before we conclude Janie Fricke's career, I thought I'll comment on her popularity in Australia. In short, even back at her career peak in the early ro mid 1980's,. Despite being, in that era, a huge country star in the U.S. and, perhaps even more so, in Canada and was also quite popular in the U.K. Not so here, where she remained basically unknown. Perhaps this can be explained by the fact few of Fricke's records were released here, but this is a bit of a chicken and egg argument - were her records not released due to Australian protectionists rules at the time and this caused her lack of popularity here or was it simply because her country-pop songs just weren't to Australians tastes at the time? I'm going with the latter - in a far more limited country music market that Australia was back then (and still has compared to the massive North American market, though it's grown a lot) the soft-rock/pop-country sound just didn't have the following here back then as it did in North America. Anyway, I better get back to the music before this topic becomes an essay!
Fricke’s 8th album (or 9th if one includes her "Greatest Hits" album released in 1982) "Love Lies" was the first of her albums to reach the Top 10. Released in late 1983, the second album produced by Bob Montgomery, it would see 3 singles released, 'Tell Me A Lie' (#1 in the U.S. and Canada), 'Let’s Stop Talking About It' (also #1 in the U.S. and Canada) and 'If The Fall Don’t Get You' which only went to #8 - the first single to not go Top 4 after 8 consecutive such successes.
It’s rare for an artist to launch a new album with a track from their previous set, but Fricke pulled it off. Serving as the final single from 1982's "It Ain’t Easy" and the lead single from "Love Lies", Originally recorded by Lynn Anderson for her 1974, it was released as a single later in 1974 by Sami Jo making it a # 21 pop hit. Fricke's version of 'Tell Me a Lie' is a great example of how she was a vital bridge between the country victim queens of the 1960's and '70's and the more liberated and independent female artists of the '80's and beyond. The song is all about a woman who very much just wants a one night stand, when societal norms still frowned upon that - despite such seminal records as 'Help Me Make it Through the Night','It’s All Wrong But It’s All Right', 'Borrowed Angel' and 'Angel Of the Morning' had challenged that.
What makes 'Tell Me a Lie' so interesting is that there isn’t any moral handwringing on Fricke’s part here. She wants to hear these lies as an excuse to do something she already wants to do, without any qualms about it. But it sure would be easier for her if he made it look like she was taken advantage of, because after all, she can’t just come right out and say she just wants a one night stand, a good f**k, too. Fricke’s vocal makes that explicitly clear. The pop-country number has, ironically, the production has a gospel influence with the backing choir - but not in the songs theme. She may shed a tear or two when he goes, but she retains all of her agency here. She knew what she was getting herself into, and it was worth it -
Fricke completed a string of 3 consecutive # 1 hits in both the U.S. and Canada with 'Let’s Stop Talkin’ About It', written by Deborah Allen, Rafe Van Hoy and Rory Bourke, and originally recorded by Allen in 1982. Fricke released the song in early 1984 as the 2nd single from her "Love Lies" album. It was Fricke's 5th U.S. and 7th Canadian # 1 as a solo artist. One can only assume her career momentum got this one to the top because it simply isn’t of the same calibre as its predecessors, despite the strong songwriting pedigree and the best efforts of Fricke to spin straw into gold. The song’s concept itself also doesn’t work. 'Let’s stop talking about it' should be followed by silence. It’s supposed to capture the moment when a love affair goes from words to actions, but by building the song around that line, there’s nowhere for the rest of the narrative to go after the first chorus. So it meanders on, losing its sense of urgency along the way. I guess her man still just wanted to keep talking about it! I am being merciful in omitting this # 1 hit from the selection.
"The First Word in Memory", Fricke's 9th studio album, was released in 1984. Again produced by Bob Montgomery, it became her 3rd highest-charting album, producing 2 singles, both of which were ballads. The string heavy 'Your Heart’s Not In It'was Fricke’s 6th U.S. #1 hit and her 8th in Canada. The title track, The First Word in Memory', which was bogged down by clunky backing voices, peaked at #7. I won't inflict it anyone here with it.
Fricke returns to familiar lyrical territory with “Your Heart’s Not in it'. Here, she’s lonely and has a man willing to keep her company for the night - but she knows he’s only after her body and not her heart. Her voice aches and breaks on the verses, where she’s mostly accompanied by a piano. She gets a little overwhelmed by intrusive backing vocalists and unnecessary strings on the chorus It’s remarkable how much better she sounds on the chorus lines that let both of those elements go quiet and we can hear her more clearly. Fricke’s at her best when she’s unadorned, so the production undermines her here. When it’s just her and the piano, she’s at her best here. But overall, this is an all too typical example of the over-produced pop-country of the era -
Also sandwiched in the album was the brilliant “A Place To Fall Apart,” her collaboration with Merle Haggard, the second single from his album "It’s All In The Game". Fricke's duet with Haggard, hit # 1 in 1985. The song was based on a letter Haggard had written about ex-wife Leona Williams. However, in truth, Fricke’s contribution to the chart-topping ballad is slight at best, she barely sings alone at all, which I find odd given her stature as a prominent hit maker at the time. For this reason, despite it being a very big hit, I've not included it amongst Fricke's song selections.
Listening through "The First Word In Memory", I wonder if it was a missed opportunity by Columbia. The album is peppered with very strong material and yet two of the record’s most mediocre ballads were released as singles. There was a chance here to showcase another side of Fricke’s artistry and they blew it.
Fricke's 10th studio album, "Somebody Else's Fire", the 4th album produced by Bob Montgomery, was released in 1985 and spawned 3 singles. While still pop-country, the album reigned in the worst excesses of the 1980's pop production, making it sound distinctly more country than Fricke's previous 3 Montgomery produced albums. Its highest-charting single was the lead release 'She's Single Again', which stalled at # 2 in the U.S. and Canada, but has endured to become one of Fricke’s best-known solo hits, helped by the humorous video that accompanied it. The light-hearted song is sung from the point of view of a female who is warning wives in town of an irresistible, ravenous husband-eating beauty who’s single and on the prowl again -
“... Is this number four? Or is this number five? / How many husbands has she buried alive? /
She uses the favours that the good Lord gave her / with the devil's desire ...”
'Easy To Please' written by Kent Robbins and Kye Fleming was released in early 1986 as the third single from Fricke's "Somebody Else's Fire" album and reached #5. The lyrics sound more like someone who is forlorn, fed up and desperate, trying too hard just to keep her man, rather than someone actually in love -
"... i can sleep with the covers off / I can sleep with the covers on /
You could play cards with the boys on Fridays / As long as you come home ..." -
So we've come to 1986 and entering a tumultuous era of country music, with perhaps the most aggressive changing of the guard that the genre ever experienced, with the neo-tradional wave turning into a tsunami. Reacting to this change, Fricke's 11th studio album, "Black and White", released in June 1986, with a new producer, Norro Wilson, saw a strong directional shift in Janie’s music toward a more nuanced approach to music, with a distinct blues influence evident. An oddity was her last name was spelled ‘Frickie’ instead of 'Fricke' on the album cover, as she was sick of people, particularly English people like Phil Collins, mispronouncing her surname using just the one instead of two syllable.
The change in producer and change in direction to a more mature, bluesy "Black and White" became Fricke's most successful album ever, her only album to go all the way to # 1. It's lead single, 'Always Have, Always Will' was written by Johnny Mears and released in June 1986. Fricke's 7th and final solo # 1 hit is a remarkably effective torch ballad that showcases her range as a vocalist incredibly well. There is some lovely steel guitar on the track by former Buckaroo Tom Brumley -
(
Not only does radio play it so much that it goes to # 1, but fans respond so well to it that the "Black & White" alum becomes Fricke's first # 1 album of her entire career. Should be smooth sailing from here, right?
Alas, the "Black And White" album marked the end of Fricke as a chart force. While 'Always Have, Always Will' went to #1, the 2nd single 'When A Woman Cries” only just reached # 20 and no future Fricke single reached the Top 20. A series of releases from 3 more studio albums from Columbia resulted in rapidly decreasing chart peaks. Her 1987 album "After Midnight" was led off with her final Top 40 single, 'Are You Satisfied?' By the time she released her final Columbia album in 1989, "Labor of Love", country radio had moved on completely.
Most music historians argue that the neo-traditional movement shoved Janie Fricke aside, despite her attempts to update her sound and stay relèvent, but I suspect her age of 40 also had as much to do with it as newer, younger faces arrived. As this history series show, only a few select artists remain in the forefront of the charts at age 40 and beyond. The bottom dropping out of Fricke's radio play coincided with a new wave of female artists like Kathy Mattea, Patty Loveless, and Holly Dunn, while women overall started being played less than their male counterparts. Fricke was unfortunately sidelined, despite continuing to record excellent material from veteran songwriters like Willie Nelson and up and comers like Steve Earle. On Labor of Love, she cut 2 songs co-written by Pam Tillis, including Pam’s future Top 10 hit, 'One of Those Things'.
Fricke has remained an active recording artist and performer, and her later independent albums are worth a listen. Given her pop-country bona fides, her bluegrass reinterpretations of her hits, originally released as "The Bluegrass Sessions" in 2004,reissued as "Country Side of Bluegrass" in 2012, is a standout. All of her independent recordings are worth a listen, but that collection is especially wonderful.
Fricke's major awards include the ACM’s “Female Vocalist of the Year,” 1983; Billboard magazine’s Top Country Female Vocalist,” 1983; Cash Box magazine’s “Top Country Female Vocalist,” 1983 and 1984; Music City News Country’s “Female Artist of the Year,” 1983 and 1984; and Country Music Round Up’s (Britain) “Most Popular International Solo Act – Female,” 1986. She also has a star on Country Music HoF Walk of Stars and has been nominated for two Grammy Awards. In her recording career, she has 7 solo #1 Hits in the U.S., 9 in Canada, and 16 Top 10 U.S. hits, 19 in Canada. She is also co-credited with two # 1 duet hits, with Charlie Rich and Merle Haggard. She has recorded 24 studio albums, the last in 2020.
Back in 1985, her career still seemingly riding high, Fricke established the Janie Fricke Scholarship at her alma mater, Indiana University, to benefit gifted students in the School of Music. This is still going strong - the scholarships are open to active members of the Singing Hoosiers ensemble who demonstrate financial need.
Yesterday I mentioned Fricke's 1982 marriage to music manager, agent and promoter Randy Jackson, who was Johnny Rodriguez's road manager and Charley Pride's agent and also became Fricke's manager. The pair divorced and she married musician Jeff Steele in 1995 - but she remained on the historic property she kept from her first marriage. Steele, who dubbed himself “the champion of steel”, also became Fricke's manager, tour bus driver and the drummer in her touring band. When she began performing with less frequency, Steele began a career in local politics and was elected mayor of Wilmer (in suburban Dallas) in 2009. They are still together and Fricke, now aged 76, still tours and performs regularly.
So with that done, it's time for another break before introducing the next big 1980's artist with a powerful vocal, whose stardom shone very brightly, but not for very long.
Fricke’s 8th album (or 9th if one includes her "Greatest Hits" album released in 1982) "Love Lies" was the first of her albums to reach the Top 10. Released in late 1983, the second album produced by Bob Montgomery, it would see 3 singles released, 'Tell Me A Lie' (#1 in the U.S. and Canada), 'Let’s Stop Talking About It' (also #1 in the U.S. and Canada) and 'If The Fall Don’t Get You' which only went to #8 - the first single to not go Top 4 after 8 consecutive such successes.
