Tag: country

Kenny Rogers | Coward of the County

About Kenny Rogers’ 1979 hit “Coward of the County,” Songfacts writes: “Like Rogers’ hit ‘The Gambler,’ this song tells a compelling story, and also … was made into a TV movie. Coward of the County aired October 7, 1981; Kenny Rogers acted in the film and sang. Although the film was not a massive hit, the song was …” The tune went to #1 on the US Hot Country Songs, Cash Box Top 100, and multiple Canadian charts and it ranked in the top 10 the US Pop chart, US Adult Contemporary chart, and across much of Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. Billboard listed the track as the #9 most popular country song of 1980.

Songfacts continues: “Some felt the music was compromised.” Joe Ely, a proponent of the more rough-hewn “outlaw” country style, said in 1980: “‘The top 40 that’s going on on country stations over there [Texas] really depresses me.'”

Half-step key changes hit at 1:30 and 2:49. Many thanks to our longtime contributor Kent for submitting this tune!

Kelly Clarkson | Don’t Rush

Written for Kelly Clarkson‘s first greatest hits album, released in 2012, “Don’t Rush” also features singer/songwriter Vince Gill and incorporates country and rock influences. “People have been wanting me to release something specifically for Country radio for years, but I didn’t want to just release something that has a steel guitar on it,” Clarkson said in an interview with Billboard magazine. “I wanted to release something I’m proud of, and we finally found that song. It’s my favorite kind of Country music; it’s like ’80s, ’90s Country music, that throwback, two-steppin’ style. And I’m freakin’ stoked I got Vince Gill to sing on it with me, so I win ’cause he’s like one of my favorite people.”

The track reached the #23 slot on the US Hot Country Songs chart and was performed at the Country Music Association awards in 2012 (featured here.) Key change at 2:55.

Carrie Underwood | Inside Your Heaven

“Inside Your Heaven” was written for the final two contestants, Bo Bice and Carrie Underwood in the 2005 season of American Idol, to be released as the first single for each of them. Underwood went on to win, but each singer released a version of the track in June 2005; both were in the top 2 slots of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The arrangement Underwood recorded for her first album, Some Hearts (2005), eliminated the modulation that was included when she performed the song on the show, which we are featuring here. Key change at 4:00.

(The video below also includes Underwood being announced as the winner the beginning. Song starts at 2:02)

Emmylou Harris | Making Believe

Born in 1947 into a military family stationed in Birmingham, Alabama and raised in North Carolina and Virginia, Emmylou Harris was valedictorian of her high school class. Though she won a drama scholarship to the University of North Carolina, she gravitated more and more towards music.

“Blessed with a crystalline voice, a remarkable gift for phrasing, and a restless creative spirit, few artists had as profound an impact on contemporary music as Emmylou Harris,” notes AllMusic. “She traveled a singular artistic path, proudly carrying the torch of ‘cosmic American music’ passed down by her mentor, Gram Parsons, which made a profound mark on both country and rock. Beginning as a folk singer in New York City, Harris released her first album in 1970.” Later in her career, she is “consistently iconoclastic, eclectic, or daring … Harris’ latter-day music remained as heartfelt, visionary, and vital as her earliest recordings.”

“Making Believe,” written by Jimmy Work, was first recorded by Kitty Wells in 1955. The song is on many lists of all-time top country music songs and has been covered by a varied list of artists, including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and Merle Haggard — but also soul great Ray Charles, punk band Social Distortion, and Danish metal band Volbeat. Harris’ 1977 version hit #8 on the US Country charts and #1 in Canada. In 1978, the tune was honored by BMI as one of the 101 most award-winning Country songs. According to The Tennessean, songwriter Jimmy Work later lived a quiet blue collar life: he went to work for Goodyear Tire, then retired as a millwright. He passed away in 2018 at age 94.

A classic whole-step key change hits at the 1:53 mark.

RaeLynn | Lonely Call

“Lonely Call” is featured on WildHorse, the 2017 debut album of American country singer/songwriter RaeLynn. The song depicts RaeLynn’s breakup with boyfriend Josh when she was 18 (they would subsequently get back together and eventually get married.) “‘Lonely Call’ is a confessional,” RaeLynn said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “My WildHorse record is like my diary. It’s so funny to listen back because I was so sad when we broke up, when I hear those lyrics I’m like, ‘That’s exactly how it felt, that’s exactly how it was.’”

Writing for the radio network Taste of Country, critic Sterling Whitaker described the track as “an amalgam of sweet pop-country melodicism and some surprisingly traditional instruments, with a reverb-drenched banjo and simple acoustic guitars framing the gentle, moody verse before stacked guitars lift the song up into a sweeping chorus. RaeLynn’s uniquely smoky vocal tone is perfectly suited to the aching, regretful subject matter that she’s delivering, and the result is a track that is so universally identifiable that it could very well carry her career to new heights at country radio.”

