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Country Music

HE SPENT ALMOST TEN YEARS OPENING SHOWS FOR CHARLEY PRIDE. BY THE TIME COUNTRY RADIO FINALLY SAID YES, MOST PEOPLE HAD ALREADY STOPPED EXPECTING IT. Before Neal McCoy became a country star, he spent years driving from one town to another as the opening act for Charley Pride. Born Hubert Neal McGaughey Jr. in Jacksonville, Texas, McCoy worked clubs across Texas before Pride hired him for his road show. Night after night, he walked onto stages long before the headliner, learning how to win over audiences that had not come to see him. The experience made him a better entertainer. It did not make Nashville offer a hit. Atlantic Records signed McCoy in 1988, but his first three albums struggled. Single after single stalled outside the upper reaches of the charts. While younger artists arrived with instant success, McCoy kept touring, recording and waiting for the breakthrough that refused to come. Many careers ended there. His did not. In 1994, Atlantic released No Doubt About It. The title track became his first No. 1 country single. Months later, “Wink” followed it to the top of the chart. After nearly a decade of opening concerts and six years on a major label, McCoy suddenly had two No. 1 hits in the same year. The success changed his career, but not the people he remembered. Years later, McCoy recorded “You’re My Jamaica” as a duet with Charley Pride—the man who had given him one of his earliest opportunities when few others believed he belonged on a major stage. More hits followed, including “They’re Playin’ Our Song,” “The Shake,” and “Billy’s Got His Beer Goggles On.” McCoy also became known for entertaining American troops on dozens of overseas tours, carrying country music to military bases around the world. His career eventually stretched far beyond the charts. But the foundation had been built years earlier, standing in the wings while Charley Pride drew the crowds, then walking onto the stage to earn every audience one song at a time.

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“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.” NEAL McCOY SPENT ALMOST TEN YEARS OPENING SHOWS…

Country Music

VINCE GILL AND AMY GRANT DID NOT WALK INTO LOVE WITH EMPTY HANDS. THEY CAME CARRYING TWO BROKEN MARRIAGES, FIVE CHILDREN, AND A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE READY TO JUDGE THEM. Vince Gill met Amy Grant in 1993 at a Christmas event in Tulsa. By then, neither of them was looking like the beginning of a simple love story. Vince was already one of country music’s most trusted voices. Amy had become one of the biggest names in Christian and pop music. Both were married. Both had children. Both were living inside lives that looked settled from the outside, with albums, tours, family photographs, and public expectations already built around them. They became friends first. They sang together. Amy invited Vince to appear on her 1994 album House of Love. Their voices fit easily, but the timing did not. Vince was still married to Janis Oliver. Amy was still married to Gary Chapman. Whatever connection had begun between them had to stay inside the limits of two marriages that were already under strain for their own reasons. Then the marriages ended. Vince and Janis divorced in 1997. Amy and Gary’s divorce was finalized in 1999. Only after that did Vince and Amy begin dating. By then, the story had already become public property. There were children trying to understand new family lines. There were fans who felt they knew Amy through faith music and Vince through country songs. There were people ready to decide what the relationship meant before either of them had finished living through it. Vince later said the beginning was hard. Not because the love was uncertain. Because the lives around it were so full. On March 10, 2000, they married on a rainy hillside outside Nashville. Amy was barefoot. Their children stood inside the story with them. A year later, they welcomed their daughter, Corrina, and the two separate families began the slower work of becoming one home. The country singer and the Christian-pop star did not get a clean beginning. They got a second chance after two lives had already been broken open. And more than two decades later, the people who once watched the story from outside still see them walk onstage together — not as a scandal that survived, but as two voices that finally found the same song at the right time.

