Classic Rewind: Eddie Rabbitt – Two Dollars In The Jukebox’

Country Heritage Redux: Eddie Rabbitt (1941-1998)

Edward Thomas (Eddie) Rabbitt had a seventeen year run as a recording artist on the Billboard country charts with some success on the pop charts. He also enjoyed success as a songwriter, writing many of his own hits and supplying songs to other artists. Ultimately, 20 of his recordings reached #1 on either Billboard or Cashbox (usually both).

Rabbitt was the son of Irish immigrants, born in Brooklyn, New York, but raised in nearby East Orange, New Jersey. His father was an oil refinery worker who played accordion and fiddle, and who performed Irish and country music in local venues. Surrounded by music, Rabbitt learned the guitar at an early age and by 12, he had become quite proficient. By his teen years, Rabbitt was extremely knowledgeable on Irish and country music; in fact, to the end of his life he regarded country music as an extension of Irish music, and often used minor chords to create an Irish feel.

When Rabbitt was 16, his parents divorced. After the divorce he dropped out of school, hoping to make music his career. Later, however, he would take courses at night school and earn his diploma.

Rabbitt was employed briefly as a mental hospital attendant during the late 1950s, performing music locally whenever possible. As a result of winning a local talent contest, he was given an hour of Saturday night radio show time to broadcast a live performance from a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. In 1964, Rabbitt signed his first record deal with 20th Century Records and released the singles “Next to the Note” and “Six Nights and Seven Days,” neither of which charted.

In 1968, Rabbitt moved to Nashville where he began his career as a songwriter. According to legend, on his first night in Nashville, he wrote “Working My Way Up to the Bottom,” which Roy Drusky recorded as an album track for his In A New Dimension album. In order to survive, Rabbitt worked at miscellaneous odd jobs such as driving a truck and picking fruit. Eventually, he was hired as a staff writer for the Hill & Range Publishing Company and received a reported salary of $37.50 per week.

The first blush of real success for Eddie Rabbitt occurred in 1969 when Elvis Presley recorded his song “Kentucky Rain.” The song charted #16 pop and #31 country for Elvis, selling over a million copies in the process. Rabbitt continued to write, with the next milestone occurring with a song idea that came to him while eating some breakfast cereal. Something about the lyric “…Milk and honey and Captain Krunch and you in the morning…” appealed to record producer Tom Collins, who was working for Charley Pride at the time. Collins saw Rabbitt perform the song live, and brought the song to Pride, who thought it would be perfect for Ronnie Milsap, at that time opening shows for Pride. “Pure Love” would hit #1 for Milsap in 1974, and lead to a contract offer from Elektra Records for Rabbitt later that year.

His first single for Elektra, “You Get To Me,” hit #34 and the next two singles, both released in 1975, “Forgive And Forget” and “I Should Have Married You,” barely missed the top 10. These three songs, along with a recording of “Pure Love,” were included on Rabbitt’s self titled debut album in 1975.

The next single, the very traditional “Drinkin’ My Baby (Off My Mind),” kicked off a long series of hits that included four songs that also charted among the top 10 pop songs “Drivin’ My Life Away,” “Step By Step,” “You And I”” (with Crystal Gayle), and “I Love A Rainy Night.” The latter song also topped Billboard’s pop and adult contemporary charts.

As the seventies wore on, Eddie’s music began drifting away from traditional country music into the more pop-flavored sounds of the 80s, such as the three biggest pop hits cited above. After 1982’s “You And I,” his singles and albums were issued on the Warner Brothers label, the result of a label merger with Elektra. In late 1985, Eddie moved over to RCA, where his success continued unabated. Following the death of his infant son in 1985, Rabbitt put his career on hold, although RCA had some recordings to release, issuing four top ten singles. In 1986, a duet with Juice Newton, “Both To Each Other” soared to #1.

Rabbitt returned to recording in 1988, scoring #1 records with “I Wanna Dance With You” and a remake of Dion Denucci’s 1961 pop hit “The Wanderer.” In 1990, he moved to Universal/Capitol, and with the leap came a return to a more traditional country sound; especially notable from this era is “On Second Thought,” his last #1 and my favorite of all of his recordings.