It’s rare for an artist to launch a new album with a track from their previous set, but Fricke pulled it off. Serving as the final single from 1982's "It Ain’t Easy" and the lead single from "Love Lies", Originally recorded by Lynn Anderson for her 1974, it was released as a single later in 1974 by Sami Jo making it a # 21 pop hit. Fricke's version of 'Tell Me a Lie' is a great example of how she was a vital bridge between the country victim queens of the 1960's and '70's and the more liberated and independent female artists of the '80's and beyond. The song is all about a woman who very much just wants a one night stand, when societal norms still frowned upon that - despite such seminal records as 'Help Me Make it Through the Night','It’s All Wrong But It’s All Right', 'Borrowed Angel' and 'Angel Of the Morning' had challenged that.
What makes 'Tell Me a Lie' so interesting is that there isn’t any moral handwringing on Fricke’s part here. She wants to hear these lies as an excuse to do something she already wants to do, without any qualms about it. But it sure would be easier for her if he made it look like she was taken advantage of, because after all, she can’t just come right out and say she just wants a one night stand, a good f**k, too. Fricke’s vocal makes that explicitly clear. The pop-country number has, ironically, the production has a gospel influence with the backing choir - but not in the songs theme. She may shed a tear or two when he goes, but she retains all of her agency here. She knew what she was getting herself into, and it was worth it -
Fricke completed a string of 3 consecutive # 1 hits in both the U.S. and Canada with 'Let’s Stop Talkin’ About It', written by Deborah Allen, Rafe Van Hoy and Rory Bourke, and originally recorded by Allen in 1982. Fricke released the song in early 1984 as the 2nd single from her "Love Lies" album. It was Fricke's 5th U.S. and 7th Canadian # 1 as a solo artist. One can only assume her career momentum got this one to the top because it simply isn’t of the same calibre as its predecessors, despite the strong songwriting pedigree and the best efforts of Fricke to spin straw into gold. The song’s concept itself also doesn’t work. 'Let’s stop talking about it' should be followed by silence. It’s supposed to capture the moment when a love affair goes from words to actions, but by building the song around that line, there’s nowhere for the rest of the narrative to go after the first chorus. So it meanders on, losing its sense of urgency along the way. I guess her man still just wanted to keep talking about it! I am being merciful in omitting this # 1 hit from the selection.
"The First Word in Memory", Fricke's 9th studio album, was released in 1984. Again produced by Bob Montgomery, it became her 3rd highest-charting album, producing 2 singles, both of which were ballads. The string heavy 'Your Heart’s Not In It'was Fricke’s 6th U.S. #1 hit and her 8th in Canada. The title track, The First Word in Memory', which was bogged down by clunky backing voices, peaked at #7. I won't inflict it anyone here with it.
Fricke returns to familiar lyrical territory with “Your Heart’s Not in it'. Here, she’s lonely and has a man willing to keep her company for the night - but she knows he’s only after her body and not her heart. Her voice aches and breaks on the verses, where she’s mostly accompanied by a piano. She gets a little overwhelmed by intrusive backing vocalists and unnecessary strings on the chorus It’s remarkable how much better she sounds on the chorus lines that let both of those elements go quiet and we can hear her more clearly. Fricke’s at her best when she’s unadorned, so the production undermines her here. When it’s just her and the piano, she’s at her best here. But overall, this is an all too typical example of the over-produced pop-country of the era -
Also sandwiched in the album was the brilliant “A Place To Fall Apart,” her collaboration with Merle Haggard, the second single from his album "It’s All In The Game". Fricke's duet with Haggard, hit # 1 in 1985. The song was based on a letter Haggard had written about ex-wife Leona Williams. However, in truth, Fricke’s contribution to the chart-topping ballad is slight at best, she barely sings alone at all, which I find odd given her stature as a prominent hit maker at the time. For this reason, despite it being a very big hit, I've not included it amongst Fricke's song selections.
Listening through "The First Word In Memory", I wonder if it was a missed opportunity by Columbia. The album is peppered with very strong material and yet two of the record’s most mediocre ballads were released as singles. There was a chance here to showcase another side of Fricke’s artistry and they blew it.
Fricke's 10th studio album, "Somebody Else's Fire", the 4th album produced by Bob Montgomery, was released in 1985 and spawned 3 singles. While still pop-country, the album reigned in the worst excesses of the 1980's pop production, making it sound distinctly more country than Fricke's previous 3 Montgomery produced albums. Its highest-charting single was the lead release 'She's Single Again', which stalled at # 2 in the U.S. and Canada, but has endured to become one of Fricke’s best-known solo hits, helped by the humorous video that accompanied it. The light-hearted song is sung from the point of view of a female who is warning wives in town of an irresistible, ravenous husband-eating beauty who’s single and on the prowl again -
“... Is this number four? Or is this number five? / How many husbands has she buried alive? /
She uses the favours that the good Lord gave her / with the devil's desire ...”
'Easy To Please' written by Kent Robbins and Kye Fleming was released in early 1986 as the third single from Fricke's "Somebody Else's Fire" album and reached #5. The lyrics sound more like someone who is forlorn, fed up and desperate, trying too hard just to keep her man, rather than someone actually in love -
"... i can sleep with the covers off / I can sleep with the covers on /
You could play cards with the boys on Fridays / As long as you come home ..." -
So we've come to 1986 and entering a tumultuous era of country music, with perhaps the most aggressive changing of the guard that the genre ever experienced, with the neo-tradional wave turning into a tsunami. Reacting to this change, Fricke's 11th studio album, "Black and White", released in June 1986, with a new producer, Norro Wilson, saw a strong directional shift in Janie’s music toward a more nuanced approach to music, with a distinct blues influence evident. An oddity was her last name was spelled ‘Frickie’ instead of 'Fricke' on the album cover, as she was sick of people, particularly English people like Phil Collins, mispronouncing her surname using just the one instead of two syllable.
The change in producer and change in direction to a more mature, bluesy "Black and White" became Fricke's most successful album ever, her only album to go all the way to # 1. It's lead single, 'Always Have, Always Will' was written by Johnny Mears and released in June 1986. Fricke's 7th and final solo # 1 hit is a remarkably effective torch ballad that showcases her range as a vocalist incredibly well. There is some lovely steel guitar on the track by former Buckaroo Tom Brumley -
(
Not only does radio play it so much that it goes to # 1, but fans respond so well to it that the "Black & White" alum becomes Fricke's first # 1 album of her entire career. Should be smooth sailing from here, right?
Alas, the "Black And White" album marked the end of Fricke as a chart force. While 'Always Have, Always Will' went to #1, the 2nd single 'When A Woman Cries” only just reached # 20 and no future Fricke single reached the Top 20. A series of releases from 3 more studio albums from Columbia resulted in rapidly decreasing chart peaks. Her 1987 album "After Midnight" was led off with her final Top 40 single, 'Are You Satisfied?' By the time she released her final Columbia album in 1989, "Labor of Love", country radio had moved on completely.
Most music historians argue that the neo-traditional movement shoved Janie Fricke aside, despite her attempts to update her sound and stay relèvent, but I suspect her age of 40 also had as much to do with it as newer, younger faces arrived. As this history series show, only a few select artists remain in the forefront of the charts at age 40 and beyond. The bottom dropping out of Fricke's radio play coincided with a new wave of female artists like Kathy Mattea, Patty Loveless, and Holly Dunn, while women overall started being played less than their male counterparts. Fricke was unfortunately sidelined, despite continuing to record excellent material from veteran songwriters like Willie Nelson and up and comers like Steve Earle. On Labor of Love, she cut 2 songs co-written by Pam Tillis, including Pam’s future Top 10 hit, 'One of Those Things'.
Fricke has remained an active recording artist and performer, and her later independent albums are worth a listen. Given her pop-country bona fides, her bluegrass reinterpretations of her hits, originally released as "The Bluegrass Sessions" in 2004,reissued as "Country Side of Bluegrass" in 2012, is a standout. All of her independent recordings are worth a listen, but that collection is especially wonderful.
Fricke's major awards include the ACM’s “Female Vocalist of the Year,” 1983; Billboard magazine’s Top Country Female Vocalist,” 1983; Cash Box magazine’s “Top Country Female Vocalist,” 1983 and 1984; Music City News Country’s “Female Artist of the Year,” 1983 and 1984; and Country Music Round Up’s (Britain) “Most Popular International Solo Act – Female,” 1986. She also has a star on Country Music HoF Walk of Stars and has been nominated for two Grammy Awards. In her recording career, she has 7 solo #1 Hits in the U.S., 9 in Canada, and 16 Top 10 U.S. hits, 19 in Canada. She is also co-credited with two # 1 duet hits, with Charlie Rich and Merle Haggard. She has recorded 24 studio albums, the last in 2020.
Back in 1985, her career still seemingly riding high, Fricke established the Janie Fricke Scholarship at her alma mater, Indiana University, to benefit gifted students in the School of Music. This is still going strong - the scholarships are open to active members of the Singing Hoosiers ensemble who demonstrate financial need.
Yesterday I mentioned Fricke's 1982 marriage to music manager, agent and promoter Randy Jackson, who was Johnny Rodriguez's road manager and Charley Pride's agent and also became Fricke's manager. The pair divorced and she married musician Jeff Steele in 1995 - but she remained on the historic property she kept from her first marriage. Steele, who dubbed himself “the champion of steel”, also became Fricke's manager, tour bus driver and the drummer in her touring band. When she began performing with less frequency, Steele began a career in local politics and was elected mayor of Wilmer (in suburban Dallas) in 2009. They are still together and Fricke, now aged 76, still tours and performs regularly.
So with that done, it's time for another break before introducing the next big 1980's artist with a powerful vocal, whose stardom shone very brightly, but not for very long.
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Came across this today, it's worth a moment or two.
www.laniercountynewsonline.com
‘For the Good Times’: Bidding Farewell to Kris Kristofferson – Historically Speaking by James Finck, PhD
www.laniercountynewsonline.com
Thank you Gough, that's an enjoyable read, particularly when it talks about Kristofferson's literary background and the skills he put to such great use in his song-writing.Came across this today, it's worth a moment or two.
‘For the Good Times’: Bidding Farewell to Kris Kristofferson – Historically Speaking by James Finck, PhD
I will quibble about the article placing Kris amongst the Outlaws (a common misconception), having previously argued against both him and Cash being part of this movement. I wrote the following on the Outlaws back in post # 772 -
"... This might seem outright like heresy, and goes against all the ”standard models” of Outlaw history, but I even have serious doubts Kris Kristofferson (posts # 661-667) should be listed as an “Outlaw” - unless one only considers friendships and fashions. He already had grown his hair longer and sported a beard by 1971, before the whole “Outlaw” movement got going. As for his friendships with Waylon and Willie, this dates from when he first arrived in Nashville and fell in the Faron Young’s gang of notorious hell-raisers hanging out at Tootsies saloon in the mid 1960’s (# 661), well before the Outlaw era.
And let’s not forget, he was also friends with, and wrote some great Countrypolitan songs for, Ray Price (e.g.'For The Good Times'). Contrary to popular mythology,he was never held back by his record company from performing - in fact the exact opposite was correct. He was persuaded by his record company exec, Fred Foster, to record his own material, not just be a song-writer (# 662) - and this all happened back in 1970. There was no rebellion by him - his drinking, drug taking and womanising had started well before the outlaw era and when the movement was taking off and reaching its height, he had drifted off to Hollywood to make movies. But not before he had produced Billy Joe Shaver’s “Old Five and Dimers Like Me” album in 1973. Maybe that’s just enough to count him in.
