Reviewing The Top Ten Country Hits From Today In 1988

 

1988 was a time of change for me. In May I'd left my eight-year job at the hospital, a job I actually loved, but felt forced to abandon. In retrospect, I made a rash decision on a particularly chaotic night. The medical floor was hopping with new admissions and our staffing consisted of generally one RN and two LPN's at each of the three stations the floor supported. I did my best to distribute new patients equally, but circumstances were such that one of the stations became overloaded. An RN I considered a friend dressed me down in front of the other nurses, and I felt put-upon and humiliated. I went home that night dejected. I began to question my ability to handle my job, a job I'd excelled at for eight years; and I began to question my so-called friendships. I honestly didn't want to leave, but I couldn't conceive of another option. I searched the job openings and found one downstairs in the Admissions Department, which would still allow me to maintain my second shift status. I applied and was accepted. I hated (hated!) it. Downstairs was eerily quiet and dark; one tiny light barely illuminating each of the three check-in windows. My responsibilities essentially consisted of spelling the new patient's name correctly and verifying his or her religion.

I lasted about two weeks. Instead I scoured the want ads and found one for a Farm Records Secretary at the local PCA office on the far edge of the neighboring town. I applied and was accepted. It was a true demotion. And truly desultory. My tasks included serving as a de facto receptionist, transcribing my Oklahoma boss's twangy dictation, and making copies ~ reams and reams of copies. My boss didn't particularly like me, nor did I particularly like her.  I'd descended from the heights of intensity to the bowels of gloom. 

My only redemption was listening to my portable FM radio during the quiet times, as I typed up yet another address label on my IBM Selectric. I was still mostly into rock, so my dial was tuned to Y93 and its morning show that at least offered a laugh or two with its song parodies and its droll DJ, Bob Beck. I had only recently dipped my toe back into country music, accidentally, when I flipped the car dial over to the country station during a particularly boring Y93 track. I don't remember who I heard, but whoever it was piqued my interest. It was then that I ventured out to purchase two country cassettes ~ random choices ~ The Sweethearts Of The Rodeo and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band ~ and I played those two tapes over and over on Saturday mornings while I dusted furniture and scoured the bathtub.

Thus, I generally didn't recognize any of the artists in the Top Ten, except one or two carryovers from the seventies. They were completely new to me.

Here I am, about to relive a not-so-fun time in my life and review the top ten charting country singles from this day in 1988. 

Here are the rules: 

• I review each single as a first-time listener (sometimes I truly am).
  
• I must listen to the entire track before offering my critique.  
• I stick with the Top Ten only, because this is exercise takes far more time than one can imagine).
  
• I do my best to find music videos. If all else fails, I use a video of the recorded song

Let's get it on!

 

#10 ~ Desperately ~ Don Williams

Random question: Did Don Williams have a disability? Every video I've seen of him has him perched on a stool, strumming his guitar.

Be that as it may, this is truly a new song to me. I'll wager that I've never once before heard it. The good: Don Williams. The bad: a commonplace melody. And the lyrics strike me as an exercise in finding rhymes. 

Don Williams is an artist who inhabits his own niche, that being a semi-comatose singer who occasionally sprouts a spurt of energy and chooses a song that hits the sweet spot. This song isn't that.

C-

 

#9 ~ That's That ~ Michael Johnson

Excuse me ~ who? What? I have zero cognizance of Michael Johnson. Nor of this song. 

Ahh, Google tells me that he's famous for Bluer Than Blue. That song I actually remember. 

 (This doesn't even look like the same guy.)

Well, "That's That" is just a terrible track. It has a schizophrenic beat that leaves the listener cranky. And a dissonant instrumental accompaniment. This is akin to the very worst song an amateur songwriter ever scribbled and can't even bring himself to listen to in the confines of his room.

F

 

#8 ~ Chiseled In Stone ~ Vern Gosdin

I like Vern Gosdin, but I was deflated hearing the opening verse of this track. It's sing-songy, and not in a catchy way. Thankfully (mercifully) the chorus saves it. Gosdin has a bit of George Jones in him, but he is a more soulful and skillful singer. 

Based solely on the singer and the chorus, this rates a...

B

 

#7 ~ I Wish That I Could Fall In Love Today ~ Barbara Mandrell 

Barbara Mandrell's career is rather quizzical. When she first appeared on the radar in the early seventies, she struck gold with cosmopolitan country that still heavily featured steel guitar, like Standing Room Only and The Midnight Oil. I was an immediate fan; this gal had it all. Musician, great entertainer, good singer, cute as a button. I bought every new album release. 

Then she landed her network television show and became "show biz". Subsequently, she released some truly awful singles, like "Sleepin' Single In A Double Bed" and "Crackers". I was disappointed. I think she did a concert in my town, but I didn't go. I'd heard it was quite a production, with multiple costume changes; everything I hated about music (country music, at least). So, like other singers who'd sold out, I forgot about her.

Then in the late eighties, she began recording actual country songs again, like this one. I don't know what prompted the change. Maybe simply a desire to return to her roots.

This song was written by the great Harlan Howard and was originally recorded (in 1960) by Ray Price. Thus, it's unfair to critique it as a new song. That said, Mandrell does the song proud and shows the Barbara Mandrell of old. A solid...

A

#6 ~ If You Ain't Lovin' (You Ain't Livin') ~ George Strait

I don't know this George Strait, but he has a true country voice and he seems very traditional: two things I like. I think this might be the same guy my mom and dad were watching on their VCR when I stopped over the other night. I didn't pay a bunch of attention to him, but I did notice that his band was top-notch. Some new guy, I mused ~ I'll catch up with his music at some point, if he hangs around long enough. (I also like that he wears a hat, as all good country artists should.)