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“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.” VINCE GILL AND AMY GRANT DID NOT WALK…

Country Music

HE WAS STILL POURING CONCRETE ON OIL FIELDS WHEN NASHVILLE TOLD HIM HE WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH. YEARS LATER, THE SAME MAN WOULD BECOME ONE OF COUNTRY MUSIC’S BIGGEST VOICES. Before Toby Keith filled arenas, he spent his days on Oklahoma oil fields. After graduating from high school, he worked alongside his father in the petroleum industry, hauling pipe and pouring concrete. At night, he played bars with a local band called Easy Money, chasing a music career that seemed far less certain than his day job. Then the oil industry collapsed in the early 1980s. Keith lost his steady paycheck and found himself doing whatever work he could while continuing to play every club that would have him. He even joined the Oklahoma City Drillers as a semi-professional defensive end, earning extra money while refusing to give up on music. For years, Nashville wasn’t interested. Record labels passed. Industry executives heard the big Oklahoma voice but didn’t believe it fit what country radio wanted. Keith kept driving from one bar to another, building an audience one night at a time instead of waiting for someone in Music Row to change his life. He finally recorded a demo of a song he had written himself. It was called “Should’ve Been a Cowboy.” Mercury Records signed him in 1993, and the song exploded almost immediately. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard country chart and became the most-played country song of the 1990s on country radio. His debut album sold more than a million copies, turning an Oklahoma oil-field worker into one of Nashville’s biggest new stars. Success never changed the way Keith saw himself. He kept writing songs about working people, small towns, soldiers, oil workers and ordinary Americans because they were the people he had known long before anyone knew his name. That background became the foundation of his career. When patriotic songs later made headlines, when sold-out arenas sang every word back to him, and when he became one of country music’s defining stars, Toby Keith wasn’t inventing a character. He was still singing from the life he had lived before Nashville ever believed in him.

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“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.” TOBY KEITH WAS STILL POURING CONCRETE ON OKLAHOMA…

Country Music

“DADDY’S MONEY” TOOK RICOCHET TO NO. 1. YEARS LATER, A VOICE DISORDER FORCED LEAD SINGER HEATH WRIGHT TO LEAVE THE BAND—UNTIL TREATMENT GAVE HIM ENOUGH OF THAT VOICE BACK TO RETURN. Ricochet spent years playing fairs, rodeos and dance halls across the Midwest before Nashville noticed them. Formed in Oklahoma in the early 1990s, the six-piece band built its reputation the hard way, driving from one small show to another while polishing the tight harmonies and musicianship that set them apart from many new country acts. Lead singer Heath Wright became the voice audiences remembered first. (en.wikipedia.org) Columbia Records signed the band in 1995. Their debut single, “What Do I Know,” introduced Ricochet to country radio, but it was the next release that changed everything. “Daddy’s Money” reached No. 1 on the Billboard country chart in August 1996, becoming the group’s signature hit. Their debut album also produced “Love Is Stronger Than Pride,” “He Left a Lot to Be Desired,” and “Ease My Troubled Mind,” giving Ricochet one of the strongest debut runs by a new country band during the decade. (en.wikipedia.org) The success did not last. Changing trends on country radio made it harder for vocal groups to compete, and follow-up records never matched the impact of their debut. Columbia eventually dropped the band. Then came the harder blow. Heath Wright developed spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological voice disorder that causes the muscles controlling the vocal cords to contract involuntarily. For the singer whose voice had carried Ricochet to No. 1, even ordinary performances became difficult. (en.wikipedia.org) In 2008, Wright stepped away from the band to focus on treatment. Ricochet continued with different singers, while Wright underwent years of therapy and medical care in an effort to regain control of his voice. The recovery was slow, but it worked. After several years away, Wright returned to Ricochet and resumed performing with the group he had helped build. The band never recreated the commercial success of 1996, yet the original voice behind “Daddy’s Money” was back where it belonged. (en.wikipedia.org) Country music has seen careers ended by changing radio formats, failed records and record-label decisions. Ricochet survived something more personal. Their biggest obstacle was not losing a hit. It was nearly losing the instrument that made the hit possible.