Eddie Rabbitt would issue four albums on Capitol before exiting the label.

In 1997, Rabbit was diagnosed with lung cancer. While seemingly on the rebound he issued his final album titled Against All Odds on the Intersound label. Sadly, it was not to be. Rabbitt passed away in May, 1998, at the age of 56.

For his career, Eddie placed forty-three songs on the Billboard country charts (twenty-six top five entries), with fourteen of his songs placing on Billboard’s pop charts.

Rabbitt was one of the phalanx of Nashville songwriters who entered into the realm of more introspective and contemplative material. He felt a personal responsibility as an entertainer to serve as a good role model and was an advocate for many charitable organizations including the Special Olympics, Easter Seals, Muscular Dystrophy Association and United Cerebral Palsy. Rabbitt was active in politics and gave permission to Senator Bob Dole to use his song “American Boy” during Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996.

Discography

Vinyl

Eddie Rabbitt issued many vinyl albums. Since he was a big seller, most of his albums should be available online (or, perhaps, in your favorite used record store). The earlier albums (1970s) are more traditional sounding than their later (post 1978 counterparts), until you get to his output on Capitol. All of his albums contain interesting songs; the variable is the production and the way they are framed. Unfortunately, Eddie did not live long enough to recast his later Elektra/Warner Brothers recordings with more traditional settings, or perhaps as bluegrass.

CD

Currently, Rabbitt is woefully under-represented on CD, with only some Greatest Hits collections being available (mostly of the Elektra/Warner Brothers years, but also some Intersound remakes). During his lifetime, many of Rabbitt’s later recordings were released on cassette and CD, so used record shops may have copies of music from the RCA and Capitol years. None of the Capitol or RCA material is in print.

The best available collection is the Rhino Platinum Collection which has twenty-two songs from the Elektra/Warner Brothers years of 1975-1980, including Eddie’s version of the rarely reissued “Pure Love”, which was a major hit for Ronnie Milsap. This collection is about half hits and half album tracks. Among the more significant omissions is “Step by Step”, Eddie’s second biggest pop hit.

A few years ago, there was a better representation of Eddie Rabbitt material available on CD. Most of the following CDs are out of print, although it may be possible to find them in used record shops or from online dealers specializing in cutouts and used discs. Among the treasures worth searching for are the Warner Brothers albums Horizon (“I Love A Rainy Night” and “Drivin’ My Life Away”); Rocky Mountain Music (title song plus “Two Dollars In The Jukebox” and “Drinkin’ My Baby”); and 36 All-Time Greatest Hits. Formerly available from places like Costco, Sam’s Club and Collector’s Choice Music, the three-disk 36 All-Time Greatest Hits is misnamed as it has only about a dozen actual hits, with the rest being album cuts from the Electra/Warner Brothers years. Several double-packs of his Elektra/Warner Brothers albums also were issued in recent years.

The Intersound album Beating The Odds was reissued after Rabbitt’s death as From The Heart–The Last Recordings. It had six new songs and six pretty decent remakes of older hits. Until recently, it was the only place to get any CD versions of two of the Capitol hits “On Second Thought” and “American Boy.”

In 2009, Rhino released Eddie Rabbitt: Number One Hits, which contains the original versions of all of Eddie’s hits to chart at number one on Billboard. This is the album to get if you want only one Eddie Rabbitt CD. Unfortunately, it seems to have gone out of print, so if you see a copy, grab it.

Classic Rewind: Vince Gill – ‘Some Things Never Get Old’

Album Review: Vince Gill – ‘These Days’

As we’ve often noted here, it was common practice in the 1960s and 1970s for artists — inside and outside of country music –to release three or four albums a year, unlike the present day when most artists release one album every two or three years. While preparing to work on a new album in 2006, Vince Gill was inspired by The Beatles’ prolific output and decided to put a 43-track four disc collection instead of a single album. Released to tremendous critical acclaim in October 2006, These Days was an ambitious project that showcases the depth and breadth of Vince’s musical taste. It encompasses a variety of genres from rock, pop, jazz, and blues to traditional country and bluegrass. Vince wrote or co-wrote all 43 songs and produced the project himself, with some help from John Hobbs and Justin Niebank. The production team put together a impressive roster of guest artists from both within and outside country music.