I remember this song from watching one of those filmed (actually filmed; not taped) country music shows from the fifties that my local TV station slotted in sometimes on Saturday afternoons. It was recorded by one of my all-time favorite singers, Faron Young, which again gives this new guy cred for his good taste.

So, it's impossible for me to review this as a new song, since I have heard it before. I will say, that Strait's arrangement is excellent, not to mention his delivery. Now that I think about it, maybe this new guy will stay around for a while.

A-

#5 ~ I Know How He Feels ~ Reba McEntire

Much like my initial reaction the first time I heard Barbara Mandrell, I became a fan of Reba McEntire upon hearing her first charting single, You Lift Me Up (To Heaven). This was an original singer, especially with the melodic twist she employed in every song. I even talked my mom into attending a rodeo with me, simply because the featured singer, between the bulldogging and calf roping, was Reba. She performed from a reinforced cage high above the rodeo arena, with just one or two guys backing her up. I think Mom wondered for a long time afterward why I dragged her to that event.

But again like Barbara Mandrell, fame went to her head. I liked Whoever's In New England and Little Rock, but then she made some bad song choices, particularly ballads that said absolutely nothing. Like this one. I can guarantee that I won't remember this thirty-odd years in the future, because it's a little bit of nothing.

D-

 

#4 ~ I've Been Lookin' ~ Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

 

Hey! This is from one of those two country cassettes I bought! I only knew The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band from that awful hit, Mister Bojangles, and that one good one that featured Linda Ronstadt, An American Dream. But these guys are great! If they keep recording songs like this, I will be a forever fan. 

What this band has going for it, aside from an appealing lead voice and top-shelf musicians, is excellent taste in choosing songs. There's a place (a big place) for uptempo, fun songs that can't be mistaken for anything but country. If all country music is like this, I just might abandon MTV.

A

#3 ~ I'll Leave This World Loving You ~ Ricky Van Shelton

 

I know this song is a remake, but I can't place it. (Oh wait, my future look-up machine tells me that one of the co-writers, Wayne Kemp, released it in 1980.) 

Much like so many debut artists, I became intrigued with Van Shelton upon his first album release, which included Wild-Eyed Dream and Crime Of Passion. I loved his stone-country arrangements and the originality of those songs. Then he immediately turned to cover songs, and I didn't get it. Couldn't he get his hands on good originals? I like old songs as much as the next country fan, but old recordings have a built-in advantage ~ they're originals. I admit I'm disappointed in a singer with this much potential. 

C

#2 ~ New Shade Of Blue ~ Southern Pacific

This isn't bad, but will no doubt sound dated in say, a decade or so. I don't know anything about this band, except that it was formed by a couple of former Doobie Brothers (who were always kind of country, if you think about it).

As for the song itself, it's got well-written lyrics and a pleasing melody, but it's a little nothing tune; one of those "hear it once and forget it" singles. It has nothing to cement it in one's memory.

As talented as the band is, though, I'm hoping they release something better; maybe in 1989. Something like this:

As for New Shade Of Blue:

C

#1 ~ Runaway Train ~ Rosanne Cash

Rosanne Cash is a good singer and an accomplished songwriter, and her partnership with husband Rodney Crowell is gold. I fear, however, that her career, and their musical pairing, will be of a time that fades like the mist.

This track is no Seven Year Ache or I Don't Know Why You Don't Want Me. It's missing that one thing that I keep harping on, a memorable chorus. It's nice; benign, but comparing it to her earlier hits, as a fan inevitably does, it just doesn't cut it.

B-

Summing up 1988, for me personally, it was a time of disruption and change; and musically, likewise. I gradually returned to country music, pretty much due to The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and a fortuitous Musicland cassette purchase. There were some new artists who showed promise and one older one who at last grasped onto her roots.

If country music can start again, who knows where my own future might take me?

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewing The Top 10 Country Singles From This Week In 1973

 

Why 1973? Why not? 

I enjoy reviewing country music's changes across the decades, and frankly my resource only lists a finite selection of October country music charts. Plus, 1973 was a seminal year for me. That was the year I graduated from high school, which makes me approximately 132 years old. 

What was I doing in '73? Well, by October I was ensconced in my first "real" job (defined as a job that didn't involve my parents as employers). My years-long best friend and I had drifted apart, since I had a serious boyfriend and she had a bar band. At my job, though, I made a new friend who shared her name with my now-distant compadre. Thenceforth, I only made friends with girls named Alice (not really). 

I was still living at home, mooching off my parents. I suggested to my mom that month that I would move in with New Alice, but Mom threw a fit and decreed that I most certainly would not be moving out. I didn't argue, because nobody argued with Mom. I guess I saved money by living at home, though I never seemed to have any money because I got paid a pittance. 

I was a Clerk Typist II (the "II" being absurdly important because it conferred a lofty status that a measly "I" could only hope to attain). I worked the front desk of the Division Of Vital Statistics for the State Health Department, on the seventeenth floor (the top floor of the Capital Building if one didn't count the mechanical room on Floor Eighteen) and waited on the occasional visitor who needed a certified copy of a birth or death certificate. I'd dutifully type up the document, then toddle over to my scary director, Elna Kavonius, to scribble her signature and clamp her official stamp atop it. The remainder of my day was spent filing documents ~ climbing up on a rolling step stool and yanking heavy folders out of their slumbering cocoons. It wasn't the worst job in the world; it was undemanding. It sure beat cleaning motel rooms. And anyway, I wasn't demanding much. 