When the “Outlaw” supergroup The Highwaymen was formed in 1984, a fair bit of re-writing of history was done to turn Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson into retrospective Outlaws. There are some (albeit unconvincing for me) arguments for Kristofferson, none at all for Cash. ...".
So it's time to again get back to the history series, with another artist who, like Janie Fricke, was part of the first wave of country singers raised on pop, rock, folk-rock, and singer/songwriters. Her career also mirrored Fricke in the timeline and direction of her commercial success - both up and then down, cementing herself as a memorable 1980's performer. But her music and vocals are more often rightfully compared to Linda Ronstadt (matching her power, if not her pitch purity) and - much more tenuously for me - to Emmylou Harris. Through her career peak, she tested and blurred the boundaries of any label people applied to her - country, pop, pop-country, country-rock, she kinda just covered all the bases.
Born Judith Newton in Lakehurst (famous as the site of the Hindenberg airship disaster), New Jersey in 1952, the daughter of a Navy Officer, she already had moved to Florida and then Virginia by the time she was 4. She grew up close to the world's largest naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, where her naval upbringing exposed her to a variety of musical influences. She was gifted a guitar by her music loving parent for her 13th birthday. Her mother was her key influencer, encouraging her to pursue her dream, her desire to chase a career in music - "Many of my friends played music and I wanted to be a part of that group. For them music was a hobby, but I decided early that I wanted to make it my career.”
At age 13 she started singing in a coffeehouse then after a couple of years, despite being years underage, she started working in local bars, some nights waiting on tables and others taking to the stage with her guitar accompanying herself, singing folkish songs, developing what came to be a strong vocal and earning her first professional singing money - ”like $5 a night ... I would buy those play-by-the-numbers books in music stores. I didn't read music then - I barely read it now - and if I didn't know the song, I'd make up melodies". Folk music became her main interest - “My biggest inspiration was Bob Dylan. He had a terrific career. I liked his interpretation of the world. His storytelling songs were an inspiration for me".
"Juice" - a play on her first name first used by her teenage friends, but which she liked so much she even insisted her own family use it and has stuck with her throughout her career - first got tagged ”country” when, at age 17 in 1968, she moved to the other side of the nation, enrolling in a 2 year college course (it's one of those American things, even for big city dwellers, to move very far from home to attend college, whereas in Australia it's mostly limited to country students who leave home) at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, near San Jose, California, supporting herself by working as an underage cocktail waitress, but she also moved deeper into music.
California nightclub owners detected (correctly) her Virginian accent - "... which I don't hear; I just think its kinda nondescript ...” - they assumed she sang country music, and she went along with it - ”I said`If that means I can get a job here, okay' ... I was never even exposed to country music as a kid, but club owners would tell me that I had an accent suited to country music. So to get the jobs, I went out and bought Patsy Cline and Brenda Lee records and learned the songs. I found I had a knack for it.” During this time, she met her musical soul mate, Otha Young, a fellow guitarist and songwriter, destined to play a pivotal, long standing role in Juice's professional career. The two formed an electric folk-rock band called Dixie Peach and began playing bars around the Bay Area and Northern California.
In 1972, 20 y.o. Newton and Young were performing in a small bar. Tom Kealey just happened to be in the audience and was very impressed by what he saw and heard coming from the stage. He approached the pair during a break and proposed adding a bass player (himself) who could also supply a third harmony part. Kealey was soon added and the trio spent the next year or so performing at many of the better restaurants and gin joints in the San Francisco Bay Area, creating a huge following before heading south for L.A. in pursuit of a record deal.
In L.A. starting with a gig at Jason's, a well-known Burbank restaurant and watering hole for movie and music types, they played venues such as the Troubadour, a haven for aspiring recording stars, and the famed Palomino Club. With Newton and Young on Martin guitars and Kealey on a Fender bass, switching to country-rock sound first popularised by the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, the 3 combined to produce a powerful and unique country sound, becoming one of the hottest live draws in the L.A. area. Their appeal quickly attracted the attention of some of the movers and shakers in the record business.
After a year in L.A., they got their break when Jerry Stroud, a local Hollywood recording engineer, badgered producer Bones Howe until he finally agreed to check out a live performance for himself. Howe, who had produced huge hits by the 5th Dimension, the Association and the Turtles, and was engineer for the Mamas & the Papas, was captivated by their energy, Newton's powerful lead vocals and the songwriting, musicianship and backup vocal blend of Young and Kealey. Greatly impressed, Howe signed them to a production and publishing contract. The trio hired drummer Mickey McGee, keyboardist Robbie Gillman, and steel guitar player Curtis Cloonan to round out the band for live concerts. They collaborated on the name Juice Newton & The Silver Spur, which they also used as the title of their first album, produced by Howe.
A mixture of country, rock and pop, all of the songs off their debut "Juice Newton & Silver Spur" album were co-written by Young and Kealey, except for its one minor hit, 'Love Is A Word', which had been previously penned by Young alone. This was Newton’s first chart entry, albeit just barely, reaching a fairly disappointing # 88 in 1976. It surely deserved better - the vocals are strong, the instrumentals tight, the tune and arrangement is catchy enough and it's definitely a better song than most of her later songs that actually became hits -
.
Apart from this one very minor # 88 hit, even if it did deserve better, the charts remained unforgiving for Juice Newton & The Silver Spur. The entity lasted 3 more years and 3 albums produced by Howe. Unfortunately in spite of favourable reviews, none of the records took off, and this caused the group to question themselves, as well as each other. RCA's L.A. office spent very little to promote their albums, preferring to prioritise rock (perhaps the band should've tried Nashville?), so Newton & Silver Spur completed their final recording commitment to RCA with "After the Dust Settles" in 1977 then accepted an offer from Capitol Records. Elliot Mazer produced their debut Capitol album in 1978 with "Come to Me", but it also didn't do well, in spite of high expectations, improved label support and a national tour to promote it. This caused the band to break up in 1978.
With the breakup of The Silver Spur, Newton, at age 28, finally decided to try her luck as a soloist. This proved to be the best decision of her life. Although now a solo artist, Newton still kept Silver Spur as a backup band, at least until 1982. The first single, released early in 1978, 'It’s a Heartache', became a major hit for her ... in Mexico, where it was certified gold before it was belatedly released in March 1978 in the U.S. after being delayed due to contractual wrangling. The delay in the U.S. release until March 1978 proved most unfortunate for her as it coincided with the U.S. release of Bonnie Tyler’s original version - this had also been delayed in the U.S., as the label was convinced it would be a bomb and only reluctantly released only after it had already become a worldwide hit everywhere else, reaching #1 in Canada, France, Sweden, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil. Ronnie Spector also released a version right at that time as well.
Tyler had underwent an operation to remove vocal cord nodules she had developed singing in smoky nightclubs in her native Wales. She was advised by her doctor to rest her voice for 6 weeks. But Tyler screamed in frustration one day, resulting in a permanent raspy tone - a break that turned out not to be career ending but career making - after her 1976 operation, Tyler's voice carried a distintive rasp, reminiscent of Rod Stewart's. Her rasp helped propel this song into the #3 spot. As it was first released in 1977 by Tyler in the UK before appearing in the US in 1978, exactly when Juice Newton’s version was released, meaning Newton didn't repeat her Mexican success, only reaching #86. Nevertheless, most in Mexico and Central America who still know of this song remember the Newton version, sans rasp. So here is that raspless, semi-countrified, Newton version (with this clip chosen purely for it's superior sound) -
The country music group Trick Pony recorded a version of 'It's A Heartbreak' for their 3rd studio album R.I.D.E. in 2005. Heidi Newfield sang the main vocals, and Chuck Howard produced. The cover peaked at # 22. Ironically when Rod Stewart got around to recording his own version in 2006, being much older, he didn't have the same range as in the past.
Newton changed her name legally from Judy to Juice Newton in 1978. Up to this point, “Juice” had merely been her nickname. Also in 1978, dabbling into songwriting with Young, Eaton wrote a # 44 Pop and # 7 AC hit, ‘Sweet, Sweet Smile’ - but it wasn't a hit for herself, but for The Carpenters, with a typically mellow version.
Newton's debut solo album, "Well Kept Secret” (interesting title, considering!) was released at the end of 1978 and, although it didn’t chart or produce any successful singles, Capital kept faith with her and the following year she had some success with a stand-alone pop-country single, ‘Let’s Keep it That Way’, her first top 40 hit at # 37. The next album, 1979's “Take Heart”, delivered a number of minor hits, including the # 35 'Sunshine', but still wasn’t attracting major attention or sales.
Newton had 5 charting between # 35 to # 42 from her first 2 solo albums, but this wasn't enough to make a lasting impression. However, then came 1981 and her world changed with the release her third solo album, simply titled "Juice'. This produced 3 consecutive crossover hits that served as the big breakthrough she needed to light up her name in the music industry - her blend of pop, rock and country charting high in the 3 markets of pop, AC and country.
Now there's a story to tell of her first massive hit. Chip Taylor, (who already had a huge hit on his hands with The Troggs' 1966 song 'Wild Thing'), the younger brother of Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight (and uncle of Angelina Jolie) wrote 'Angel Of The Morning' in 1967 after hearing The Rolling Stones 'Ruby Tuesday'' - the similarity in theme is immediately apparent except 'Ruby Tuesday' is from the male viewpoint, whereas 'Angel Of The Morning' is from the female - a female openly asking for a no-strings attached one night stand, a daring, risqué theme in 1967.
The song was originally offered to Italian-American Connie Francis, who, despite liking it, turned it down as she felt the lyrics would compromise her pristine stage image. It was originally recorded by Evie Sands, but, due to her label's financial problems, Sands' recording failed to make an impact on the charts. Shortly after, the song was recorded by UK artist Billie Davis, but it was Merrilee Rush who first made 'Angel of the Morning' a hit. Rush came across the song while on tour with Paul Revere & the Raiders across the deep South and cut the track to complete her latest album in Memphis.
Rush's version peaked at # 7 on the pop chart in 1968 but went all the way to # 1 in Canada, Australia, and NZ and # 5 in the Netherlands, helping earn her a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Pop Female Vocalist (she lost to Dionne Warwick). Though a number artists put their own spin on the tune in the following years (Connie Eaton, Mary Mason, British band Guys 'n' Dolls and Melba Montgomery, who peaked at # 22 on the country charts with it in 1978), the song got its true second life with Newton's superb cover of it for her 1981 "Juice" album.
Interestingly. Newton's version isn't really a re-interpretation of Rushe's original - it has the the same basic production, including the dramatic drum rolls - but it's clearly a more polished, tighter, complete production than the original recorded in Memphis, which was just a little rough around the edges. Here, each instrument can be clearly heard in its place and then there is the power of Newtons vocal. The video was also the first country music video shown on MTV, and the third female solo artist to be featured, after videos by Pat Benatar and Carly Simon, airing on the day the MTV network launched.
Newton’s version of 'Angel Of The Morning', with her country twang but with the production values rooted in L.A. pop and soft rock, remains the most well known and best-selling version. In addition to it's crossover U.S. success, peaking at # 4 on the Pop chart and topping the AC chart, it also became an international pop hit, going to # 1 in Canada, # 2 in Australia and Top 5 in NZ. It only peaked at # 22 on the U.S. country chart in 1981 - one suspects that Newton being based in L.A. rather than Nashville, and also maybe the risqué lyrics, played a role in this in the conservative southern country music heartland. Nevertheless the song sold over 1 million units across the US and went triple platinum Canada.