The first disc, titled Workin’ On A Big Chill: The Rockin’ Record, is as the title implies, a collection of ten rock and rockabilly tunes. Though the songs are all well performed, I’m not much of a rock fan, so this is my least favorite disc in the collection. I do like the rockabilly number “Nothin’ For a Broken Heart”, on which Rodney Crowell is a guest artist, and even better is the bluegrass-tinged collaboration with the Del McCoury Band, “Son of a Ramblin’ Man”. The rest of the songs on this disc don’t interest me very much, and consequently this one has been played less than the other three.

Classic Rewind: Tammy Wynette – ‘Between 29 and Danger’

Single Review: Sunny Sweeney – ‘Drink Myself Single’

The third single from Sunny Sweeney’s excellent Concrete album is the unashamed honky tonker ‘Drink Myself Single’.

Currently just outside the top 40, let’s hope it matches the top 10 status of last year’s ‘From A Table Away’ after ‘Staying’s Worse Than Leaving’ failed to do so. Radio seems more inclined to play up-tempo numbers these days, so that may be a good sign for this vibrant number. It sounds like her most commercial release to date without sacrificing her country roots, mixing in loud but not excessive electric guitars with the fiddle and steel. The lively tune and the winsome charm of Sunny’s delivery give this a singalong feel.

Fed up of her boyfriend’s drinking ways, Sunny goes out on the town determined to beat him at his own game (and declare her new single status at the same time) by drinking a couple of bottles of wine (although as she’s apparently not a regular drinker this may mean she ends up not so much staggering home to bed like her ex, as under the table in the bar). She wrote the song with Monty Holmes, although it clearly isn’t autobiographical, as Sunny recently married her longterm boyfriend.

This level of excessive drinking may not be the best way to get over a man in real life, but it makes for a great country song. And with the help of producer Brett Beavers, Sunny is the kind of singer who knows how to satisfy the demands of both modern radio listeners and more traditional country fans.

Grade: B+

Classic Rewind: Vince Gill – ‘The Reason Why’

Week ending 11/26/11: #1 singles this week in country music history

1951: Slow Poke — Pee Wee King & His Golden West Cowboys (feat. Redd Stewart) (RCA)

1961: Big Bad John — Jimmy Dean (Columbia)

1971: Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)– Merle Haggard (Capitol)

1981: All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)– Hank Williams, Jr. (Elektra/Curb)

1991: Shameless – Garth Brooks (Liberty)

2001: I Wanna Talk About Me — Toby Keith (DreamWorks Nashville)

2011: Sparks Fly — Taylor Swift (Big Machine)

Classic Rewind: Vince Gill – ‘Young Man’s Town’

Classic Rewind: Foster & Lloyd – ‘What Do You Want From Me This Time?’

Vince Gill guests on guitar. The song was a #6 hit in 1988.

Album Review: Vince Gill – ‘Next Big Thing’

Vince wrote or co-wrote all 17 of the songs on 2003’s Next Big Thing, and produced the album himself. It represents a marked return to form after the gloopy lovefest that was Let’s Make Sure We Kiss Goodbye, inspired by Vince’s second marriage to contemporary Christian singer Amy Grant.

He might have had a top 10 hit from his last album, but this album sees him apparently (and presciently) accepting that his time in the spotlight might be over. The beaty and surprisingly upbeat title track (written with Al Anderson and John Hobbs and featuring horns) and the more resigned ‘Young Man’s Town’ (with Emmylou Harris on harmony) both take a look at the fleeting nature of the music business and its fascination with youth and good looks. Both were released as singles, with the brassy party sound of ‘Next Big Thing’ providing Vince with his last top 20 hit and the more reflective ‘Young Man’s Town’ not making the top 40; perhaps the accuracy of the lyric hit a bit too close to home for country radio.

‘This Old Guitar And Me’ is an old musician’s love song to his first instrument and fond memories of his early career. The Leslie Satcher co-write ‘Old Time Fiddle’ is an enjoyable love letter to Cajun music, with appropriate fiddle solo and Leslie herself on harmony. Leslie also co-wrote the tenderly delivered ballad ‘Two Hearts’, where Lee Ann Womack provides the harmony vocal.