Key change at 2:54.

George Jones | He Stopped Loving Her Today

“There’s an old cliché that says country music is mostly comprised of three chords and the truth,” reports American Songwriter. “There’s also a generalization that says country music is, on the whole, unremittingly sad. Needless to say, those are broad descriptions that limit the scope of a type of music that encompasses many different musical strategies and is capable of conveying the full range of the emotional spectrum. Yet there is no doubt that “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” the 1980 masterpiece by George Jones, does indeed adhere to those clichés, even as it finds a way to transcend them.

After all, the song is pretty much just three chords. (Technically, there are six, but that’s only because of the key change.) The truth can be found in Jones’ stunning performance, a vocal for the ages. And the song itself, composed by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman, contains the sadness, which was then amplified to majestic proportions by the production of Billy Sherrill.

All of those disparate elements and unique personalities meshed to create this one-of-a-kind recording from 1980. The accolades for the song were immediate, as it won Grammy, Academy of Country Music, and CMA awards. It continues to amass honors, including selection by the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board in 2009 and numerous occasions when it was named greatest country song of all time on various media lists.” 

The tune is a classic Country music ballad, but it’s certainly not a spare voice-and-guitar ditty. Rather, given its high production values, strings, and overall polish, it fits squarely in the Countrypolitan category. The modulation arrives at 0:54, early in the long list of the song’s emotional hits. The arrangement continues to escalate, accompanying Jones’ understated singing and simple yet devastating spoken word narrative.

Cyndi Lauper (feat. Alison Krauss) | Hard Candy Christmas

“Hard Candy Christmas” was written by Carol Hall for the 1978 Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, and made famous by Dolly Parton, who played Miss Mona in the movie adaptation of the show. The track is featured on singer Cyndi Lauper‘s 2016 album Detour, with Alison Krauss providing additional vocals. Key change at 3:03.

Dolly Parton (with Willie Nelson) | Pretty Paper

Written by Willie Nelson in 1963, “Pretty Paper” was first recorded by Roy Orbison that same year, and placed on the Billboard Adult Contemporary, Top 100, and Christmas Singles charts. Dolly Parton collaborated with Nelson this year on a cover of the tune that is featured on her new Christmas album, A Holly Dolly Christmas, released this year. Key change at 2:32.

Charlie Daniels | Drinking My Baby Goodbye

“Charlie Daniels accomplished something few other musicians did: he made the leap from session musician to superstar,” AllMusic notes. “The song that made him famous was ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia,’ a roaring country-disco fusion that became an international smash in 1979.” The tune “(introduced) him to millions of listeners and giving him a career that spanned decades. In its wake, Daniels quietly shifted his emphasis from Southern rock to country.” Earlier in his career, “his big breakthrough came when he played on Bob Dylan’s 1969 LP Nashville Skyline, a credit that opened the doors for the multi-instrumentalist to play with Leonard Cohen and Ringo Starr. Daniels parlayed this behind-the-scenes success into fronting his own band … Daniels weathered fashions, trends, and politics to become a beloved American music institution.” Daniels passed away in July 2020 in his mid-80s.

Rolling Stone Australia reviews “Drinking My Baby Goodbye,” Daniels’ 1985 release: “An outlier in a catalog more often associated with good-ole-white-boy anthems and Southern gothic story-songs, this 1985 Top 10 country hit is a dancing-all-over-your-troubles rave-up. It launches with an electric guitar part that, uh, tinkers with the one in Kenny Loggins’ ‘Footloose,’ but Daniels quickly commandeers the lick for himself … Daniels charges at his lines like he’s channeling Jerry Lee Lewis: ‘Pour me another one/I’m finished with the other one!’ But it’s Daniels’ delirious fiddle that moves the crowd and tips you off that this drinking cure might just work.”

This rollicking uptempo country/rockabilly dance hall track is fueled by Daniels’ vocal, which focuses on sung melody but adds a dash of the flow-state rap he made famous with “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Daniels’ muscular yet agile double-stop fiddle technique is another central ingredient. A whole-step modulation cuts in at 2:56. Many thanks to Alex G. for yet another great tune!

Kacey Musgraves | Happy & Sad

“Happy & Sad” is featured on the 2018 album Golden Hour by American singer/songwriter Kacey Musgraves. Comprised exclusively of original songs, Musgraves ventures into disco and electropop on the record, which was awarded Best Album and Best Country Album at the Grammy’s (Musgraves also received Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance accolades for other tracks.) Key change at 3:02.