Friday and Saturday nights were date nights, but the rest of the week wasn't all that different from when I was a school girl. My parents never made me pay rent because they didn't need the money, and I barely ate anything, so I wasn't a drain on my mom's grocery tab. I essentially had my own "apartment" at home, having claimed Motel Room #1 years before, when I became too damn old to share the second bedroom with my little brother and sister (for God's sake). My older brother cut a hole in the wall leading from our industrial garage and installed a door leading to my new room, but I found a chain lock among the junk littering the garage and screwed it in myself to keep out unwanted visitors (which included my entire family.) Eventually Mom moved my little sister into my room, so we squeezed another bed inside, but my sister was a gadfly and seldom home anyway, and surprisingly my new roommate became welcome company. I still had a mostly private bathroom and a little black and white TV beside my bed and a long cubby to house my polyester dresses. Thinking back, it was probably the richest I'd ever been and I failed to appreciate it.

I still bought the occasional '45, but I'd mostly graduated to LP's. Most every track that appeared on the charts was contained within an album I'd already bought. Scanning the Top 40 chart from October 20 of that year, I don't recall purchasing any of them as singles. To be frank, there were few worth laying down ninety-nine cents for.

Regardless, I am primed to review the Top Ten. As usual, my rules are thus:

• I review the single as a first-time listener.
  
• I must listen to the entire track before offering my critique.  
• I stick with the Top Ten only.
  
• I do my best to find music videos. If all else fails, I use a video of the recorded song. (Since this is 1973, performance videos may be difficult to find.)

Let's look back! 

#10 ~ Don't Give Up On Me ~ Jerry Wallace

Immediately I'm reminded of Mickey Gilley, sans piano. This track is but one of the treacly country-pop singles emanating from Nashville around this time. It's not horrible; just not memorable. Wallace had a single that went to Number One last year (1972) ~ If You Leave Me Tonight I'll Cry ~ that my parents loved, and I will admit it outshines this one, but neither are exactly to my taste. Perusing Jerry Wallace's discography, it seems that he makes a good living recording songs that sound like 50's pop hits (a la Perry Como), but aren't actual remakes, but rather "sound-alikes", with only enough country touches to endear him to the charts. I don't want to be cruel, yet I really don't consider this country, so...

 

C

#9 ~ Sunday Sunrise ~ Brenda Lee

If this track is even remembered, it will be as an homage to early seventies cookie-cutter country pop. I get it; an artist needs to stay relevant, but Brenda Lee is so much better than this. Utterly forgettable.

D

 

#8 ~ The Midnight Oil ~ Barbara Mandrell

One thing I've always admired about Barbara Mandrell is her hair. And her petite frame. Oh, and her voice. I don't know where her career will take her, but I like the hard country tilt of her singles. Maybe she's not the preeminent country singer of her era, but her producer certainly knows what works. And there is maybe only one other female singer filling the vacuum in 1973. I like this; I like her. 

A-

 

#7 ~ Blood Red And Goin' Down ~ Tanya Tucker

For someone three years younger than me, I hate her....for being so damn good. I hated her when I first heard Delta Dawn on the radio and found out she was only thirteen. Well...just wait until she's sixty-four...then we'll see. 

Back to the song, however. This is so unlike the other songs in the Top Ten that I'd rate it as stellar, just for that fact alone. But this track is about the stars aligning ~ writer Curly Putman (Green, Green Grass Of Home, He Stopped Loving Her Today), producer Billy Sherrill, and naturally that Texas Tanya twang. Tanya is hard-core country, and just my cup of...beer.

A

 

#6 ~ Can I Sleep In Your Arms ~ Jeannie Seely

As a natural talent, Jeannie Seely is vastly underrated. She has just the right amount of cry in her voice to fit right into the sweet spot of country. I don't know if her producer just isn't a good song-picker (although Owen Bradley is no slouch) or exactly what derailed this promising career, but as a songwriter and singer, I think she's top-notch. 

That said, clearly this is Red River Valley, but I guess if you find a melody that works, why deviate? I hate to be a purist, but this track gets knocked down a notch simply for its unoriginality. 

C+ 

 

#5 ~ Rednecks, White Socks, And Blue Ribbon Beer ~ Johnny Russell

I know a person who's really taken with this track...freakishly taken with it...but musical taste is personal. I'm more interested in seeing the writer of Act Naturally in the flesh. As a simple country song, one can't argue with this, and I do appreciate Russell's nod to the working man. It's difficult to rate "meh" songs. I can't picture myself ever deliberately listening to it, but still it's fine for what it is.

B 

 

#4 ~ Ridin' My Thumb To Mexico ~ Johnny Rodriguez

This singer's on my list of "new guys to watch in '73". Heaven knows, country has been in a drought. I am a booster of Rodriguez, ever since he released Pass Me By earlier this year. Shoot, I rushed out and bought his debut album. This one was written by Johnny himself, unlike his debut single, penned by his mentor, Tom T. Hall. This guy has something special. If he doesn't squander it, he can have a career in country for years to come. Nice, excellent track.

A 

 

#3 ~ You've Never Been This Far Before ~ Conway Twitty

Well, what the hell is this? Buh-buh buh? Is it just me, or is Conway Twitty just...icky? I feel myself shivering (and not in a good way) as I write this. I wish I knew what this guy's deal is. He needs some beta blockers or something else created in a future lab to decrease his libido. At the very least, he needs to stop foisting it on innocent radio listeners. As a recording, this doesn't have a terrible melody. Twitty probably could've come up with better subject matter if he wasn't such a horn dog. And let's face it, he's no Chad Everett.

Simply for the shudder alone...

D-

 

#2 ~ Kid Stuff ~ Barbara Fairchild
 

My initial thought is, what's with the hand claps? Were they just thrown in as an afterthought? I have not been a fan of Fairchild since that horrendous hit from 1972, "The Teddy Bear Song". Please, artists, have mercy on fans who aren't a hundred and seven years old. My mom probably liked How Much Is That Doggie In The Window, but we're more sophisticated in the seventies. I believe that if Fairchild embraced her country roots, she could have a substantial career. She's a fine singer, just out of her realm. 