‘Someday’, the album’s second single (peaking at #31) is a delicately pretty AC-influenced ballad written with former pop star Richard Marx, wistfully dreaming of the possibility of future love. ‘These Broken Hearts’, written by Vince with his keyboard player Pete Wasner, is a sad ballad about breaking up with someone, with blue-eyed soul man Michael McDonald on harmony. Both songs are set against a string arrangement courtesy of John Hobbs and the Nashville String machine, and are pleasant listening without being truly memorable.

There are a few other less inspired moments, like the throwaway ‘The Sun’s Gonna Shine On You’. The mid-tempo ‘Don’t Let Her Get Away’, written with Anderson, is OK filler which sounds like some of Vince’s RCA recordings with banked but thin harmonies.

A number of the songs brood about failed relationships past. In the contemporary ballad ‘She Never Makes Me Cry’, Vince prefers an unexciting life with his new wife to the ups and downs of a passionate past love. ‘We Had It All’ is a mid-tempo plea to rekindle an old flame with a subtle Tex-Mex feel to the instrumentation. The bouncy and solidly traditional country ‘Without You’ delivers a more cheerful reaction to being single again, with Dawn Sears on harmony.

Dawn also sings a piercing harmony on the best song on the album. ‘Real Mean Bottle’ is a standout tribute to Merle Haggard, with a high lonesome feel and Bakersfield guitars:

It must have been a real mean bottle that made you write the songs that way
A real mean bottle
Poured straight from the Devil
It’s a miracle you’re standing here today

‘From Where I Stand’, written with Anderson and Hobbs, is a classic declaration of fidelity in the face of temptation, set to a beautiful tune with a bluesy harmony from Bekka Bramlett. This is another highlight, which could have been a big hit if released a few years earlier in Vince’s peak commercial period.

‘Whippoorwill River’, written with Dean Dillon, gently recalls childhood memories of life with his father. Vince’s daughter Jenny keeps things in the family by singing the harmony. A fictional look at family comes from the fiddle-led ‘You Ain’t Foolin’ Nobody’, written with Reed Nielsen, is addressed to the protagonist’s motherless daughter who is running wild in a small town.

The album closes with the mellow and reflective farewell to a dying friend, ‘In These Last Few Days’, with wife Amy Grant on harmony. It was the fourth and last single to be released, but did not perform very well.

Sales were disappointing, with the record his first not to reach at least gold status since he signed to MCA, but that is no reflection on the quality of the music. The album could perhaps have done with a bit of weeding, as there are a few forgettable songs, but overall this was a strong release with a lot of worthwhile material. It’s easy to find, and well worth adding to your collection if you have previously overlooked it.

Grade: A-

Classic Rewind: Vince Gill – ‘If You Ever Have Forever In Mind’

Album Review: Martina McBride – ‘Eleven’

In recent years Martina McBride has struggled to remain commercially relevant. Having landed only one Top 10 hit in the past seven years, she left her longtime label RCA last year in the hopes of reviving her flagging career. Unfortunately, the move to Republic Nashville has done little to change her commercial fortunes, as it has become apparent that her chart decline is due not to any neglectfulness on the part of RCA, but to her seeming inability to select decent material. She shares co-writing credits on six of Eleven’s tracks, the most she’s ever contributed to a single album, but for the most part this doesn’t result any measurable improvement over her other recent efforts.

When an artist ends a long term relationship with the label where she scored her greatest achievements, it can signal a bold new change in direction or a continued long period of stagnation. In Martina’s case, it’s definitely a case of the latter, as Eleven is more or less in the same vein as her last few, very lackluster albums for RCA. Her debut single for Republic Nashville, “Teenage Daughters”, offered a brief glimmer of hope that she might be getting her mojo back, but those hopes were quickly dashed as rest of the album is mostly a relapse back into the bubblegum pop she’s been peddling since 2006.