The song itself has the singer seeking her first one-night stand - reassuring her lover for the night that she's of legal age - and realising she’s okay with it and feels no guilt, though with a subtle hint that she could be open for more than just a one night stand -
"... There'll be no strings to bind your hands / Not if my love can't bind your heart /
There's no need to take a stand / For it was I who chose to start /
I see no need to take me home / I'm old enough to face the dawn ..." -
Newton's seminal version of 'Angel Of The Morning' has continued to be featured in films and TV in the decades since its release. Rocker and the Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde performed the song in an episode of Friends, while the Merrilee Rush version is featured in the 1999 film Girl, Interrupted (starring songwriter Chip Taylor's niece, Angelina Jolie). The Newton version is (fittingly) featured in the 2000 film Charlie's Angels In the 2016 film Deadpool, Newton's version was used for the opening credits montage. As a result, the track re-charted, reaching #43, and also hit #3 on Spotify's World Music chart. Most recently, Newton's version was featured in the powerful final moments of the Oscar-nominated film Promising Young Woman.
The next single from the 1981 "Juice" album, the bouncy, catchy, light hearted pop-country 'Queen Of Hearts' was written by Hank DeVito, the pedal steel guitarist in Emmylou Harris's backing group The Hot Band. It was first recorded by British new wave and neo-rockabilly artist Dave Edmunds for his 1979 album "Repeat When Necessary". Released as a single in the UK, it reached # 11. Edmunds wanted to have the single released in the US, but his label never did so. Then Newton came along with her version, which basically replicates Edmunds' version, right down to the vocal inflections and guitar breaks. But Newton's version is slicker, again appealing both to country and pop radio. And for me, there's something very Fleetwood Mac about Newton's version.
So once again, Newton straddled the fine line between country and pop, playing to both sides of the market. As it happened, she appealed to both, becoming, by far, its highest profile rendition. Newton had been performing the song live in her concerts for a year before hitting the studio. The song climbed to # 2 in both the pop and AC charts and also became her most successful in the country chart so far, peaking g at # 14. It was also an international success, hitting the Top 10 in a host of countries including Australia, Canada, Switzerland, South Africa (at # 2), Denmark and N.Z. -
Since its release, 'Queen of Hearts' has been featured in two of Oliver Stone’s movies, namely Salvador in 1986 and Boogie Nights in 1997. It wasfeatured in the 2013 TV series, The Americans, as well as in episodes of King of the Hill and South Park. The 2004 video game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, also has 'Queen of Hearts' in its music roster.
The third great single from the "Juice" album, 'The Sweetest Thing (I’ve Ever Known)' was written by Otha Young back in 1975 about Juice (for as well as a professional, they had, just for a time, an intimate personal relationship) and also for Juice to perform. Newton originally recorded the song in 1975, but it was re-recorded by Juice Newton in 1981 for her album. This song really allows Newton to show off her vocal at its very best. As such, it became her first song to go all the way to # 1 on the country chart in both the U.S. and Canada, while also topping the A.C. chart in both nations. It also went to # 7 in the pop chart, the only of Newton's to reach the Top 10 on all 3 charts. As far as crossover hits go, 'The Sweetest Thing' remains as one of greatest examples illustrating the versatility behind Newton’s musical talent as a performer.
Actually, the first pressings of the "Juice" album featured a different arrangement of the song, with a more prominent steel guitar part and no oboe. After the unexpected massive crossover success of 'Angel of the Morning' and 'Queen of Hearts', a more pop friendly version was mixed and replaced the country version on all future pressings of the album. The revamped version was also used for the single - which, ironically, became her first # 1 country single. One may need to be a little patient with the song. It starts slowly, just setting the mood and scene, but the power of Newtons vocal really builds from about the 1m mark -
Juice Newtons breakthrough "Juice" album went pla, selling more than a million copies in the U.S. and in Canada it's success went right through the roof, going Triple-Platinum with a remarkable 300,000 sold. It has remained as Newton’s best-selling album of all time. In 1982, Newton received 2 Grammy nominations for Best Female Vocalist - one for 'Angel of the Morning' in the Pop category, and another for 'Queen of Hearts' in Country. But for me, 'The Sweetest Thing' is clearly her best vocal performance - maybe the single was released just a little late to be nominated.
More remarkable, given her complete outsider status in Nashville, were her CMA and ACM awards in 1982 - the "Female Vocalist of the Year" award from the CMA and the "Top New Female Vocalist" award from the ACM - though the latter is kinda amusing, given the then 30 y.o. Juice Newton had been performing professionally in California for nigh on 10 years and had released 6 albums and 17 singles, either as a solo artist or with the Silver Spur, from 1975 to 1981.
Perhaps Newton, with the easy advantage of hindsight, may have done better at this stage to move to Nashville, given that her powerful vocal had a natural country twang. This probably would've been better exploited in the country music mecca than the pop/soft rock dominated L.A. But, given the extraordinary crossover success of the seminal "Juice" album, this wouldn't have been seen as the right commercial option at the time - it seemed that Newton had the sound to please all the markets - pop, A.C. and Newton was more than comfortable with this. But as Juice Newton was about to find out, pleasing all these markets ongoing was ultimately a most difficult juggling act - as we shall see in the next day or so.
Born Judith Newton in Lakehurst (famous as the site of the Hindenberg airship disaster), New Jersey in 1952, the daughter of a Navy Officer, she already had moved to Florida and then Virginia by the time she was 4. She grew up close to the world's largest naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, where her naval upbringing exposed her to a variety of musical influences. She was gifted a guitar by her music loving parent for her 13th birthday. Her mother was her key influencer, encouraging her to pursue her dream, her desire to chase a career in music - "Many of my friends played music and I wanted to be a part of that group. For them music was a hobby, but I decided early that I wanted to make it my career.”
At age 13 she started singing in a coffeehouse then after a couple of years, despite being years underage, she started working in local bars, some nights waiting on tables and others taking to the stage with her guitar accompanying herself, singing folkish songs, developing what came to be a strong vocal and earning her first professional singing money - ”like $5 a night ... I would buy those play-by-the-numbers books in music stores. I didn't read music then - I barely read it now - and if I didn't know the song, I'd make up melodies". Folk music became her main interest - “My biggest inspiration was Bob Dylan. He had a terrific career. I liked his interpretation of the world. His storytelling songs were an inspiration for me".
"Juice" - a play on her first name first used by her teenage friends, but which she liked so much she even insisted her own family use it and has stuck with her throughout her career - first got tagged ”country” when, at age 17 in 1968, she moved to the other side of the nation, enrolling in a 2 year college course (it's one of those American things, even for big city dwellers, to move very far from home to attend college, whereas in Australia it's mostly limited to country students who leave home) at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, near San Jose, California, supporting herself by working as an underage cocktail waitress, but she also moved deeper into music.
California nightclub owners detected (correctly) her Virginian accent - "... which I don't hear; I just think its kinda nondescript ...” - they assumed she sang country music, and she went along with it - ”I said`If that means I can get a job here, okay' ... I was never even exposed to country music as a kid, but club owners would tell me that I had an accent suited to country music. So to get the jobs, I went out and bought Patsy Cline and Brenda Lee records and learned the songs. I found I had a knack for it.” During this time, she met her musical soul mate, Otha Young, a fellow guitarist and songwriter, destined to play a pivotal, long standing role in Juice's professional career. The two formed an electric folk-rock band called Dixie Peach and began playing bars around the Bay Area and Northern California.
In 1972, 20 y.o. Newton and Young were performing in a small bar. Tom Kealey just happened to be in the audience and was very impressed by what he saw and heard coming from the stage. He approached the pair during a break and proposed adding a bass player (himself) who could also supply a third harmony part. Kealey was soon added and the trio spent the next year or so performing at many of the better restaurants and gin joints in the San Francisco Bay Area, creating a huge following before heading south for L.A. in pursuit of a record deal.
In L.A. starting with a gig at Jason's, a well-known Burbank restaurant and watering hole for movie and music types, they played venues such as the Troubadour, a haven for aspiring recording stars, and the famed Palomino Club. With Newton and Young on Martin guitars and Kealey on a Fender bass, switching to country-rock sound first popularised by the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, the 3 combined to produce a powerful and unique country sound, becoming one of the hottest live draws in the L.A. area. Their appeal quickly attracted the attention of some of the movers and shakers in the record business.
After a year in L.A., they got their break when Jerry Stroud, a local Hollywood recording engineer, badgered producer Bones Howe until he finally agreed to check out a live performance for himself. Howe, who had produced huge hits by the 5th Dimension, the Association and the Turtles, and was engineer for the Mamas & the Papas, was captivated by their energy, Newton's powerful lead vocals and the songwriting, musicianship and backup vocal blend of Young and Kealey. Greatly impressed, Howe signed them to a production and publishing contract. The trio hired drummer Mickey McGee, keyboardist Robbie Gillman, and steel guitar player Curtis Cloonan to round out the band for live concerts. They collaborated on the name Juice Newton & The Silver Spur, which they also used as the title of their first album, produced by Howe.
A mixture of country, rock and pop, all of the songs off their debut "Juice Newton & Silver Spur" album were co-written by Young and Kealey, except for its one minor hit, 'Love Is A Word', which had been previously penned by Young alone. This was Newton’s first chart entry, albeit just barely, reaching a fairly disappointing # 88 in 1976. It surely deserved better - the vocals are strong, the instrumentals tight, the tune and arrangement is catchy enough and it's definitely a better song than most of her later songs that actually became hits -
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Apart from this one very minor # 88 hit, even if it did deserve better, the charts remained unforgiving for Juice Newton & The Silver Spur. The entity lasted 3 more years and 3 albums produced by Howe. Unfortunately in spite of favourable reviews, none of the records took off, and this caused the group to question themselves, as well as each other. RCA's L.A. office spent very little to promote their albums, preferring to prioritise rock (perhaps the band should've tried Nashville?), so Newton & Silver Spur completed their final recording commitment to RCA with "After the Dust Settles" in 1977 then accepted an offer from Capitol Records. Elliot Mazer produced their debut Capitol album in 1978 with "Come to Me", but it also didn't do well, in spite of high expectations, improved label support and a national tour to promote it. This caused the band to break up in 1978.
With the breakup of The Silver Spur, Newton, at age 28, finally decided to try her luck as a soloist. This proved to be the best decision of her life. Although now a solo artist, Newton still kept Silver Spur as a backup band, at least until 1982. The first single, released early in 1978, 'It’s a Heartache', became a major hit for her ... in Mexico, where it was certified gold before it was belatedly released in March 1978 in the U.S. after being delayed due to contractual wrangling. The delay in the U.S. release until March 1978 proved most unfortunate for her as it coincided with the U.S. release of Bonnie Tyler’s original version - this had also been delayed in the U.S., as the label was convinced it would be a bomb and only reluctantly released only after it had already become a worldwide hit everywhere else, reaching #1 in Canada, France, Sweden, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil. Ronnie Spector also released a version right at that time as well.
Tyler had underwent an operation to remove vocal cord nodules she had developed singing in smoky nightclubs in her native Wales. She was advised by her doctor to rest her voice for 6 weeks. But Tyler screamed in frustration one day, resulting in a permanent raspy tone - a break that turned out not to be career ending but career making - after her 1976 operation, Tyler's voice carried a distintive rasp, reminiscent of Rod Stewart's. Her rasp helped propel this song into the #3 spot. As it was first released in 1977 by Tyler in the UK before appearing in the US in 1978, exactly when Juice Newton’s version was released, meaning Newton didn't repeat her Mexican success, only reaching #86. Nevertheless, most in Mexico and Central America who still know of this song remember the Newton version, sans rasp. So here is that raspless, semi-countrified, Newton version (with this clip chosen purely for it's superior sound) -
The country music group Trick Pony recorded a version of 'It's A Heartbreak' for their 3rd studio album R.I.D.E. in 2005. Heidi Newfield sang the main vocals, and Chuck Howard produced. The cover peaked at # 22. Ironically when Rod Stewart got around to recording his own version in 2006, being much older, he didn't have the same range as in the past.