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“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.” “DADDY’S MONEY” MADE RICOCHET A NO. 1 COUNTRY…

Country Music

THEY WERE TOLD THEY SOUNDED TOO POP FOR COUNTRY. A FEW YEARS LATER, THE SAME SOUND PRODUCED SIX CONSECUTIVE NO. 1 HITS. Restless Heart was never supposed to be a touring band. In 1984, Nashville producer and songwriter Tim DuBois assembled a handful of musicians simply to record demonstration tapes for songs he had been writing. Dave Innis, Paul Gregg, Greg Jennings and John Dittrich came together in the studio, and when lead singer Verlon Thompson decided the material leaned too far toward pop, Innis recommended another demo singer he knew from Belmont College. His name was Larry Stewart. The five voices blended immediately. Their harmonies sounded closer to the Eagles than the hard-edged traditional country dominating radio. Some people inside Nashville questioned where the band belonged. They were polished enough for pop, yet still rooted in country instrumentation. Instead of changing direction, the musicians kept the sound they had created in the demo sessions. RCA Records agreed. Their 1985 debut album produced three Top 10 country singles, proving the experiment could work. But the bigger breakthrough came one year later with Wheels. Even then, the band doubted one of its own songs. Keyboard player Dave Innis believed “That Rock Won’t Roll” sounded too pop to become a country hit. RCA released it anyway. It became Restless Heart’s first No. 1. The momentum never stopped. “I’ll Still Be Loving You,” originally offered to Kenny Rogers, became another No. 1 after Rogers passed on it. It also crossed into the Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts, giving the band success well beyond country radio. “Why Does It Have to Be (Wrong or Right)”—a song the band had rejected twice because it reminded them too much of Exile—became another chart-topper after RCA insisted they record it. The title track, “Wheels,” followed with a fourth straight No. 1. The next album pushed the streak even further. “A Tender Lie” and “The Bluest Eyes in Texas” extended Restless Heart’s run to six consecutive No. 1 singles, making them one of the hottest vocal groups in country music. In 1990, the Academy of Country Music named them Vocal Group of the Year. Success eventually pulled the members in different directions. Larry Stewart left to pursue a solo career. Other members followed their own projects, and the band gradually came apart during the 1990s before reuniting years later. Their biggest victory, however, had already been settled years earlier. The songs Nashville once feared were too polished for country ended up defining one of the genre’s most successful vocal groups. And the harmonies first created in a demo studio became the sound countless younger country bands would spend the next decade trying to match.

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“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.” RESTLESS HEART WAS TOLD ITS HARMONIES SOUNDED TOO…

Country Music

MCA BUILT McBRIDE & THE RIDE TO COMPETE WITH ALABAMA. FIVE YEARS LATER, THE LABEL REMOVED TWO OF THE THREE MEN WHO HAD MADE THE BAND WORK AND WATCHED THE SUCCESS DISAPPEAR. McBride & the Ride did not begin in a garage or honky-tonk. It began as a Nashville record-company plan. In 1989, MCA executive Tony Brown assembled three experienced musicians: Texas singer and bassist Terry McBride, guitarist Ray Herndon and drummer Billy Thomas. Herndon had worked with Lyle Lovett, Thomas with Emmylou Harris and Mac Davis, while McBride had toured with his father before playing with Delbert McClinton and Rosie Flores. The three were introduced during Fan Fair in Nashville. They had no shared history, but the combination worked. McBride became the lead voice and songwriting center, Herndon supplied guitar and harmony, and Thomas anchored the rhythm. Their 1990 debut established the sound, but Sacred Ground brought the breakthrough in 1992. “Just One Night,” “Going Out of My Mind” and “Sacred Ground” all reached the Top 5, while the album went gold. A third album, Hurry Sundown, followed in 1993 and produced another Top 5 hit, “Love on the Loose, Heart on the Run.” McBride & the Ride had become what MCA wanted: a polished country band with recognizable harmonies and growing radio success. Then the label changed the formula. In 1994, MCA shifted the focus toward Terry McBride, removed Herndon and Thomas, and renamed the act Terry McBride & the Ride. The expanded replacement lineup released an album, but none of its singles reached the Top 40. By 1995, the band was finished. McBride, however, did not leave country radio. He moved deeper into songwriting and began a long association with Brooks & Dunn, co-writing “I Am That Man,” “He’s Got You,” “I Can’t Get Over You” and the Reba McEntire duet “If You See Him/If You See Her.” He later joined Brooks & Dunn’s touring band as bassist and helped write “Play Something Country,” “Proud of the House We Built” and “Cowgirls Don’t Cry.” The other members also remained in Nashville. Billy Thomas worked with Vince Gill and the Time Jumpers. Ray Herndon co-wrote Kenny Chesney’s “Me and You.” In 2000, the original trio performed together at the Handlebar-J in Scottsdale, Arizona, and began discussing a reunion. They returned with Amarillo Sky in 2002. Its title track did not become a major hit for them, but Jason Aldean later took the song into the Top 5. The reunion was brief, yet the three original members came together again in 2021 and played their first Nashville concert in twenty years the following year. McBride & the Ride had been assembled by executives, altered by executives and dismantled by an executive decision. But the music kept escaping that decision. McBride’s songs reached No. 1 through Brooks & Dunn and Reba. Herndon helped write a Kenny Chesney standard. A song from the reunion album found a second life through Jason Aldean. The company had tried to turn a three-man band into a vehicle for one singer. The three musicians spent the next three decades proving that the original chemistry had never belonged to the label.