C-

 

#1 ~ You're The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me ~ Ray Price

As a life-long Ray Price super-fan, I can't tell you how much I hate this track. Oh, the singing is fine. But if this is country, so is Tony Bennett. Guys who abandon their roots lose a modicum of respect with me. Truth be told, I kind of gave up on Ray Price around 1965, when his Texas drawl disappeared and he embraced the singing book, Bel Canto. I can only hope that a few years into the future, Ray will reclaim his first love; maybe move back to Texas and remember the guy he used to be. As for this Tonight Show affect, consider me gone.

D

 

As an eighteen-year-old, if I was to guess based on this chart alone, I would put my money on Tanya Tucker and Johnny Rodriguez withstanding the vagaries of the recording world. Perhaps Barbara Mandrell. But life is funny. Who knows what events, twists in the road, might intrude. Patsy Cline was inducted into the Hall Of Fame this year. Could Tanya Tucker someday be likewise honored? Stay tuned.

Conway? Maybe if there's an Oily Pervert Hall Of Fame.

 

 

Sixty-Four Years of Music ~ Why I Left Country

In the seventies, I was a singles buyer. Country albums, for the most part, didn't try too hard. In the late sixties Merle Haggard had done an album called, "Let Me Tell You About A Song", which is the first "themed" LP I can remember. That was an anomaly, however. Country albums generally consisted of one or two hits and nine filler songs. It was a cheat designed to get music lovers to plunk down four dollars and ninety-nine cents. I could never understand why artists, who had to go through the trouble of recording an album, didn't at least look for good songs. Thus, singles were king.

We didn't yet have a full-fledged music store in my town, so Woolworth's record department was my deliverance.Singles only cost a dollar, so even during my poor times, I could at least pick up one.

Gradually, however, riffling my fingers through the accordion of country singles in Woolworth's bins left me angry and frustrated. I bought a lot of crappy singles during that time, just to go home with something. Like anything a person tires of, it didn't happen overnight. Sometimes one doesn't even realize they're being played. Country label execs at some point decided that we hayseeds would buy anything, and they probably didn't like country music anyway, so it was a win-win for them.

The top artists in the late seventies were Crystal Gayle, Kenny Rogers, Dave and Sugar, Billy Crash Craddock, Johnny Lee, Sylvia, Charley Pride (who'd somehow lost his mojo), and Barbara Mandrell. Sure, there were some wonderful outliers ~ The Oak Ridge Boys, Eddie Rabbitt, Rosanne Cash, Gene Watson, The Kendalls ~ but the charts were hogged by mediocre artists' "country" tracks. I don't have anything against Kenny Rogers, per se, but except for The Gambler, he essentially bastardized country music. As for the others....

 Here's a sampling:



The sensation that Crystal Gayle was posturing never escaped my brain. Her singing seemed so stylized, with the way she pronounced her words. I think, had it not been for her freakishly long hair, she would have simply been a flash in the pan, regardless of who her sister was.



As I understand it, Sylvia is actually a good songwriter; and one must do what one needs to do to advance in the music biz, but her singles were like deadly earworms.



Ahh, Dave and Sugar...to be generous, this is actually country music, but something about that guy set my teeth on edge. He was too seventies-disco-cool, with his hair and chains. It also bothered me that they replaced the good girl singer with somebody else and acted like no one would notice, simply because she didn't quite fit the image Dave wanted to evoke (seventies-disco-cool).



I generally like Barbara Mandrell, but this song is putrid. Barbara also had a network TV show where she featured her sisters (Louise and the other one, who couldn't sing), and it was tedious. Every week Barb would do her shtick of playing the one song she knew on the steel guitar and then they'd do some goofy skits and sing a song together (the non-musical sister's mic was no doubt turned off). Every freakin' week was the same.

So, yes, I finally reached my breaking point. If the country music industry didn't respect me, ta-ta! I turned to MTV and hallelujah ~ they were playing actual music! I love, loved MTV. I loved it for many years, and I missed the resurgence of actual country music (thank you, Randy Travis). Those who hung in there through the lean times didn't miss it. I did. My patience had been snapped. And I had to play catch-up, once I discovered that the walls had been battened with clubs and fiddles and steel guitars.

The seventies music honchos should be ashamed of the tatters they ripped country music into. As well as those artists who blithely tottered along.

Even thinking about it makes me shudder.

Record Albums

The memory is a wonderful thing. We all remember the awesome albums, the "Help!" and the "Easy Come Easy Go".

We overlook the fact that we spent countless dollars throughout our lives on albums that were essentially worthless.When I was around thirteen and finally had $4.99 to purchase a record album now and then, my modus operandi was hampered by the fact that one of the only stores that was traversible by city bus was JC Penney. Penney's basement not only housed their booming catalog department but also bins of record albums. Unfortunately, the store management didn't want to take space away from the fiberglass drapery displays and shiny aluminum percolators, so the record racks were skinny. We had Loretta Lynn and George Jones, Melba Montgomery and, of course, Johnny Cash. If Alice and I showed up at just the opportune moment, we might snag a Merle Haggard. I had the damnedest time locating Waylon Jennings' RCA debut. So I bought a lot of stuff I didn't even want because I just wanted to buy something. If someone were to look at my record collection, they'd think, wow, she must be a big fan of this "Carl and Pearl Butler". No. This was what the store had.

I eventually amassed a decent collection of albums by artists I actually liked -- Merle, of course, Lynn Anderson, Faron Young. However, the records released by some artists I truly admired were awful. Tammy Wynette would stick two hits on an album, the first track on Side A and B, and fill the remainder with dreck; cover songs or vanity songs written by a distant relative or friend of the producer. Country albums weren't viewed so much as "artistic" as they were regarded as "$$". Rock fans wanted albums; country fans wanted the hits. It took Merle to change all that.