Newton changed her name legally from Judy to Juice Newton in 1978. Up to this point, “Juice” had merely been her nickname. Also in 1978, dabbling into songwriting with Young, Eaton wrote a # 44 Pop and # 7 AC hit, ‘Sweet, Sweet Smile’ - but it wasn't a hit for herself, but for The Carpenters, with a typically mellow version.
Newton's debut solo album, "Well Kept Secret” (interesting title, considering!) was released at the end of 1978 and, although it didn’t chart or produce any successful singles, Capital kept faith with her and the following year she had some success with a stand-alone pop-country single, ‘Let’s Keep it That Way’, her first top 40 hit at # 37. The next album, 1979's “Take Heart”, delivered a number of minor hits, including the # 35 'Sunshine', but still wasn’t attracting major attention or sales.
Newton had 5 charting between # 35 to # 42 from her first 2 solo albums, but this wasn't enough to make a lasting impression. However, then came 1981 and her world changed with the release her third solo album, simply titled "Juice'. This produced 3 consecutive crossover hits that served as the big breakthrough she needed to light up her name in the music industry - her blend of pop, rock and country charting high in the 3 markets of pop, AC and country.
Now there's a story to tell of her first massive hit. Chip Taylor, (who already had a huge hit on his hands with The Troggs' 1966 song 'Wild Thing'), the younger brother of Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight (and uncle of Angelina Jolie) wrote 'Angel Of The Morning' in 1967 after hearing The Rolling Stones 'Ruby Tuesday'' - the similarity in theme is immediately apparent except 'Ruby Tuesday' is from the male viewpoint, whereas 'Angel Of The Morning' is from the female - a female openly asking for a no-strings attached one night stand, a daring, risqué theme in 1967.
The song was originally offered to Italian-American Connie Francis, who, despite liking it, turned it down as she felt the lyrics would compromise her pristine stage image. It was originally recorded by Evie Sands, but, due to her label's financial problems, Sands' recording failed to make an impact on the charts. Shortly after, the song was recorded by UK artist Billie Davis, but it was Merrilee Rush who first made 'Angel of the Morning' a hit. Rush came across the song while on tour with Paul Revere & the Raiders across the deep South and cut the track to complete her latest album in Memphis.
Rush's version peaked at # 7 on the pop chart in 1968 but went all the way to # 1 in Canada, Australia, and NZ and # 5 in the Netherlands, helping earn her a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Pop Female Vocalist (she lost to Dionne Warwick). Though a number artists put their own spin on the tune in the following years (Connie Eaton, Mary Mason, British band Guys 'n' Dolls and Melba Montgomery, who peaked at # 22 on the country charts with it in 1978), the song got its true second life with Newton's superb cover of it for her 1981 "Juice" album.
Interestingly. Newton's version isn't really a re-interpretation of Rushe's original - it has the the same basic production, including the dramatic drum rolls - but it's clearly a more polished, tighter, complete production than the original recorded in Memphis, which was just a little rough around the edges. Here, each instrument can be clearly heard in its place and then there is the power of Newtons vocal. The video was also the first country music video shown on MTV, and the third female solo artist to be featured, after videos by Pat Benatar and Carly Simon, airing on the day the MTV network launched.
Newton’s version of 'Angel Of The Morning', with her country twang but with the production values rooted in L.A. pop and soft rock, remains the most well known and best-selling version. In addition to it's crossover U.S. success, peaking at # 4 on the Pop chart and topping the AC chart, it also became an international pop hit, going to # 1 in Canada, # 2 in Australia and Top 5 in NZ. It only peaked at # 22 on the U.S. country chart in 1981 - one suspects that Newton being based in L.A. rather than Nashville, and also maybe the risqué lyrics, played a role in this in the conservative southern country music heartland. Nevertheless the song sold over 1 million units across the US and went triple platinum Canada.
The song itself has the singer seeking her first one-night stand - reassuring her lover for the night that she's of legal age - and realising she’s okay with it and feels no guilt, though with a subtle hint that she could be open for more than just a one night stand -
"... There'll be no strings to bind your hands / Not if my love can't bind your heart /
There's no need to take a stand / For it was I who chose to start /
I see no need to take me home / I'm old enough to face the dawn ..." -
Newton's seminal version of 'Angel Of The Morning' has continued to be featured in films and TV in the decades since its release. Rocker and the Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde performed the song in an episode of Friends, while the Merrilee Rush version is featured in the 1999 film Girl, Interrupted (starring songwriter Chip Taylor's niece, Angelina Jolie). The Newton version is (fittingly) featured in the 2000 film Charlie's Angels In the 2016 film Deadpool, Newton's version was used for the opening credits montage. As a result, the track re-charted, reaching #43, and also hit #3 on Spotify's World Music chart. Most recently, Newton's version was featured in the powerful final moments of the Oscar-nominated film Promising Young Woman.
The next single from the 1981 "Juice" album, the bouncy, catchy, light hearted pop-country 'Queen Of Hearts' was written by Hank DeVito, the pedal steel guitarist in Emmylou Harris's backing group The Hot Band. It was first recorded by British new wave and neo-rockabilly artist Dave Edmunds for his 1979 album "Repeat When Necessary". Released as a single in the UK, it reached # 11. Edmunds wanted to have the single released in the US, but his label never did so. Then Newton came along with her version, which basically replicates Edmunds' version, right down to the vocal inflections and guitar breaks. But Newton's version is slicker, again appealing both to country and pop radio. And for me, there's something very Fleetwood Mac about Newton's version.
So once again, Newton straddled the fine line between country and pop, playing to both sides of the market. As it happened, she appealed to both, becoming, by far, its highest profile rendition. Newton had been performing the song live in her concerts for a year before hitting the studio. The song climbed to # 2 in both the pop and AC charts and also became her most successful in the country chart so far, peaking g at # 14. It was also an international success, hitting the Top 10 in a host of countries including Australia, Canada, Switzerland, South Africa (at # 2), Denmark and N.Z. -
Since its release, 'Queen of Hearts' has been featured in two of Oliver Stone’s movies, namely Salvador in 1986 and Boogie Nights in 1997. It wasfeatured in the 2013 TV series, The Americans, as well as in episodes of King of the Hill and South Park. The 2004 video game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, also has 'Queen of Hearts' in its music roster.
The third great single from the "Juice" album, 'The Sweetest Thing (I’ve Ever Known)' was written by Otha Young back in 1975 about Juice (for as well as a professional, they had, just for a time, an intimate personal relationship) and also for Juice to perform. Newton originally recorded the song in 1975, but it was re-recorded by Juice Newton in 1981 for her album. This song really allows Newton to show off her vocal at its very best. As such, it became her first song to go all the way to # 1 on the country chart in both the U.S. and Canada, while also topping the A.C. chart in both nations. It also went to # 7 in the pop chart, the only of Newton's to reach the Top 10 on all 3 charts. As far as crossover hits go, 'The Sweetest Thing' remains as one of greatest examples illustrating the versatility behind Newton’s musical talent as a performer.
Actually, the first pressings of the "Juice" album featured a different arrangement of the song, with a more prominent steel guitar part and no oboe. After the unexpected massive crossover success of 'Angel of the Morning' and 'Queen of Hearts', a more pop friendly version was mixed and replaced the country version on all future pressings of the album. The revamped version was also used for the single - which, ironically, became her first # 1 country single. One may need to be a little patient with the song. It starts slowly, just setting the mood and scene, but the power of Newtons vocal really builds from about the 1m mark -
Juice Newtons breakthrough "Juice" album went pla, selling more than a million copies in the U.S. and in Canada it's success went right through the roof, going Triple-Platinum with a remarkable 300,000 sold. It has remained as Newton’s best-selling album of all time. In 1982, Newton received 2 Grammy nominations for Best Female Vocalist - one for 'Angel of the Morning' in the Pop category, and another for 'Queen of Hearts' in Country. But for me, 'The Sweetest Thing' is clearly her best vocal performance - maybe the single was released just a little late to be nominated.
More remarkable, given her complete outsider status in Nashville, were her CMA and ACM awards in 1982 - the "Female Vocalist of the Year" award from the CMA and the "Top New Female Vocalist" award from the ACM - though the latter is kinda amusing, given the then 30 y.o. Juice Newton had been performing professionally in California for nigh on 10 years and had released 6 albums and 17 singles, either as a solo artist or with the Silver Spur, from 1975 to 1981.
Perhaps Newton, with the easy advantage of hindsight, may have done better at this stage to move to Nashville, given that her powerful vocal had a natural country twang. This probably would've been better exploited in the country music mecca than the pop/soft rock dominated L.A. But, given the extraordinary crossover success of the seminal "Juice" album, this wouldn't have been seen as the right commercial option at the time - it seemed that Newton had the sound to please all the markets - pop, A.C. and Newton was more than comfortable with this. But as Juice Newton was about to find out, pleasing all these markets ongoing was ultimately a most difficult juggling act - as we shall see in the next day or so.
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We're now up to 1982 following Juice Newton's career - though in terms of mainstream pop, we've already covered the peak of her career - but not yet in country music. In some ways, Newton's career rise resembled that of her slightly senior country-rock colleague Emmylou Harris. Harris, too, was the daughter of a navy officer. The two even used to work and sing in the same coffeehouses at the same time in the major naval city of Norfolk, Virginia. They both started their careers singing folk music, moved to California and became influenced by rock.
But there are important differences, as Newton notes. Harris got involved with Gram Parsons' country-rock movement (post # 860), yet ”... she stayed, I think, a little more folk-oriented, whereas I was exposed to more rock and roll. Plus the physical timbre of our voices differs. She has a lovely voice and I don't consider my voice lovely at all. I consider my voice more like that of a survivor. Its timbre comes and goes. I have good pitch; I just sometimes flat-out can't get the notes. But I know when I don't get`em, and I've learned to live with that. That's probably one reason I've learned to rely on emotional interpretation of songs. Life, after all, isn't always on pitch".
Whilst her big hits 'Angel Of The Morning', 'Queen Of Hearts' and 'The Sweetest Thing' were riding high across the pop, country and AC charts, Newton was already busy recording her follow up "Quiet Lies", her follow-up album to the hugely successful 1981 "Juice" album, and the 3 big crossover hits it spawned. "Quiet Lies" was released in 1982. Though not quite matching the success of the breakthrough "Juice", it was well received by the critics and overall it continued her crossover pop-country (or country-pop) success, selling 900,000 copies in the U.S. and going platinum (100,000) in Canada. It spawned a Top 10 pop hit which struggled in the country chart and a # 2 country hit which just missed being a Top 10 pop hit. Let's get too them
The first single from the "Quiet Lies" album, 'Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard on Me' joined the ranks of Newton’s Top 10 pop hits. Witten by the still active prolific country songwriter and performer, Gary Burr, the title might suggest a hardscrabble, heartfelt country song of ruined romance - but the light, trite, bouncy ballad is the very opposite of this. The lyrical, lighthearted tale of a woman finding the quest for true love a bit of hard work features the mix of L.A. 1980's pop and country she was now well known for - though in this case, it's a lot more 1980's pop production than country. There's a good reason why this catchy, boppy little tune peaked at # 7 (# 3 in Canada) on the pop chart and # 4 on the AC charts - but struggled only up to # 30 (# 24 in Canada) on the country chart in 1982. You might get a bit of a laugh from the vintage, campy, slapstick humour in this early 1982 MTV video, the third video Newton had featured in MTV's first year -
'Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard on Me' earned Juice another Best Pop Female Vocalist Grammy Award nomination.
