Classic Rewind: Keith Whitley – ‘Don’t Close Your Eyes’

Week ending 9/12/09: #1 singles this week in country music history

1949: Why Don’t You Haul Off and Love Me — Wayne Raney  (King)
1959: The Three Bells — The Browns (RCA)
1969: A Boy Named Sue — Johnny Cash (Columbia)
1979: You’re My Jamaica — Charley Pride (RCA)
1989: I Wonder Do You Think Of Me — Keith Whitley (RCA)
1999: Single White Female — Chely Wright (MCA)
2009: Big [...]

Album Review: George Strait – ‘Strait From The Heart’

George Strait’s sophomore effort finds him repeating the same winning formula of his debut, from teaming up once again with producer Blake Mevis, to working a pun based on his last name into the album title. Released in June 1982, Strait From The Heart attempts to strike a balance between Strait’s traditional country [...]

The ones that got away

Have you ever thought an artist was just so good they were destined for stardom, especiallly when they seemed to have a major label behind them, but then watched as … nothing actually happened? They had the voice, sometimes their own songwriting ability or musicianship, great material, a label which seemed supportive, and yet [...]

The bottle that pours the wine: Songs about songwriting

It’s always about the song in country music. Whether the writer sings the song or not, a topic Razor X raised last week, the song itself is what everything else ultimately depends on. One of the things I love about country music is the range of subjects it tackles, but the thing most songwriters [...]

Album Review – John Anderson – ‘Wild And Blue’

Wild And Blue was John Anderson’s fourth album, released in 1982, and it provided the springboard for a major change in his career.
It was produced, like I Just Came Home To Count The Memories, by John with the Canadian Frank Jones who had worked with some of the all-time greats, including, at various times, Lefty [...]

Album Review: Keith Whitley – ‘Sad Songs and Waltzes’

There are very few that can sing a sad one like Keith Whitley. At least that’s what I’ve discovered in our recent Spotlight Artist feature on Keith in May. So it’s appropriate that one of the posthumous releases featuring Keith’s vocals is titled Sad Songs and Waltzes. As a relatively new fan of country music, I fell [...]

CD Giveaway: Keith Whitley – ‘RCA Country Legends’

Update: Congratulations to Stacy Peterson. She won our Keith Whitley giveaway for May.
I’ll be contacting you via email.  Stick around for more giveaways soon! 
All month long we’ve been telling you about the life and music of Keith Whitley.  Now we’re going to give you a chance to win some of the great music he made. [...]

Album Review: Keith Whitley – ‘A Hard Act To Follow’

After the Urban Cowboy boom had fizzled out and just before the New Traditionalist movement took Nashville by storm, sales of country music were down considerably and still falling fast.  As a result, record labels were unsure how to market new artists – much like today.  So, in 1984, it was no big deal that [...]

Album Review: Keith Whitley – ‘Wherever You Are Tonight’

In 1995 BNA (successor to RCA) released one more album of Keith Whitley’s previously unreleased material, this time solely drawn from his songwriter demos for Tree. This album really showcases Keith the singer-songwriter, something he never had the chance to show during his lifetime, as he wrote or co-wrote every track. The songs [...]

Keith Whitley the Songwriter

In addition to being an exceptional vocalist, Keith Whitley was also a very accomplished songwriter. He didn’t record very many of his own songs, but a handful of them went on to become hits for other people. Here’s a sample of some of the songs he wrote or co-wrote:

[...]

Album Review – Keith Whitley: A Tribute Album

One of the problems with making a tribute album is how far the participants are prepared to bring something of themselves to the interpretation, and how far they are so concerned to pay their respects the artist being honored, that the end result is little more than very tasteful, high-class karaoke.
The tribute album produced by [...]

A candid interview with Lorrie Morgan

Here is a rare interview with Lorrie Morgan on the Geraldo Rivera Show in late 1990.  

Album Review: Keith Whitley – ‘Kentucky Bluebird’

RCA had a lot of unreleased Keith Whitley recordings in the vaults, and in 1991 the label got his last producer, Garth Fundis, to work on a number of these, leading to the release of Kentucky Bluebird. The album is a bit of a hodgepodge, comprising a mixture of these re-produced tracks, snippets from radio [...]

Recommendation: Songs about rain

It’s raining again today in southern Ohio, and it has been for the better part of a week now.  A couple days ago, during a particularly torrential downpour, I was sitting here listening to music and decided to search the word ‘rain’ in my media library.  And I have to say I was surprised at [...]

Album Review: Josh Logan – ‘I Am What I Am’

Kentucky-born Josh Logan was one of those artists who fell through the cracks of a major (or almost-major) label deal when he was signed to Curb in the late 80s. His excellent 1988 album Somebody Paints The Wall included the first version of the title track, later a big hit for Tracy Lawrence and also [...]

Album Review – Keith Whitley – ‘I Wonder Do You Think Of Me’

I Wonder Do You Think Of Me was the first posthumous release for Keith. It was the album he was working on at the time of his death, the planned follow-up to his breakthrough Don’t Close Your Eyes. Inevitably, his death lent an additional poignancy to the songs when audiences first heard them. Even now, [...]

Tributes to Keith Whitley

Twenty years ago today country music lost one of its own to an alcohol overdose. Singer/songwriter and talented player Keith Whitley died at age 33, May 9, 1989. Garth Fundis, one of Keith’s producers, says in a tribute blog post on CMT.com by Edward Morris,”Twenty years is a long time to miss someone, but I’ll [...]

No Stranger To The Rain: Remembering Keith Whitley

Album Review: Keith Whitley — ‘Don’t Close Your Eyes’

1985’s L.A. to Miami provided Keith Whitley with some badly needed radio hits, but the slick pop-oriented production didn’t sit well with him. Wanting to return to his traditional country roots, he asked RCA executive Joe Galante to shelve the follow-up album that was nearly ready to release and to allow him to start [...]