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“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.” MCA BUILT McBRIDE & THE RIDE TO COMPETE…

Country Music

HE LEFT GEORGIA, WORKED AT OPRYLAND, AND BECAME A COUNTRY STAR WITH “I LET HER LIE.” THEN NASHVILLE MOVED AWAY FROM HIS KIND OF MUSIC—BUT DARYLE SINGLETARY NEVER CHANGED HIS VOICE TO FOLLOW IT. By the mid-1990s, country music was changing. Polished productions, crossover sounds, and arena-sized acts were becoming the industry’s new center. At the same time, a young singer from Cairo, Georgia, arrived in Nashville carrying little more than a deep baritone and an unwavering love for George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Conway Twitty. Daryle Singletary was not interested in updating traditional country. He worked at Opryland USA after moving to Nashville, sang wherever he could, and was eventually noticed by Randy Travis. Travis believed enough in Singletary’s voice to help him secure a recording contract with Giant Records. The gamble paid off quickly. His debut album produced hits including “I Let Her Lie,” “Too Much Fun,” and “Amen Kind of Love.” Radio embraced the records, but what set Singletary apart was not the chart positions. He sounded like he belonged to an earlier generation without trying to imitate it. As country radio continued changing, that became harder to sell. Record sales slowed. Giant Records dropped him, and later label deals brought only limited commercial success. Many artists adapted their sound to fit the new market. Singletary refused. He kept recording the kind of honky-tonk songs he believed in, even if they reached fewer stations and sold fewer records. The decision cost him chart success, but it earned him something far rarer. The respect of the people who had built country music before him. George Jones became one of his strongest supporters, repeatedly praising Singletary as one of the finest traditional country singers of his generation. The two eventually recorded together, and whenever Jones spoke about artists who still understood real country music, Singletary’s name was never far away. That admiration did not restore his place on mainstream radio. It did, however, keep him busy on the road. While Nashville chased newer trends, Singletary continued playing fairs, theaters, dance halls, and festivals for audiences who wanted the sound they felt radio had left behind. On February 12, 2018, Daryle Singletary died unexpectedly at his home in Lebanon, Tennessee. He was 46. The tributes that followed came not only from fans but from many of the artists he had admired for years. They remembered him less for awards or record sales than for something increasingly difficult to find—a singer who never changed his voice simply because the market had changed around him.

