Terrific mid-70s Memphis country, rock and soul back in print
The U.S. Top 40 is a fickle mistress that rewards one-hit wonders of many stripes. One such stripe is the talented band with a long history and deep catalog who, due to complications of label politics, promotion, distribution or simply the herd-like buying patterns of the record buying public, only manages to strike a single hot iron. Such was this superb Memphis band, whose 1975 debut single, “Third Rate Romance,” cracked the Top 20, but whose follow-ups fell shorter. They had better luck on the country charts, where their soulful sound produced two more hits, “Amazing Grace (Used to Be Her Favorite Song)” (#10 country, #72 pop) and “The End is Not in Sight (The Cowboy Tune)” (#20 country, #42 pop). All three appeared on the group’s debut and sophomore albums, which are anthologized here along with the non-LP B-side “Mystery Train.”
LeAnn Rimes has traveled a long way from the innocent pining of “Blue,” and listeners – fans and foes alike – can’t help but hear her music through the prism (some might say “prison”) of her personal-made-public life. Her well-documented marital misdeeds weren’t scrubbed from the public’s consciousness by apology or silence, so Rimes is now embracing them in song. Those who still believe in Rimes’ humanity will hear her taking ownership of her mistakes, while those who remain unconvinced of her remorse will hear the third step in a publicist’s damage control plan. Most likely these songs (and the attendant interviews, publicity and rehab stint) split the difference, with Rimes fighting to make peace with herself more so than with the public.
The plea from Rimes (or her fans) to “just listen to the album” will go mostly unheeded, as any album – and particularly this album – doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Rimes has spotlighted the issues that cause friction with her detractors, and in doing so is likely to add gasoline to the conflagration. And it’s a shame, because if you could divorce the songs from the real-life transgressions of their author, you’d find an album of emotional performances that are more earthen and gritty than anything Rimes has recorded before. But you can’t unring a bell, and it will remain unseemly to many listeners for Rimes to take on the aggressive posture of “Spitfire,” to sing the public mea culpa of “What Have I Done?” or to lustily serenade her co-conspirator with Buddy & Julie Miller’s “Gasoline and Matches.”
Worse yet is “Borrowed.” Songs about cheating have a long and celebrated history in country music, but the first person narrative of “Borrowed” hits too close to home in a world that cycles and recycles scandal so liberally in the media. The lack of abstraction between Rimes’ lyric and the real-life immorality it chronicles is wince-worthy. When she fictionalizes, such as with the mistreatment of “You Ain’t Right,” she neatly elides adultery from the inventory of offenses, and when she sings of being wronged on “God Takes Care of Your Kind,” it’s as if she’s channeling the emotions of her first husband, as well many of her former fans.
It’s difficult to tell whether Rimes is purposely pillorying herself, or was simply unaware of how these songs play in public. She wraps rationalization around an olive branch for “Just a Girl Like You,” but in doing so only manages to suggest an absolution that’s wholly unbecoming. The album’s most lucid moment is heard on “I Do Now,” in which Rimes admits she hadn’t really understood Hank Williams’ cheating hearts until she had one of her own. But the song’s affirmation of eternal love for her new mate as “the one that matters” begs the question of whether her guilt is genuine, and the declaration “I’m alive more than I’ve ever been / Freer than I’ve ever known” plays like a protestation in place of a truth. This may all be her truth, but it’s not one her many former fans are ready to accept.
All twenty-eight of Eddy Arnold’s chart-topping singles
For most artists, a twenty-eight track collection of their biggest chart hits would be a fair representation of their commercial success. In Eddy Arnold’s case, twenty-eight #1 singles only very lightly skims the surface of nearly thirty-nine consecutive years of chart success that stretched from 1945 through 1983 (he struck out, though not without a few good swings, in 1958). A singer of such renown inspires numerous reissues and collections, including hefty Bear Family boxes (12), but this is the first set to include his entire run of chart-toppers, from 1946’s “What is Life Without Love” through 1968’s “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye.” Within that 25-year span, Arnold evolved from a twangy country star in the ’40s to a Nashville Sound innovator and resurgent chart-topper in the mid-60s.
Arnold was always more of a crooner than a honky-tonker, and even when singing upbeat tunes like “A Full Time Job,” you can hear pop stylings edging into his held notes. 1953’s “I Really Don’t Want to Know” drops the fiddle and steel, and is sung in a folk style to acoustic guitar, bass and male backing vocals. 1955’s “Cattle Call” finds Arnold yodeling a remake of Tex Owens’ 1934 tune, a song he’d recorded previously in 1944. The new version featured orchestrations by Hugo Winterhalter and signaled crossover intentions that would come to full fruition a full decade later. Arnold’s chart success dimmed in the face of rock ‘n’ roll’s rise, but by 1960 he’d regained a foothold, and by mid-decade he’d transitioned fully to countrypolitan arrangements.
Terrific mid-70s Memphis country, rock and soul back in print