In the seventies, I bought Barbara Mandrell albums and a lot of Statler Brothers, some Gatlin Brothers; one by a new group called the Oak Ridge Boys; some gems like Gene Watson and a brand new girl named Emmylou. I was in love with Eddie Rabbitt. Albums got better, but I mostly dropped the phonograph needle on the hits, with a couple of deep tracks thrown in. Barbara Mandrell's albums, for instance, could be counted on to feature crisp clear renditions of her latest hits and a bunch of forgettable stuffing. There were artists who never quite garnered a lasting career, but should have, like LaWanda Lindsey. I also remember purchasing a disc by someone called La Costa. It turned out she was Tanya Tucker's sister. I was enamored of her album for a while. She had a track called "Best of My Love" that I really liked. The credits beneath the title read, Frey and Henley. No clue.

By the eighties, I knew what I wanted and what I wanted to buy. By then, at least, I had Musicland, which was one quick zip away from my house to the local mall. My sister sent me a gift certificate for a CD. I didn't own a CD player. So I bought one. The very first CD (free, thanks to my sister) I bought was "Keys To The Highway" by Rodney Crowell. I took it home, scraped off the shrink-wrap with my fingernail, pried open the hard plastic clasp with a kitchen knife, inserted the flat circle into my new player and stood back and let the crisp music caress my ears. The CD wasn't even that good, but that sound!

Thus began my collecting phase. I determined to buy every single George Strait CD and I did. But as much as I love George, every album wasn't a gem. Every once in a while George released one that made my heart soar, but frankly, I granted George a whole lot of leeway. Dwight was more dependable. Dwight was my "other collectable". The eighties for me can be summed up by the names George and Dwight.

By the nineties I had Mark Chesnutt and Diamond Rio and Restless Heart. One cannot go wrong buying an album by Mark Chesnutt.

And then I stopped.

I now have lots of digital albums that will dissolve like ether once my current computer dies. Now people buy "songs", which isn't a bad bet. Albums, aside from the Beatles and Merle, are money suckers.

My work is done.

1980 In Country Music...and Super Kid

It's hard to remember a particular year until one is reminded of the cultural touchstones of the day. By June 1 of 1980, I'd begun my new "career" as a hospital worker. It doesn't sound fancy, but it was by far the best job I'd had in my whole nine years of working life. Once my youngest child was old enough for me to feel safe leaving him in the distracted hands of his father, I'd begun looking for second shift jobs.

Retail came first. Please be nice to retail workers -- they get shitty pay and have to park a mile away in order to leave the prime parking spots for actual customers. On moonless nights in North Dakota in January, it's a long cold walk at nine thirty p.m. Of course, January is the dead time for stores, once all the unwanted Christmas gifts have been returned for store credit, so although one might be scheduled for eighteen working hours for the week, she will most likely get a phone call from her department manager at the last minute, informing her that "things are slow" and therefore she won't be needed that night. There was no vacation pay and certainly no health insurance, so I mentally had to calculate which monthly bill would not get paid on time.

The hospital, on the other hand, offered actual benefits. And "customers" weren't surly. They appreciated every single little kindness offered. And face it, the job was interesting. I was able to learn more than simply how to punch numbers into a cash register.*

*I learned something from every job I ever had. Don't discount life experiences.

 I would begin my shift at 3:30 in the afternoon, which left plenty of "kid time" during the day. My sons were four and two. We had no exciting "outings". We were poor, so a trip to the mall was our farthest journey, and it rarely ended well. Attempting to corral a toddler and a pre-schooler while browsing Woolworth's aisles only resulted in disapproving glares from store personnel. If I was feeling flush with cash, I'd purchase a '45 single from the record department and hope to make it all the way home without a tussle ensuing in the back seat, crushing my precious purchase to shiny black shards.

Cable TV was like manna from heaven, even though the fanciest channels available were WGN in Chicago and WTBS from Atlanta, which broadcast black and white reruns of James Garner's "Maverick" late at night. On June 1 something called a "news channel" debuted. Dave Walker and Lois Hart anchored its first newscast, which was memorable for Lois's hairdo. Imagine getting news anytime one wanted! What an alien concept! The channel called itself "CNN". Everyone said it wouldn't last; that it was a novelty. But we tuned in because it was new. 

Back home, my little brother had discovered something called a Rubik's Cube. It was a frustrating little box puzzle and thus "stupid". I hated that thing, but still I persisted in twisting it around, hoping a miracle would happen (it never did). 

Mom and Dad had bought a "VCR" and showed it off. I couldn't afford seven hundred dollars for an electronic gizmo, but I sure coveted theirs. My whole life I'd wanted the newest gadgets, because they would transform my life, and I scratched and clawed to get them. It wouldn't be too long before I bought a damn VCR, because I couldn't miss St. Elsewhere, which would be sacrilege, since I knew how hospitals worked!

I don't know why I attended movies with my mom. It's an alien concept to me, because Mom and I were never what you'd call bosom buddies; but we saw "Coal Miner's Daughter" together, which I've since seen approximately 10,000 times. (Did I mention we had HBO?)

Mom and I also saw "Urban Cowboy", which leads me (in a painfully roundabout way) to the top country songs of 1980.

Country music was dominated by Urban Cowboy. If one does not own the soundtrack album, they would not know.  Urban Cowboy and Kenny Rogers -- that basically sums up 1980. We country fans were on a quest to find something, anything, that would justify our faith in music. Country consisted of the old standbys and by those "new kids" who performed on the UC soundtrack...and by Eddie Rabbitt. 