Though not a great song by any means, “Teenage Daughters” showed a spunkier side of Martina, which we’ve not seen in quite some time. Written by McBride and the Warren Brothers, the song deals with the challenges of raising adolescent daughters and was in no doubt inspired by Martina’s real-life experiences. The record peaked at #17. It was followed by what appears to be the intended centerpiece of the album, the God-awful “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”, the most shameless attempt to manipulate the listener’s emotions to hit the airwaves since “God’s Will”. McBride and producer Byron Gallimore were likely hoping for a big power ballad hit that explores serious issues, in the vein of “Concrete Angel” or “A Broken Wing”. The problem is that the lyrics lack any subtlety whatsoever. It’s currently at #19 on the charts, but since most radio listeners really don’t want to hear songs about people suffering from cancer, I’ll wager that this one isn’t going to go much higher.

Most of the other tracks on the album, from the opening track “One Night” to the annoyingly sing-songy “Always Be This Way” and “Broken Umbrella” sound like throwbacks to 1970s-era Top 40 AM radio, reminiscent of the poorer efforts of artists like Helen Reddy, The Carpenters or The Captain and Tennille.

Despite these considerable drawbacks, Eleven does have its brighter moments. Though not very country, “Marry Me”, a cover of last year’s minor adult-contemporary hit by the pop/rock group Train, is quite pleasant. It is performed with the song’s writer and Train’s lead singer Pat Monahan. The bluesy “Whatcha Gonna Do”, written by Rachel Thibodeau, Rebecca Lynn Howard and Jason Sever also works quite well and I’m guessing that it will eventually be released as a single. And things improve considerably with the album’s last three tracks, “Summer of Love”, “When You Love a Sinner” and the stunningly beautiful closing track “Long Distance Lullaby”, which Martina co-wrote with Mark Irwin and Josh Kear. These three numbers are the album’s best tracks, and serve as a reward of sorts for having persevered through the earlier tracks.

Having been disappointed by Martina’s previous three albums, I wasn’t expecting Eleven to be an outstanding effort, and it definitely isn’t, but it’s worth the $4.99 that Amazon MP3 is currently asking for it (the version with digital liner notes is $9.49). A deluxe version with four bonus tracks and three music videos is available exlusively from Target stores.

Grade: C

Classic Rewind: Vince Gill ft Union Station- ‘High Lonesome Sound’

Album Review: Jason Boland & the Stragglers – ‘Rancho Alto’

Jason Boland is a singer-songwriter with a poet’s heart, and with his band the Stragglers, is one of the acts in the Texas Red Dirt movement most deeply rooted in country music. His latest album, released on APEX/Thirty Tigers, is not quite as strong as his last studio album, 2008′s Comal County Blue, but is still a good collection. Boland wrote almost all the material, and his songwriting is consistently impressive and substantial. The album was recorded in Austin with Lloyd Maines producing, although the artist’s work is clearly rooted in his home state of Oklahoma.

The best song here is the gripping ‘False Accuser’s Lament’, an intriguing reinterpretation of ‘Long Black Veil’ from the point of view of the witness who claimed the narrator of the original song was the killer. The tune is new, but there are enough lyrical nods to the Marijohn Wilkin/Danny Dill-penned country classic to make its origins obvious. Tormented nightly by guilt, he reveals that he was paid off (with ‘the price of a new plow’) by the banker husband of the woman who would have been the convicted man’s alibi. In this version he knew of his wife’s affair but couldn’t face it all coming out in public, effectively making the framed man’s sacrifice pointless. Our narrator admits bleakly,

Father please forgive me for I falsely testified
They had me swear upon the Bible and I lied

The pensive ‘Obsessed’ dwells on an intense but fated relationship. The almost-melancholy ‘Between 11 And 2’ shows us a pair of lost souls eventually finding one another in the dead hours of the night. Jason wrote it with Noah Jeffries, who also plays fiddle and mandolin. The same pair wrote ‘Pushing Luck’, a rockier number where a potentially interesting story of a resentful lawbreaker feels overwhelmed by too-heavy production, not helped by the relative lack of melody.

The waltz ‘Every Moment I’m Gone’ is a rather lovely declaration of love by an ageing rambler, perhaps a seafarer, for the one waiting at home, which has a very old folk feel to the lyrics. The atmospheric playing of pedal steel dominates on ‘Forever Together Again’ (written by Roger Ray, pedal steel and dobro player in the Stragglers), a warmhearted tribute to a cowboy bar room crowd.