The second single from the album, 'Break It To Me Gently' was a contemporary remake of Brenda Lee’s original # 4 pop hit from 1961, written by actor and blues singer songwriter Joe Seneca. Newton's steamy makeover became another crossover triumph, a # 2 hit on the country chart, at # 11, it just missed becoming Newton's 5th consecutive Top 10 Pop hit but it topped the AC chart, her 3rd # 1 AC hit. Once again, Newton (like Fricke) proved even more popular in Canada, climbing to # 3 on the pop, # 2 on the country and # 1 on the AC charts and was also a Top 10 pop hit in Australia. No other artist come as close to Brenda Lee’s perfection as Juice Newton’s impressive version did -
Newton's rendition of 'Break It To Me Gently won Newton her first Grammy Award, for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, in 1983 (having also been nominated for Best Pop Female Vocalist for her previous single above).
The "Quiet Lies" album won Newton another Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance.
It was at this stage that Newton's career took somewhat of a sideways turn as she seemed intent on becoming a rock star. The direction for her 3rd (and final) Capitol album, 1983's "Dirty Looks" was decidedly more rock than usual, as evident on her #27 pop hit "Tell Her No" (a 1960's hit for the Zombies) and the title track. The country-oriented single 'Stranger at My Door' had a very brief appearance on the lower with the country chart, while the title track bombed, only hitting # 90. The album was at best a modest success, though it actually went gold in Canada.
Concerned that her trajectory was going in the wrong direction, allied with changes at Capitol, led Newton to return to RCA Juice left Capitol to return to RCA in 1984. But, perhaps not learning the lesson that her rock sound wasn't cutting through, her first album "Can't Wait All Night" doubled down with an even heavier rock sound - and it didn't go down well. The first single 'A Little Love' and the title track became her final Top 40 pop singles, but only reaching #42 and #66 respectively while 'Restless Heart' struggled to # 57 on the country chart. Her misjudged move to the L.A soft rock sound in her 1983 and 1984 albums both wasted her vocal talent and lost much of her fan following. What better way to win them back than the issue of a "Greatest Hits" compilation album.
As the 3rd single lifted from her breakthrough 'Juice' in 1981, was the reworked version of 'The Sweetest Thing' (seen yesterday), 'Ride 'Em Cowboy' was the B side to that # 1 hit. It was penned by Paul Davis who scored a hit with his own song back in 1974. Juice's version, another superb vocal, builds beautifully and was another excellent flip side to a wonderful single - so good, in fact, that it was included in her 1984 "Greatest Hits" compilation and was re-issued as a single (this time as the A-side) in 1984, reaching # 32 - her first Top 40 hit in 2 years, following the disappointment of her soft-rock soaked previous album -
The cowboy theme was appropriate for the horse loving Newton, a love stemming from her childhood. In high school in Virginia she had friends who had horses, and she took up riding herself. Kept in check during her music career's hard first decade, spent mostly on the road struggling to get her first big hit until her 1981 reprise of 'Angel of the Morning' made her an "overnight" star. By 1983, she was secure in her career enough to purchase a thoroughbred gelding and stabled him at the L.A. Equestrian Centre. By 1985, she had become an accomplished rider in her spare time, winning several local equestrian events around this time and also playing competitive polo.
Newton also changed her music direction again in 1985 - this time for the better. Out of all of Newton's albums, "Old Flame" has the strongest country roots and influences - although it's still informed by L.A. rock and pop. You won't find anything resembling hardcore honky tonk on the album - you could describe it as being somewhat roots pop-country.
Despite most of the album's production still being too slick - indicative both of its time and L.A. recording location,"Old Flame" proved Newton can perform solid country material with conviction and it stands as the most highest rated album of her career by most critics. The public agreed - after her previous 2 off-course, forgettable soft-rock inclined albums, Newton had her most successful country album of all in "Old Flame". There are no more crossover pop or AC charting hits - but the album features no less than five Top 10 country hits.
The first of these, 'You Make Me Want to Make You Mine', written by Dave Loggins, became Newton's 2nd #1 country hit in both the U.S. and Canada. The full transition away from the pop-rock genre into country was the best move Newton made during this stage of her career as the face of the pop music industry was changing into a style that wasn’t nearly as folksy as Newton’s musical style, which came through beautifully through this hit single. Sure, it's arranged as 1960's pop bop and the lyrics are light, but the backing track has more twangy instrumentation than anything being put out at the time by those outside the emerging neo-traditionalist movement at that time -
'You Make Me Want to Make You Mine' earned Newton her 5th Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Vocal Performance in 1986. However, she lost to Rosanne Cash's 'I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me' - which, ironically, was written by Cash in response to losing a Grammy to Newton in 1983.
This 1954 original of 'Hurt', penned by Jimmie Crane and Al Jacobs, was first performed by the great multi-genre singer, Roy Hamilton 70 years ago as an R&B classic - perhaps the first R&B song that sounded like country music - which peaked at # 8 on the R&B chart while a cover by the otherwise little known Ricky Denell also received considerable radio airplay in 1954 on pop radio stations. The song became the signature hit of Timi Yuro, whose version went to # 4 on the pop chart in 1961. Elvis Presley’s 1976 version reached # 28 on the pop chart and # 6 on the country chart
Newton’s 1985 country twist to “Hurt” turned it into a # 1 country hit in both the U.S. and Canada in 1985, her 2nd consecutive # 1 in both nations. Powerful ballads by Juice Newton were not uncommon, as we have seen, and 'Hurt' is another powerful examples of this fact. As a country ballad, her version, with its emotional interlude, was performed beautifully, seemingly as someone caught up in the lyrical moment as the listener. Against the backdrop of 1950's doo-wop backup singers, Newton pushes her vocal cords to the limit, stretching out the notes and using power reminiscent of Linda Ronstadt. The music video also effectively taps into the nostalgic feel of the song while also visually telling a story appropriate for its lyrics -
So today's quota is filled, but tomorrow will see more from Newton's most country album, "Old Flame", as well as an "interloper" single also released during that time, before finishing up the career of Juice Newton.
But there are important differences, as Newton notes. Harris got involved with Gram Parsons' country-rock movement (post # 860), yet ”... she stayed, I think, a little more folk-oriented, whereas I was exposed to more rock and roll. Plus the physical timbre of our voices differs. She has a lovely voice and I don't consider my voice lovely at all. I consider my voice more like that of a survivor. Its timbre comes and goes. I have good pitch; I just sometimes flat-out can't get the notes. But I know when I don't get`em, and I've learned to live with that. That's probably one reason I've learned to rely on emotional interpretation of songs. Life, after all, isn't always on pitch".
Whilst her big hits 'Angel Of The Morning', 'Queen Of Hearts' and 'The Sweetest Thing' were riding high across the pop, country and AC charts, Newton was already busy recording her follow up "Quiet Lies", her follow-up album to the hugely successful 1981 "Juice" album, and the 3 big crossover hits it spawned. "Quiet Lies" was released in 1982. Though not quite matching the success of the breakthrough "Juice", it was well received by the critics and overall it continued her crossover pop-country (or country-pop) success, selling 900,000 copies in the U.S. and going platinum (100,000) in Canada. It spawned a Top 10 pop hit which struggled in the country chart and a # 2 country hit which just missed being a Top 10 pop hit. Let's get too them
The first single from the "Quiet Lies" album, 'Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard on Me' joined the ranks of Newton’s Top 10 pop hits. Witten by the still active prolific country songwriter and performer, Gary Burr, the title might suggest a hardscrabble, heartfelt country song of ruined romance - but the light, trite, bouncy ballad is the very opposite of this. The lyrical, lighthearted tale of a woman finding the quest for true love a bit of hard work features the mix of L.A. 1980's pop and country she was now well known for - though in this case, it's a lot more 1980's pop production than country. There's a good reason why this catchy, boppy little tune peaked at # 7 (# 3 in Canada) on the pop chart and # 4 on the AC charts - but struggled only up to # 30 (# 24 in Canada) on the country chart in 1982. You might get a bit of a laugh from the vintage, campy, slapstick humour in this early 1982 MTV video, the third video Newton had featured in MTV's first year -
'Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard on Me' earned Juice another Best Pop Female Vocalist Grammy Award nomination.
The second single from the album, 'Break It To Me Gently' was a contemporary remake of Brenda Lee’s original # 4 pop hit from 1961, written by actor and blues singer songwriter Joe Seneca. Newton's steamy makeover became another crossover triumph, a # 2 hit on the country chart, at # 11, it just missed becoming Newton's 5th consecutive Top 10 Pop hit but it topped the AC chart, her 3rd # 1 AC hit. Once again, Newton (like Fricke) proved even more popular in Canada, climbing to # 3 on the pop, # 2 on the country and # 1 on the AC charts and was also a Top 10 pop hit in Australia. No other artist come as close to Brenda Lee’s perfection as Juice Newton’s impressive version did -
Newton's rendition of 'Break It To Me Gently won Newton her first Grammy Award, for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, in 1983 (having also been nominated for Best Pop Female Vocalist for her previous single above).
The "Quiet Lies" album won Newton another Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance.
It was at this stage that Newton's career took somewhat of a sideways turn as she seemed intent on becoming a rock star. The direction for her 3rd (and final) Capitol album, 1983's "Dirty Looks" was decidedly more rock than usual, as evident on her #27 pop hit "Tell Her No" (a 1960's hit for the Zombies) and the title track. The country-oriented single 'Stranger at My Door' had a very brief appearance on the lower with the country chart, while the title track bombed, only hitting # 90. The album was at best a modest success, though it actually went gold in Canada.
Concerned that her trajectory was going in the wrong direction, allied with changes at Capitol, led Newton to return to RCA Juice left Capitol to return to RCA in 1984. But, perhaps not learning the lesson that her rock sound wasn't cutting through, her first album "Can't Wait All Night" doubled down with an even heavier rock sound - and it didn't go down well. The first single 'A Little Love' and the title track became her final Top 40 pop singles, but only reaching #42 and #66 respectively while 'Restless Heart' struggled to # 57 on the country chart. Her misjudged move to the L.A soft rock sound in her 1983 and 1984 albums both wasted her vocal talent and lost much of her fan following. What better way to win them back than the issue of a "Greatest Hits" compilation album.
As the 3rd single lifted from her breakthrough 'Juice' in 1981, was the reworked version of 'The Sweetest Thing' (seen yesterday), 'Ride 'Em Cowboy' was the B side to that # 1 hit. It was penned by Paul Davis who scored a hit with his own song back in 1974. Juice's version, another superb vocal, builds beautifully and was another excellent flip side to a wonderful single - so good, in fact, that it was included in her 1984 "Greatest Hits" compilation and was re-issued as a single (this time as the A-side) in 1984, reaching # 32 - her first Top 40 hit in 2 years, following the disappointment of her soft-rock soaked previous album -
The cowboy theme was appropriate for the horse loving Newton, a love stemming from her childhood. In high school in Virginia she had friends who had horses, and she took up riding herself. Kept in check during her music career's hard first decade, spent mostly on the road struggling to get her first big hit until her 1981 reprise of 'Angel of the Morning' made her an "overnight" star. By 1983, she was secure in her career enough to purchase a thoroughbred gelding and stabled him at the L.A. Equestrian Centre. By 1985, she had become an accomplished rider in her spare time, winning several local equestrian events around this time and also playing competitive polo.