And we actually tolerated songs like this:

Super Kid wanted badly to be a super-hero. He was four years old. He thus dived off an orange velvet La-Z-Boy rocker smack-dab onto the corner of the coffee table. And thus he broke his nose. I saw it happen in slow motion but was unable to stop it. A trip to the emergency room ensued. 

Thankfully, he was consoled by his all-time favorite TV show OF ALL TIME:

There were, of course, songs for us grown-ups, too.

And songs played on a PlaySkool record player, as rendered by the Chipmunks:

1980, to me, will be forever memorialized by Dolly Parton confronting Mister Hart; by Tommy Lee Jones; by a superkid breaking his nose, by Eddie Rabbitt and by Kenny Rogers and his white beard. By slender youth. By a chubby toddler mesmerized by a goofy LP recorded by Alvin and the Chipmunks.

By a faux-walnut paneled home and rooms separated by paper-thin walls. 

By a mother's heart-piercing love.

Buying Country Albums Was An Exercise In Futility

...yet I bought them.

Most people probably can't relate to my particular musical circumstances. I was one of the diehard country fans in the nineteen seventies who was not enamored with Johnny Cash. That left me options that were paltry. Johnny Cash was a persona. He wasn't a country artist; he was a folk singer. His three-chord ditties could be done by anyone -- heck, even I did them and I was a putrid guitar player. His songs were boom-chicka, boom-chicka, boom-chicka, boom-chicka. That's it. If it wasn't for the man that Cash was, he probably wouldn't have even gotten a recording contract. Country music, to me, was twin fiddles, steel guitar, and a voice that cried. I was a purist in a sea of muddy productions that yearned to be "relevant", which wasn't the allure of country music at all.

Looking back, John Denver was probably more country than the so-called country artists of the era. The Eagles were more country than the country hit-makers. No wonder Olivia Newton-John won Female Vocalist of the Year at the 1974 CMA's.

I liked Connie Smith, Faron Young, Merle, Johnny Rodriguez, and Gene Watson. In my early twenties, I was a fossil.

The new gal, Barbara Mandrell, had potential. There's no denying she was cute. She was tiny with huge hair. She could actually play an instrument. She liked real country, until she didn't. By the time she was sleeping single in a double bed, I was over her. Before that, though, she did songs that were "updated" country -- still country, but bowing to the hipness of the nineteen seventies. I wanted to be hip, too, so I decided Barbara would be my new go-to girl.

She did songs like this:

And this:

So I bought the Midnight Angel album. It had one good song, and that was the title track. That was my life of buying country albums, yet I persisted. It was apparently important to have that album cover on one's shelf. 

I bought Dave and Sugar. That's a relic of the seventies, if ever there was one.

Country albums were a retail lie. Stick the number one single on it and the rubes will buy it. Three dollars and ninety-nine cents in the bank!

The only artist who was making actual albums in the seventies was Merle. 

You can't count "Wanted:  The Outlaws". That was a slapped-together conglomeration of outtakes, the brainchild of a prescient record producer.

Certainly there were some other stellar albums released during the decade.

...but sadly, very few.

If one was to purchase albums, to, I guess, have on their shelf (singles were so much more prudent -- no waste -- and by the seventies, marked down to eighty-nine cents), here are some of the better bets:

Folks who don't know think the seventies were Kenny Rogers and Willie and Dolly. In fact, those artists were "almost eighties". There was a long-spanning decade between Tammy Wynette and Janie Fricke. One had to root out the Crystals and the Sylvias from the Gene Watsons. And trust me, there was a world of difference. If only for Gene Watson, the seventies were worth the pain.

Music is music is music. The vast majority of it is bad. We need to remember the jewels.

I still don't know what I'll ever do with my Barbara Mandrell albums, though.

Was Country In 1981 Really That Bad?

 Memories are strange, wondrous things. Sometimes a memory of a particular time in one's life is colored by a general "feeling"; perhaps a feeling of melancholy or boredom or apathy. At the ripe old age of twenty-six, I'd grown indifferent toward music. I'd actually begun listening to "oldies", which in that year consisted of fifties music I'd never heard the first time around. I know I'd grown cranky with country music, and it wasn't my fault. The production was sluggish -- soft tinkling pianos, a faint whiff of a violin; everything very quiet -- and producers were bending toward remakes of pop songs. Nashville wasn't even trying anymore; yet they expected me to buy their crap.

Granted, our country was as sluggish as the Nashville music scene, which didn't help. I might still be paying off the twenty-one per cent interest rate on my credit card purchases; I'm not sure. Anything I needed to buy -- for my kids or for the house -- essentially required a bank loan, which was nigh impossible to obtain, seeing as how everybody was defaulting so they could afford to fill their tanks with gas (thanks, Jimmy Carter). I could have done a better job running the country, and I was a dolt. Just when I was at my absolute poorest, our president was on TV lecturing me that it was my own damn fault, and that I just had a bad attitude. Just what I needed in my circumstances -- a stern lecture. He was like my mom. We had hostages in Iran, which Ted Koppel reminded us of every night on Nightline. "This is day four hundred and three."

MTV was created in 1981, but it hadn't hit my airwaves yet. Soon I would abandon country music for Dire Straits and Phil Collins.

What we remember from a particular year isn't necessarily what Google tells us to remember. In browsing the number one country hits from 1981, I find lots of gems. Why don't I remember those, instead of singles by Charly McClain and Sylvia and Crystal Gayle and Alabama? I don't think it's my fault. I blame my radio. It was as if the disc jockeys got together and conspired to play the absolute worst tracks over and over, because, frankly, they hated country and they needed to teach us a lesson. In hindsight, I turned away from country just as country was turning, and I missed the renaissance. I missed George Strait because of those damn DJ's. They kept feeding me, "Your nobody called today" until I found myself bent over the toilet bowl.