‘Down Here In The Hole’ is a strong song about working in a coalmine with some memorable lines and prominent fiddle. I also like ‘Fences’ with its fiddle-led instrumentation and singing melody, and the brooding if sometimes obscure lyric lamenting, I think, the fate of Native Americans:

She was there for the taking, there were promises made
But smallpox and whiskey were a mighty bad trade

All I see now are fences
The cards turn a profit but the people are gone
Theses old holes in the highway are so brutal on bones
You don’t dance with who brought you, it’s a lonesome walk home

The attractive ‘Mary Ellen’s Greenhouse’ paints an affectionate picture about making music with old friends in a welcoming place, based on a rehearsal place of Boland’s youth.

There are a couple of external covers. Bob Childers wrote ‘Woody’s Road’, a tribute to Woody Guthrie, ‘a rambling friend of man’. Finally, The part-spoken ‘Farmer’s Luck’ (written by Greg Jacobs) is another real highlight. It tells the story of a government-funded reservoir in Oklahoma which drowns a farmer’s land in the 1960s, set to a jaunty rhythm as the narrator’s grandfather, a small farmer complains to the bureaucrats and businessmen,

Well, you don’t know nothing about farming
You don’t know nothing about soil
You live up there in Tulsa and make your living off of oil…

They’re gonna dam the Deep Fork River and damn the farmer’s luck

This is an interesting and worthwhile release by an excellent songwriter.

Grade: A-

Classic Rewind: Tom T Hall – ‘Ballad Of 40 Dollars’

Country Heritage: The Storyteller, Tom T. Hall

If Tom T. Hall had never had a hit record for himself, he would be still an important figure in the history of country music. “Harper Valley PTA” alone, would have been enough to ensure him at least a footnote in the history of the genre, but long before that song became a world-wide hit, Tom T. Hall was influencing the direction of country music.

I first became aware of Tom T. Hall through my father’s collection of Dave Dudley and Jimmie C. Newman albums. All of Dave Dudley’s Mercury albums except Travelin’ With Dave Dudley (a cover album of older country songs) contain at least one song written or co-written by Tom T. Hall and you could put together a “best of ” collection for Dave Dudley comprised of nothing but songs written or co-written by Tom T. Hall. As much as any writer, the songs of Tom T. Hall helped define the sub-genre of truck driving music – and he’s not even particularly known for it!

Thomas Hall was born May 25, 1936, in Olive Hill, Kentucky (The “T “ was added later in life to give his name a more distinctive ring). Solid biographical information on Hall is scarce as he has kept his personal life as private as possible. It is known that as a teenager, Hall organized a band called the Kentucky Travelers that performed before movies for a traveling theater. In 1957 Hall entered the Army for a four-year hitch. He was stationed in Germany at the same time as Elvis Presley, and remembers that Elvis would buy hamburgers for the entire platoon on the day before payday. While in Germany he performed on Armed Forces Radio Network. His army experiences served as the inspiration of several of his later songs. After leaving the army in 1961, Hall served as an announcer or disc jockey for several radio stations in Kentucky and West Virginia, as well as performing live and writing songs.

A friend of Hall’s took some of Tom’s songs to Nashville with him, where they came to the attention of Jimmy Keys, the head of Newkeys Music, a company co-owned with Jimmy “C” Newman and Dave Dudley. Keys saw something there as he forwarded “D.J. For A Day” to Jimmy “C” Newman and offered Hall a draw against royalties to move to Nashville and become a staff writer. Newman’s recording of “D.J. For A Day” reached #9 in early 1964, becoming Newman’s first top ten recording in nearly four years. Newman was to record many more of Tom’s songs.