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“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.” DARYLE SINGLETARY BROUGHT AN OLD-SCHOOL COUNTRY VOICE TO…

Country Music

THE FIRST VIDEO CMT EVER PLAYED WAS FARON YOUNG SINGING “IT’S FOUR IN THE MORNING.” THIRTEEN YEARS LATER, HE DIED BELIEVING COUNTRY MUSIC HAD MOVED ON WITHOUT HIM. Faron Young had never been a quiet country star. He came out of Shreveport, hit the Louisiana Hayride, wore the “Young Sheriff” image, and made honky-tonk sound sharp, fast, and dangerous. “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young” went to No. 1 in 1955. “Hello Walls” carried a young Willie Nelson’s writing into the national spotlight in 1961. “It’s Four in the Morning” put him back at No. 1 in 1971. For a long time, Faron was not a memory. He was part of the machinery. He co-founded Music City News. He helped younger writers. He had songs, movies, television, publishing, business deals, and enough swagger to make Nashville either laugh with him or brace for him when he walked into the room. Then the years started taking pieces away. The hits slowed. The business changed. His marriage to Hilda ended after more than three decades. His health got worse. The voice that had once filled jukeboxes was no longer what radio was chasing. By the 1990s, the man who had helped make modern country feel louder and brighter was watching a younger Nashville build its own room without him in it. On December 9, 1996, Faron Young died by suicide in Nashville. He was sixty-four. Four years later, the Country Music Hall of Fame inducted him. The industry had not forgotten his name forever. It just waited until he was gone to say it out loud again.

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“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.” CMT OPENED WITH FARON YOUNG SINGING “IT’S FOUR…

Country Music

TEN NO. 1 COUNTRY HITS DID NOT MAKE RICKY VAN SHELTON WANT MORE. BY 2006, HE WANTED HIS LIFE BACK — AND WALKED AWAY SO COMPLETELY THAT NASHVILLE ALMOST NEVER HEARD FROM HIM AGAIN. Raised in the tiny Virginia community of Grit, he sang locally after high school while working a succession of ordinary jobs. He played clubs for years without a record contract, convinced that the right opportunity would eventually arrive. In 1984, Shelton followed his future wife, Bettye, to Nashville. Two years later, newspaper columnist Jerry Thompson heard one of his demo tapes and helped arrange an audition with Columbia Records. The label signed him. Success came almost immediately. “Somebody Lied” became Shelton’s first No. 1 in 1987. “Life Turned Her That Way” and “Don’t We All Have the Right” followed. His next album produced three more chart-toppers: “I’ll Leave This World Loving You,” “From a Jack to a King,” and “Living Proof.” By the early 1990s, Shelton had collected 10 No. 1 country singles and several platinum albums. His voice placed him naturally beside Randy Travis, George Strait, and the other traditional singers reshaping country radio. He could revive an older song without making it sound like an exercise in nostalgia, and audiences believed the plainspoken man singing it. But the success carried a private cost. Shelton later acknowledged that alcohol had taken control of his life. He avoided drinking before performances, then drank heavily afterward. The touring schedule and isolation widened the distance between him and Bettye until his marriage and health were both in danger. In 1992, he sought help and began rebuilding his sobriety. At nearly the same time, his place on country radio began shrinking. The wave of new stars arriving in the 1990s changed the market, and Shelton’s singles stopped reaching the upper part of the chart. After leaving Columbia, he financed his own label and released Making Plans in 1998 through Walmart stores, but it could not restore the commercial run of his early years. His final studio album, Fried Green Tomatoes, appeared in 2000. Its singles made little impact, though Shelton continued performing for several more years. Then, in May 2006, he announced that he was retiring from touring. There was no farewell campaign built around one last hit. Shelton said he wanted to spend more time with his family and pursue other interests, including painting and writing children’s books. He had already published stories about a duck named Quacker and had painted artwork used with his gospel album. After that, he did something unusual for a star of his size. He stayed gone. Shelton largely withdrew from interviews, awards shows, reunions, and the public machinery that keeps retired performers visible. Years passed without new recordings or a major comeback attempt. The man who had once spent two decades waiting for Nashville to notice him no longer appeared interested in reminding it that he had been there. His records remained: “Somebody Lied,” “I’ll Leave This World Loving You,” “Keep It Between the Lines,” and the duet “Rockin’ Years” with Dolly Parton. But Shelton chose a life where those songs could continue traveling without requiring him to travel with them. The paintings, books, and quiet years afterward were not a pause between tours. They became the career he chose after the applause stopped deciding his schedule