Newton also changed her music direction again in 1985 - this time for the better. Out of all of Newton's albums, "Old Flame" has the strongest country roots and influences - although it's still informed by L.A. rock and pop. You won't find anything resembling hardcore honky tonk on the album - you could describe it as being somewhat roots pop-country.
Despite most of the album's production still being too slick - indicative both of its time and L.A. recording location,"Old Flame" proved Newton can perform solid country material with conviction and it stands as the most highest rated album of her career by most critics. The public agreed - after her previous 2 off-course, forgettable soft-rock inclined albums, Newton had her most successful country album of all in "Old Flame". There are no more crossover pop or AC charting hits - but the album features no less than five Top 10 country hits.
The first of these, 'You Make Me Want to Make You Mine', written by Dave Loggins, became Newton's 2nd #1 country hit in both the U.S. and Canada. The full transition away from the pop-rock genre into country was the best move Newton made during this stage of her career as the face of the pop music industry was changing into a style that wasn’t nearly as folksy as Newton’s musical style, which came through beautifully through this hit single. Sure, it's arranged as 1960's pop bop and the lyrics are light, but the backing track has more twangy instrumentation than anything being put out at the time by those outside the emerging neo-traditionalist movement at that time -
'You Make Me Want to Make You Mine' earned Newton her 5th Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Vocal Performance in 1986. However, she lost to Rosanne Cash's 'I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me' - which, ironically, was written by Cash in response to losing a Grammy to Newton in 1983.
This 1954 original of 'Hurt', penned by Jimmie Crane and Al Jacobs, was first performed by the great multi-genre singer, Roy Hamilton 70 years ago as an R&B classic - perhaps the first R&B song that sounded like country music - which peaked at # 8 on the R&B chart while a cover by the otherwise little known Ricky Denell also received considerable radio airplay in 1954 on pop radio stations. The song became the signature hit of Timi Yuro, whose version went to # 4 on the pop chart in 1961. Elvis Presley’s 1976 version reached # 28 on the pop chart and # 6 on the country chart
Newton’s 1985 country twist to “Hurt” turned it into a # 1 country hit in both the U.S. and Canada in 1985, her 2nd consecutive # 1 in both nations. Powerful ballads by Juice Newton were not uncommon, as we have seen, and 'Hurt' is another powerful examples of this fact. As a country ballad, her version, with its emotional interlude, was performed beautifully, seemingly as someone caught up in the lyrical moment as the listener. Against the backdrop of 1950's doo-wop backup singers, Newton pushes her vocal cords to the limit, stretching out the notes and using power reminiscent of Linda Ronstadt. The music video also effectively taps into the nostalgic feel of the song while also visually telling a story appropriate for its lyrics -
So today's quota is filled, but tomorrow will see more from Newton's most country album, "Old Flame", as well as an "interloper" single also released during that time, before finishing up the career of Juice Newton.
Having melded folk, country, rock, blues and L.A. pop into a hugely successful cross-genre career, we left Juice Newton yesterday at the end of 1985 with her pop charting days behind her,. In 1985, she released her pivotal, highly successful "Old Flame" album - highly successful p, that is, on the country charts, being the most country rooted album of her career (not that one would describe this album as "pure" country, but it was as close to it as the L.A. based Newton could be expected to gett. Yesterday featured the first two singles released from the album, 'You Make Me Want to Make You Mine' and 'Hurt', both of which topped the U.S. and Canadian charts. But more was to come from this album in 1986.
The album's title track 'Old Flame', was released in 1986 as its third single. Written by Reed Nielsen, it was originally recorded by one of the founders of the L.A. country rock sound, Poco, as 'This Old Flame' in 1984 for their "Inamorata" album. But when released as a single, it failed to chart. However, Newton, this time in full country mode, took this to # 5. Her rendition improves on the original, wringing out the emotion of a woman scorned and asked to collect a call from the louse who deserted her. - but she has well and truly, unapologetically moved on from him -
"... What do you mean, how could I do this to you / Let's not forget who walked out on who /
This old flame went out / You never thought you'd be the one / In the darkness now ..."
The next single released in 1986 wasn't from the "Old Flame" album, but instead a duet with Eddie Rabbit (posts # 972 - 974). Written by Jay Gruska and Paul Gordon, it was first recorded as a duet specifically for the soap opera, Days of Our Lives by Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson. Gloria Loring is a singer and actress who from 1980, portrayed a lounge singer on the soapie, so Loring was often called upon to perform on-screen. 'Friends and Lovers' was the song she performed the most, due to audience reaction. However, despite its popularity on the TV soapie, the recording remained unreleased for months due to contractual wrangling . According to Loring, it had been frustratingly turned down by most of the major American record labels at the time, and she had taken to referring to the song informally as "Friends and Lawyers".
Sensing an opportunity with the delay, RCA cannily teamed up Newton and Eddie Rabbitt, who RCA had recently signed from Warner Bros, to record their country version and hurrying to release it just before the release of the T.V. soapie pop version made popular by Loring and Anderson. The title was altered to 'Born to Each Other (Friends and Lovers)', echoing the final line in the song’s chorus, as a means to avoid confusion and controversy among the fans, as the 2 versions were released just a couple of weeks apart. Despite Newton's and Rabbit's arrangement differing a bit from the original recording by Loring and Anderson, the lyrics were the same.
For Newton and Rabbitt, their pop-country version that was released first, went all the way to # 1 in both the U.S. and Canada while the pop version by Loring and Anderson peaked at # 2 in the U.S pop chart, topped the Canadian pop chart and did the same on the US and Canadian AC charts, both # 1.
But having said all the above about 'Born to Each Other (Friends and Lovers)', and including it in my music selection due to its commercial success, this is one I would've been happy if it had just stayed on the TV soapie - it ain't to my taste, no matter how well Newton sings it with Rabbit. Still, for the purposes of this history, I suppose it's a good (if that's the right word) example of a successful 1980's pop-country romantic ballad, its sound rooted in that era, and others here may either enjoy it or just skip it, depending on your mood, taste or time -
Now we return to Newton's "Old Flame" album. The rollicking 'Cheap Love' was written and recorded by Del Shannon for his 1983 album "Drop Down and Get Me". After the success of the third single release, the title song from "Old Flame", RCA elected to release 'Cheap Love' as the album's 4th single in August 1986. It paid off, peaking at # 9 in the U.S. and # 5 in Canada. It also became a popular country line-dancing tune -
'Cheap Love' was later covered by Marty Stuart, under the name 'Sweet Love', for his 1996 album "Honky Tonkin's What I Do Best".
Deciding to keep striking while the iron was hot, with "Old Flame" having achieved two # 1 singles and two more landing in the Top 1o, RCA chanced their arm again by releasing 'What Can I Do With My Heart' in December 1986 as the 5th single from the album. Once again, it went to the Top 10, reaching #9 and # 7 in Canada in early 1987 - an impressive result given that by now, the neo-traditional movement had swept much of this type of material from the country charts, at least in the southern country heartland. The West coast was quite a different beast. Notably, the song was written by Newton's long-time musical partner Otha Young, who had written's Newton's first charted hit 'Lobe Is A Word', back in 1976 and also penned Newton's very first # 1 country hit, "The Sweetest Thing (I've Ever Known)" in 1981 -
Yesterday, I commented, just after the 'Ride Em Cowboy' selection, that Newton had purchased a thoroughbred and stabled him at the L.A. Equestrian Centre. The Centre's general manager was the renowned U.S. polo player,, coach and author, Tom Goodspeed. Newton married Goodspeed in 1986, and the couple went on to have a daughter a few months later in January 1987, just as 'What Can I Do With My Heart' climbed into the Top 10.
However, just 5 weeks later, while doing equestrian jumps, the horse Newton was riding took fright at something while jumping, reared up and threw her off, crushing a vertebra in her back. This resulted in more than 2 months of immobility followed by extensive physical therapy - all of which she endured without pain-killers, so she could continue breastfeeding her baby daughter, not get herself addicted to painkillers like so many others had done and to heal herself faster. Her recovery was also helped by the fact she always had kept herself extremely fit and strong, having kept up a routine of extensive gym strength and endurance workouts for years.
Once she recovered sufficiently, Newton returned to the studio to complete the recording of the follow-up to the "Old Flame" album, with the 1987 release of "Emotion", though it was delayed by several months. It's a considerably different album for her, with songs relying much more on story than melody, and production stripped of her usual layering and lush instrumentation - to basically give the listener more Juice. Its title, taken from its cover of the old Brenda Lee hit 'Emotions' is apt. It deals not just with a singers usual exploration of love themes but, rather, with wider forays into feelings about other parts of life as well. Newton said at the time - ”It's a softer record. Theres only one up-tempo tune. It's a more reflective kind of record".
The "Emotion" album failed to continue Newton's hit streak when its 1st single 'First Time Caller' fell short of the Top 20. However, released as the 2nd single from the album in late 1987, 'Tell Me True', written by Paul Kennerley and Brent Maher, returned Newton to the Top 10 with a # 8 peak in the U.S. and # 2 in Canada in early 1988. This agreeable acoustic piece serves up a toe-tapping, easy-listening Juice Newton style at her best -
.
Alas, 'Tell Me True' was Newton’s final Top 10 hit. Strangely enough, RCA Records released no additional singles from the album, despite the success of 'Tell Me True'. It would be the final Juice Newton commercial single produced by her longtime collaborator Richard Landis until the 1998 single 'When I Get Over You'. In 1989, Newton released her pop-country "Ain't Gonna Cry", which featured the single 'When Love Comes Around the Bend', which, released as a promotional single only to radio stations, not to retail stores for the general public, barely scraped into the Top 40.
Newton was then amongst the victims of the "great country clean-out" at RCA in 1989, which also saw them drop the likes of Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and a host of other 1980's pop-country performers, their music now out of fashion. She thus found herself, at age 37, without a recording contract for the first time in 14 years. She wouldn’t release an album again until 1998, though she continued to tour occasionally.
In 1990, Newton took the big step of moving from L.A., settling in a small property just outside San Diego with husband Tom Goodspeed and their 2 y.o. daughter. They had a second child, a son, in 1991 and she concentrated on raising her 2 children. A skilled equestrian, as already mentioned p, she continued to participate in polo and jumping competitions, while her husband, famous as a polo player and coach, was recruited to become manager the San Diego Polo Club.
Newton spent the next 9 years from 1989 to 1998 occasionally touring by bus - she has a flying phobia - equestrian riding, and focusing on family life. Her music career lacked proper direction in the 1990's. She was always considered to be an engaging live act, but most of her success was bound up in her recording. Contractual issues and failed recording projects seemed to bug her throughout the 1990's (I won't totally bore you with all the details) and the emergence of a series of bootleg albums she had no control over also took their toll.
Newton got back on track in 1998 with the "The Trouble with Angels" album, a collection of re-recorded favourites and several new tracks, followed by "American Girl" in 1999, Newton's first album of all-new material since 1989 and featured the single 'They Never Made It to Memphis'. The album featured tracks written by Otha Young, Freddie Mercury, Nanci Griffith, Tom Petty and Newton herself. She released a further 3 albums between 2002 and 2007, but the death by lung cancer of Otha Young, her long time music soul-mate and songwriter for some of her big hits in 2009 had a major impact - the 2 had worked together for 37 years.