Classic Rewind: Sweethearts Of The Rodeo – ‘Hey Doll Baby’

Vince Gill’s first wife Janis Gill and her sister Kristine Arnold made up this duo, who enjoyed some success in the 1980s. This was their debut single in 1986:

Album Review – Vince Gill – ‘The Key’

By 1998, the landscape of country music had changed significantly. The traditionalist sound ushered in by Randy Travis in 1985 had given way to a slicker pop sound led by Shania Twain and her The Woman in Me and Come on Over albums. The likes of Vince Gill didn’t gel with the new mainstream and for the first time in nine years he found himself struggling to have major hits at radio. And to make matters worse, his “Kindly Keep It Country,” one of the best singles of the year, was deemed too country for country radio.

But the lack of airplay wasn’t due to a diminished quality. At the time of its release, The Key garnered rave reviews and was widely considered the best album of Gill’s career. It also turned around the downward spiral in quality that was High Lonesome Sound. For the first time in years, Gill released a fully cohesive album without a bad track in the bunch. I also fully enjoy the western swingy vibe that foreshowed his work with The Time Jumpers.

Lead single, “If You Ever Have Forever in Mind” was Gill’s last top 5 hit to date in early 1998. A slow jazz-inspired ballad, it seemed rather endless to my 11 year-old ears at the time. But I’ve since grown to really enjoy the track, one of Gill’s best in many years, that won him the 1999 Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. I love everything about this song from the strings to the very effective use of piano behind Gill’s stunning vocal.

Second single, “Kindly Keep It Country,” about a man’s request to hear only country songs coming from the jukebox, is traditionalism done right. The mournful steel guitar underscores the pain in Gill’s vocal. It’s a shame country radio ignored the song, which criminally peaked at #33, but it began that larger debate about a country song being “too country.” Nonetheless, the chart performance doesn’t diminish the fact it’s one of the best songs Gill has ever recorded.

Third single “Don’t Come Cryin’ to Me” didn’t fare much better, peaking at #27, but reversed the ballad trend set by the first two singles. A mid-tempo shuffle complete with fiddle and steel guitar, “Cryin’” chronicled the tale of a man clearly moved on from a past love who may wish to rekindle their romance if her current relationship doesn’t pan out. The tune is an uncreated duet with Gill’s longtime harmony vocalist Dawn Sears, who released a couple major-label country albums in the 90s. Their voices blend perfectly together and bring this song to life. Even though it’s about love lost, it’s nice to see Gill enjoying himself and letting lose.

Fourth single, “My Kind of Woman/My Kind of Man,” the 1999 CMA Vocal Event of the Year, is Gill’s first (and only to date) proper duet with Patty Loveless. While she provided the haunting harmony vocals on “When I Call Your Name” and “Pocket Full of Gold,” this was the first time the pair had teamed up for a duet released to country radio. In keeping with the trend of the second and third singles, it was largely ignored but did manage to peak at #27 in the summer of 1999. I’ve always liked when these two sing together as their voices work to create magic. I’ll always wish they’d work together more.

The rest of the album sets the standard for excellence in terms of mainstream music from that era. Gill knows how to write and record outstanding album tracks which is why High Lonesome Sound was such a let down. The Key, though, has highlight upon highlight from the Honky-Tonk shuffle “I Never Really Knew You” to the gorgeous weeper “There’s Not Much Love Here Anymore.”

I love the western swing vibe of “I’ll Take Texas.” With its retro sounding fiddle it’s the best song George Strait never recorded. I’m not used to this kind of song from Gill but it really works. Same goes for “Hills of Caroline,” which allows Gill to exercise his Bluegrass muscle in a way he wouldn’t do again until the acoustic disc from These Days.

But my favorite track on the whole record closes the album. “The Key of Life,” which inspired the album’s title, is a tribute to his father who first introduced him to music, teaching him that a “few chords on the banjo is the key to life.” I was first drawn to the gently rolling banjo-led melody before being pulled into the story. But I love the simplicity of this track the best, how it says so much with so little. If every country song were created with such little fuss, our beloved genre would be in a much better place right now.

As a whole The Key is a very enjoyable and cohesive album where every song compliments each other perfectly. It was almost too traditional to work in the mainstream market at the time, but it helped Gill transition from commercial superstar to artistic genius. Like any great singer he knows an excellent song when he hears (or, in his case, writes) one. The Key is 13 shinning examples of that principal and available both in hard copy and digitally.

Grade: A+ 

Classic Rewind: Vince Gill – ‘No Future In The Past’