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“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.” RICKY VAN SHELTON HAD TEN NO. 1 COUNTRY…

Country Music

THEY BORROWED $4,500 TO RECORD A DEMO THEY EXPECTED TO SELL AT SHOWS. MERCURY RELEASED IT ALMOST AS IT WAS — AND PICKIN’ ON NASHVILLE SOLD MORE THAN TWO MILLION COPIES. The Kentucky Headhunters did not begin inside a Nashville writing room. They began in 1968 at the rural Kentucky home of brothers Richard and Fred Young’s grandmother, Effie. Richard played rhythm guitar, Fred played drums, and their cousins Greg Martin and Anthony Kenney completed a band they called Itchy Brother. The small building behind the house became their practice room, a place where country, blues and Southern rock could collide without anyone asking which radio format the music belonged to. For more than a decade, they played regional clubs, recorded occasional singles and waited for a larger opportunity. One nearly arrived in 1980. Itchy Brother drew interest from Swan Song Records, the label created by Led Zeppelin. But drummer John Bonham died that September, Led Zeppelin ended, and the label’s future collapsed before the Kentucky band could complete an album. Two years later, Itchy Brother broke apart. The musicians scattered. Richard Young wrote songs in Nashville. Fred played behind RCA artist Sylvia. Greg Martin joined Ronnie McDowell’s road band. Anthony Kenney stepped away from performing. But the old practice house remained. In 1986, Richard, Fred and Greg began playing together there again. Kenney declined to return, so Greg brought in bassist Doug Phelps, who then suggested his brother Ricky Lee as lead singer. They renamed themselves The Kentucky Headhunters and started appearing twice a month on a local radio program called The Chitlin’ Show. They still did not sound like the polished country bands Nashville was signing. Their records carried Bill Monroe, Don Gibson and Henson Cargill beside loud guitars, blues phrasing and bar-band energy. Instead of sanding those edges away, the five men borrowed $4,500 and recorded a demo that they planned to sell at live shows. The tape reached Mercury Records executive Harold Shedd. Mercury signed them in 1989, but rather than sending the group back into the studio to rebuild everything, the label released the demo as the foundation of their debut album, Pickin’ on Nashville. The first single, “Walk Softly on This Heart of Mine,” was an old Bill Monroe song pushed through electric guitars. “Dumas Walker,” named for a Kentucky shopkeeper and championship marble player known by the band, followed despite the label’s concern that the reference was too local for national radio. The band trusted what happened when they played it live. “Dumas Walker” reached the country Top 20. “Oh Lonesome Me” climbed to No. 8, and “Rock ’n’ Roll Angel” gave the album a fourth consecutive Top 40 single. Pickin’ on Nashville reached No. 2 on the country album chart and eventually sold more than two million copies. The industry that had once seemed unsure what to do with them began handing them awards. The Kentucky Headhunters won CMA honors for Album of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year. In 1991, Pickin’ on Nashville earned the Grammy for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, while the band was also nominated for Best New Artist. They were described as newcomers, although Richard, Fred and Greg had already spent more than twenty years trying to make the same collision of sounds work. Lineup changes followed. Ricky Lee and Doug Phelps left in 1992 to form Brother Phelps, and later versions of the Headhunters passed through new singers and changing record deals. Doug eventually returned, joining Richard, Fred and Greg in the enduring lineup. Through it all, the band kept returning to Mama Effie’s practice house. It later became a gathering place for another generation of Kentucky musicians, including members of Black Stone Cherry, who developed their own heavy Southern sound in the same rural room. The Kentucky Headhunters eventually entered the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame, but the old building remained more important than any formal industry office.

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“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.” THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS BORROWED $4,500 TO CUT A…

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