Newton's final album was 2010’s “Duets: Friends and Memories” includes songs performed with Willie Nelson, Glen Campbell, Randy Meisner and Franki Valli, among others. The project had been started back in the mid1990's but it was one of those projects beset by legal issues and the original concept never saw the light of day. Some were finally released on the Fuel Records album. It was well received critically, with critics calling for a second volume of the recordings from the original sessions that have survived - something that still hasn’t happened 14 years later. There have been greatest hits packages and re-releases of her earlier albums but “Duets” remains her last studio recording. The duet with Willie Nelson of the 1961 Nelson penned classic, 'Funny How Time Slips Away' was also released as a single - Newton's final single.
The range of vocals Newton has been noted for never waned over the years and after her final 2010 album, as she aged into her sixties, she still performed live from time to time - and her equestrian riding. All up, Newton recorded 16 studio albums and produced 11 pop chart hits from 1978 to 1984, of which 5 made the Top 10. She placed 26 hits on the American and Canadian country charts, including 6 that reached the #1 position. She continued to tour until 2020 and then retired in 2021 during the Covid lockdown.
Newton divorced husband Tom Godspeed in 2022, but, now aged 72, still lives on her San Diego property with a menagerie of animals - dogs, goats, pigs, birds, fish, hamsters - and concentrating on her highly successful horse trading business, dealing mostly with European horses.
And so that's Juice Newton, with her powerful vocal, done - another whose sound is an essential part of the 1980's pop and country music sound.
I won't be back with more history until I figure out a way to adequately cover the next artist within reasonable bounds - for if Ricky Skaggs was the spark that lit the fuse of the neo-traditional movement, the next artist was the explosion that swept away the pop-country sound of the early 1980's - and once he charged to the top, he stayed there ... and stayed ... and stayed, It might take me a bit of time.
The album's title track 'Old Flame', was released in 1986 as its third single. Written by Reed Nielsen, it was originally recorded by one of the founders of the L.A. country rock sound, Poco, as 'This Old Flame' in 1984 for their "Inamorata" album. But when released as a single, it failed to chart. However, Newton, this time in full country mode, took this to # 5. Her rendition improves on the original, wringing out the emotion of a woman scorned and asked to collect a call from the louse who deserted her. - but she has well and truly, unapologetically moved on from him -
"... What do you mean, how could I do this to you / Let's not forget who walked out on who /
This old flame went out / You never thought you'd be the one / In the darkness now ..."
The next single released in 1986 wasn't from the "Old Flame" album, but instead a duet with Eddie Rabbit (posts # 972 - 974). Written by Jay Gruska and Paul Gordon, it was first recorded as a duet specifically for the soap opera, Days of Our Lives by Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson. Gloria Loring is a singer and actress who from 1980, portrayed a lounge singer on the soapie, so Loring was often called upon to perform on-screen. 'Friends and Lovers' was the song she performed the most, due to audience reaction. However, despite its popularity on the TV soapie, the recording remained unreleased for months due to contractual wrangling . According to Loring, it had been frustratingly turned down by most of the major American record labels at the time, and she had taken to referring to the song informally as "Friends and Lawyers".
Sensing an opportunity with the delay, RCA cannily teamed up Newton and Eddie Rabbitt, who RCA had recently signed from Warner Bros, to record their country version and hurrying to release it just before the release of the T.V. soapie pop version made popular by Loring and Anderson. The title was altered to 'Born to Each Other (Friends and Lovers)', echoing the final line in the song’s chorus, as a means to avoid confusion and controversy among the fans, as the 2 versions were released just a couple of weeks apart. Despite Newton's and Rabbit's arrangement differing a bit from the original recording by Loring and Anderson, the lyrics were the same.
For Newton and Rabbitt, their pop-country version that was released first, went all the way to # 1 in both the U.S. and Canada while the pop version by Loring and Anderson peaked at # 2 in the U.S pop chart, topped the Canadian pop chart and did the same on the US and Canadian AC charts, both # 1.
But having said all the above about 'Born to Each Other (Friends and Lovers)', and including it in my music selection due to its commercial success, this is one I would've been happy if it had just stayed on the TV soapie - it ain't to my taste, no matter how well Newton sings it with Rabbit. Still, for the purposes of this history, I suppose it's a good (if that's the right word) example of a successful 1980's pop-country romantic ballad, its sound rooted in that era, and others here may either enjoy it or just skip it, depending on your mood, taste or time -
Now we return to Newton's "Old Flame" album. The rollicking 'Cheap Love' was written and recorded by Del Shannon for his 1983 album "Drop Down and Get Me". After the success of the third single release, the title song from "Old Flame", RCA elected to release 'Cheap Love' as the album's 4th single in August 1986. It paid off, peaking at # 9 in the U.S. and # 5 in Canada. It also became a popular country line-dancing tune -
'Cheap Love' was later covered by Marty Stuart, under the name 'Sweet Love', for his 1996 album "Honky Tonkin's What I Do Best".
Deciding to keep striking while the iron was hot, with "Old Flame" having achieved two # 1 singles and two more landing in the Top 1o, RCA chanced their arm again by releasing 'What Can I Do With My Heart' in December 1986 as the 5th single from the album. Once again, it went to the Top 10, reaching #9 and # 7 in Canada in early 1987 - an impressive result given that by now, the neo-traditional movement had swept much of this type of material from the country charts, at least in the southern country heartland. The West coast was quite a different beast. Notably, the song was written by Newton's long-time musical partner Otha Young, who had written's Newton's first charted hit 'Lobe Is A Word', back in 1976 and also penned Newton's very first # 1 country hit, "The Sweetest Thing (I've Ever Known)" in 1981 -
Yesterday, I commented, just after the 'Ride Em Cowboy' selection, that Newton had purchased a thoroughbred and stabled him at the L.A. Equestrian Centre. The Centre's general manager was the renowned U.S. polo player,, coach and author, Tom Goodspeed. Newton married Goodspeed in 1986, and the couple went on to have a daughter a few months later in January 1987, just as 'What Can I Do With My Heart' climbed into the Top 10.
However, just 5 weeks later, while doing equestrian jumps, the horse Newton was riding took fright at something while jumping, reared up and threw her off, crushing a vertebra in her back. This resulted in more than 2 months of immobility followed by extensive physical therapy - all of which she endured without pain-killers, so she could continue breastfeeding her baby daughter, not get herself addicted to painkillers like so many others had done and to heal herself faster. Her recovery was also helped by the fact she always had kept herself extremely fit and strong, having kept up a routine of extensive gym strength and endurance workouts for years.
Once she recovered sufficiently, Newton returned to the studio to complete the recording of the follow-up to the "Old Flame" album, with the 1987 release of "Emotion", though it was delayed by several months. It's a considerably different album for her, with songs relying much more on story than melody, and production stripped of her usual layering and lush instrumentation - to basically give the listener more Juice. Its title, taken from its cover of the old Brenda Lee hit 'Emotions' is apt. It deals not just with a singers usual exploration of love themes but, rather, with wider forays into feelings about other parts of life as well. Newton said at the time - ”It's a softer record. Theres only one up-tempo tune. It's a more reflective kind of record".
The "Emotion" album failed to continue Newton's hit streak when its 1st single 'First Time Caller' fell short of the Top 20. However, released as the 2nd single from the album in late 1987, 'Tell Me True', written by Paul Kennerley and Brent Maher, returned Newton to the Top 10 with a # 8 peak in the U.S. and # 2 in Canada in early 1988. This agreeable acoustic piece serves up a toe-tapping, easy-listening Juice Newton style at her best -
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Alas, 'Tell Me True' was Newton’s final Top 10 hit. Strangely enough, RCA Records released no additional singles from the album, despite the success of 'Tell Me True'. It would be the final Juice Newton commercial single produced by her longtime collaborator Richard Landis until the 1998 single 'When I Get Over You'. In 1989, Newton released her pop-country "Ain't Gonna Cry", which featured the single 'When Love Comes Around the Bend', which, released as a promotional single only to radio stations, not to retail stores for the general public, barely scraped into the Top 40.
Newton was then amongst the victims of the "great country clean-out" at RCA in 1989, which also saw them drop the likes of Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and a host of other 1980's pop-country performers, their music now out of fashion. She thus found herself, at age 37, without a recording contract for the first time in 14 years. She wouldn’t release an album again until 1998, though she continued to tour occasionally.
In 1990, Newton took the big step of moving from L.A., settling in a small property just outside San Diego with husband Tom Goodspeed and their 2 y.o. daughter. They had a second child, a son, in 1991 and she concentrated on raising her 2 children. A skilled equestrian, as already mentioned p, she continued to participate in polo and jumping competitions, while her husband, famous as a polo player and coach, was recruited to become manager the San Diego Polo Club.
Newton spent the next 9 years from 1989 to 1998 occasionally touring by bus - she has a flying phobia - equestrian riding, and focusing on family life. Her music career lacked proper direction in the 1990's. She was always considered to be an engaging live act, but most of her success was bound up in her recording. Contractual issues and failed recording projects seemed to bug her throughout the 1990's (I won't totally bore you with all the details) and the emergence of a series of bootleg albums she had no control over also took their toll.
Newton got back on track in 1998 with the "The Trouble with Angels" album, a collection of re-recorded favourites and several new tracks, followed by "American Girl" in 1999, Newton's first album of all-new material since 1989 and featured the single 'They Never Made It to Memphis'. The album featured tracks written by Otha Young, Freddie Mercury, Nanci Griffith, Tom Petty and Newton herself. She released a further 3 albums between 2002 and 2007, but the death by lung cancer of Otha Young, her long time music soul-mate and songwriter for some of her big hits in 2009 had a major impact - the 2 had worked together for 37 years.
Newton's final album was 2010’s “Duets: Friends and Memories” includes songs performed with Willie Nelson, Glen Campbell, Randy Meisner and Franki Valli, among others. The project had been started back in the mid1990's but it was one of those projects beset by legal issues and the original concept never saw the light of day. Some were finally released on the Fuel Records album. It was well received critically, with critics calling for a second volume of the recordings from the original sessions that have survived - something that still hasn’t happened 14 years later. There have been greatest hits packages and re-releases of her earlier albums but “Duets” remains her last studio recording. The duet with Willie Nelson of the 1961 Nelson penned classic, 'Funny How Time Slips Away' was also released as a single - Newton's final single.
The range of vocals Newton has been noted for never waned over the years and after her final 2010 album, as she aged into her sixties, she still performed live from time to time - and her equestrian riding. All up, Newton recorded 16 studio albums and produced 11 pop chart hits from 1978 to 1984, of which 5 made the Top 10. She placed 26 hits on the American and Canadian country charts, including 6 that reached the #1 position. She continued to tour until 2020 and then retired in 2021 during the Covid lockdown.
Newton divorced husband Tom Godspeed in 2022, but, now aged 72, still lives on her San Diego property with a menagerie of animals - dogs, goats, pigs, birds, fish, hamsters - and concentrating on her highly successful horse trading business, dealing mostly with European horses.
And so that's Juice Newton, with her powerful vocal, done - another whose sound is an essential part of the 1980's pop and country music sound.
I won't be back with more history until I figure out a way to adequately cover the next artist within reasonable bounds - for if Ricky Skaggs was the spark that lit the fuse of the neo-traditional movement, the next artist was the explosion that swept away the pop-country sound of the early 1980's - and once he charged to the top, he stayed there ... and stayed ... and stayed, It might take me a bit of time.