Here is a sampling of what the disc jockeys chose not to play over and over:

David Frizzell and Shelly West:

 Rosanne Cash:

The Oak Ridge Boys:

Eddie Rabbitt:

Anne Murray (sorry, no live performance video to be found, but I really like this):

Ronnie Milsap:

TG Sheppard (again, no live performance worth posting, but worth hearing in its glory):

Yes, Barbara Mandrell, when she was still country (when it wasn't cool):

This is what we (I) remember from 1981. Granted, I had a subscription to HBO and a second shift job, so I watched this movie approximately two thousand and fifty-one times in the pre-work afternoons, but the fact remains that this is what, like it or loathe it, will forever represent country music at that precise time:

Dolly Parton:

 

Country music in 1981 was better than I remember it, no thanks to my local DJ's. Truthfully, I would list at least three of these singles as classics. Which, once again, proves that my memory is woefully deficient and that Jimmy Carter messed with my brain.

I'm giving 1981 one thumb up.

Sixty-Two -- And Music

I should be in a more reflective mood today, I suppose, since I have turned sixty-two. When my mom was forty, I thought she was ancient. Looking back, forty was actually pretty good. Every birthday is good, and bad, in its own special way. This year I decided to revel in it. I learned well the lesson (thanks Mom) to never call attention to myself. But I decided today to pay attention to myself. I'm pretty easy to please -- I turned on Sirius and searched my favorite channels for songs to mark the day. I found three that essentially sum up my weird musical history:

1. "It's A Beautiful Morning" by the Rascals
2. "I Wish I Could Fall In Love Today" by Barbara Mandrell
3. "Glory Days" by Bruce Springsteen

(I danced in my chair to that last one.)

What have I learned this year?

Well, I learned that just when I thought music was all in the past, I still love it. Thank you, Sirius Radio. As I gaze about this room, I see approximately 300 CD's, which I never play. They've become part of the decor. In a bookcase in the hall sits all the albums I've possessed since the mid-sixties. I never ever toss one on the turntable. My external hard drive holds songs I really wanted and didn't have until Amazon offered me anything I ever wanted. I never click on my music player. It took Sirius to remind me that I still love music. I don't have to make any choices other than which of my favorite stations is playing a song I want to hear right now. Based on my Sirius experience, I estimate there are approximately 10,000 songs I really like - give or take a thousand. Of course, when one has been on this earth for sixty-two years, they accumulate a lot of favorites. And they forget a bunch of them.

I've learned that music is my best friend. It'll never have a snit and stomp off because of something I've said or didn't say. If I feel sad, music will accommodate me. If I feel like chair-dancing, shoot, music is right there egging me on. If I want to sing, music offers lots of harmonies, at least one of which I can latch onto.

Life's circle.

Right now on Sirius, The Shirelles are singing, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow". My big sister played that record in 1961. I was six years old and I remember seeing the red 45 spinning on her turntable.

"Oh, Pretty Woman" is playing now. Wow, that song, in 1964, was a revelation. I watched Roy Orbison in his sunglasses perform that song on the Lloyd Thaxton Show in my uncle's dark living room. Nineteen sixty-four essentially set my life's path.

Now I'm hearing "A White Sport Coat". The very first concert I attended was a Marty Robbins performance my mom took me to in Grand Forks, North Dakota. I was maybe five? My mom urged me to go up after the show and get Marty's autograph, but I was too shy.

Most every song I hear dredges up a memory. I wonder sometimes how many memories I've lost that would be recovered if only the right song turned up on my Sirius playlist.

"Norwegian Wood" came from the best Beatles album of all time -- "Rubber Soul". If a voice seeps into one's soul, John Lennon's is the one for me. I think it's an organic thing. I can't explain it.

"Bye Bye Love":  Well, again, 1964. I had a little trio with my two cousins, and this was the only song I got to sing lead on. "There goes my baby..." I can't tell you how proud I was to be able to sing lead on that song.

It's too bad one can't make money knowing music inside and out, because I guess I would have the market cornered. Name a song and I can give you a dissertation on the state of the world when that song was popular. Unfortunately, it's a talent not much in demand. I'm still glad I have it, though.

So, as my birthday winds down, I figured I would post videos of the first three songs I listed in this post:

(Sorry if an ad plays before this song, but somebody (Bruce?) decided that ads before great videos were a good thing):

That one makes me happy, and it's a great finishing touch for today.

Through these sixty-two years I've also heard enough bad songs to know what good songs are. But even the bad songs evoke fond memories, if only because they made me laugh with friends.

The Country Single

By 1981, I had had it with my parents' cast-off console stereo.  The sound that came out of it was a muffled, bassy grumble.  One could fiddle with the so-called controls, but nothing really ever changed, no matter how much I swirled those knobs around.

Also, by 1981, we had a little extra spending money.  We had finally paid off the hospital bills from my last maternity stay.  I remember the hospital calling me once, saying, "You have to give us more than $5.00 a month", and I replied, "That's all I have!"  And it was.  Often, the check register showed a balance of about $2.00 in those early days. 

We bought necessities at a discount store called "Tempo" (gee, wonder why that store went out of business).  The clothing items would practically fall to shreds before we got them into the trunk of our car.  We didn't have Target then, and certainly not WalMart.  We had Woolworth's...and Tempo.

But, by 1981, I was back at work, and we'd determined that we could afford to make payments on a new stereo "component system".  

So, off we went to a place called Pacific Sound, which was a little shop tucked inside what was generously called a mini-mall; a shop that you had to meander your way through some barely-lit hallways to find.  But it had a reputation as the place for audiophiles in my little town, and it wasn't Woolworth's, Sears, or JC Penney.

The sales guy obviously knew he had a "mark" when he saw us.  He dazzled us with his displays of various shiny sound things (which was basically what they were to me).  He spoke the language of output and channels and dynamics and equalization.  But all I could see was shiny sound things.

He told us we could mix and match different brands, which was just amazing to me, because my mixing and matching consisted of a JC Penney console stereo in a lovely artificial wood tone color that matched the faux-wood paneling in our living room.  But the one thing he insisted upon (insisted!) was that we purchase the Bang & Olufsen speakers, or B&O, as all the cool kids called them.  They were Swedish!  I guess that meant they were good.  Good, but wow ~ more than I wanted to spend ~ but then again, if you put something on credit, you're not actually paying for it, right?  I mean, not right now.  Our big worry was that we wouldn't get approved for credit.  How naive!  As I gained wisdom in my life, I realized that everybody gets approved for credit!  That's why we're all here where we are now, isn't it?

(And I still have those B&O speakers today.)

So, we got all the paperwork done, and got it all delivered and put together, and stood back and admired it all.

And then I played my country singles.

One memory I regret that I can't share with my husband is a reminiscence of favorite albums.

Country never was about albums.  It was about singles.  If I was asked what my favorite country album was from back in the 1960's/1970's, I would stammer something about, "The Best of......Buck Owens"?   The only concept albums I recall from the late 1960's were done by Merle Haggard, so maybe I would cite, "Hag", or "Let Me Tell You About a Song".  Even "Wanted:  The Outlaws" wasn't actually a concept album.  It was a bunch of leftover tracks thrown together by a producer and released as an after-thought.  Willie and Waylon didn't sit down together and decide how they were going to configure their new, great, groundbreaking release.  They didn't even know about it.

I bought a bunch of albums in the sixties by artists like Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Lynn Anderson, Buck Owens, Charley Pride, Waylon Jennings, Porter & Dolly, Merle Haggard; and they all, except for Merle, just covered each others' songs.  Yes, Waylon, too.

I wasn't really all that keen on hearing Loretta's take on,  "I Don't Wanna Play House", or Tammy singing, "You Ain't Woman Enough".  I always figured (and still do) that the original version was (is) the best, so why bother or care? 

Music Row producers were focused on the next big hit single.  Then they would slap that on an album, and surround it with a bunch of filler.  They didn't give the public a whole lot of credit for being discerning, and, I guess they were sort of right, because we ate it all up.

Honestly, I owned (and still do) a whole ton of country albums from that period of time, and I can honestly say that there are maybe three or four that I've ever actually listened to all the way through.  Maybe five or six.

So, in 1981, after I got my new shiny sound machine, I slapped on some 45's.  Ones that I'd bought at Woolworth's.  I think you could get them for less than a buck, and I bought a lot of them.  But, in retrospect, I am now in possession of a bunch of singles that I can't even identify by their titles, because I just scooped up whatever was available, and the selection was woefully limited.  The singles were situated on an end cap; at the end of a long row of albums.  I didn't even shop the albums.  Which was strange, because I'd been a big album-buyer in my younger days.

It did seem like every time I went into Woolworth's to sift through the latest singles, my eye would catch this blue album with a cow's skull on the cover; something about the Best of the Eagles, and I thought, oh, another one of those rock groups that I'm not interested in.  I had no conception of the Eagles.  That was how splintered the musical genres were.  It's ironic that this so-called rock group that I turned my nose up at was more country than the country junk that I was piling up at the cash register.  I was late to the Eagles.

1981, though, did have some nice country singles.  And some bad country singles.  I bought all of them, willy-nilly.  I bought what I could find.

This song is one that has stayed with me, and I still love it. 

You're The Reason Got Made Oklahoma
 



Here are some other songs from 1981, that I'm sure I purchased.  That does not mean they have my stamp of approval.

I Was Country (When Country Wasn't Cool) ~ mmmm, no, but I still like Barbara.  It's just not a true statement.



Party Time ~ TG Sheppard

There is no decent performance video of this song.  I don't know why, because I love this.  So, I guess, listen to the record, like I used to do.



I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink 



Fancy Free  (I've posted a lot of videos on this blog, but this one, by far, has the best definition of any I have ever posted):



I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal



It's a Lovely, Lovely World (preceded by "I'll Be There") ~ Gail Davies

When I first heard "Lovely, Lovely World" on the radio, I was thrown, because I had no idea that my best friend, Alice, was on the radio.  Well, she wasn't.  It was Gail Davies.  But this is almost exactly what Alice sounded like.



Midnight Hauler ~ Razzy Bailey



Seven Year Ache


I can barely express how much I admire Rosanne Cash's music.  She had a few hits that year, but I like this one possibly the best.



Well after this next single was a hit, we got HBO.  I think it was one of those special deals ~ the first month free, and then $10.00 a month if you decide to keep it.  (Can you imagine?  $10.00?  I don't have HBO, but I bet it's way more than $10.00 now, and they don't even hardly have movies anymore!)

I watched the movie over and over, many times.  And it's still a fun film.  Sometimes it's available on "On Demand"; sometimes one can catch it on one of the free channels.  And I always pause and watch at least part of it. 

Kudos to the person who put this video together; "ifonlytheeighties".  It makes me want to watch the movie again, for the 89th time.



Waylon & Jessi ~ Storms Never Last



So, you see, there were a lot of nice singles for me to buy in 1981, and to play on my new shiny stereo system.

There are more that I remember (in scanning the list of top singles for the year), but, you know how it goes.  Videos are often impossible to find.  Other songs, well, I've featured them in other posts.  That doesn't mean they're not good; it actually means they're really good.  I just didn't want to repeat myself.

Sure, I'd slap on an album, if I was busy cooking, or cleaning.  But if I was really listening to music, and just listening to music, it was the singles, I'm afraid.

Billy Sherrill would say, "See?  I told you so."