Country music from a fan's point of view since 2008
1959: White Lighting — George Jones (Mercury)
1969: Galveston — Glen Campbell (Capitol)
1979: Backside of Thirty — John Conlee (ABC)
1989: Young Love (Strong Love) — The Judds (RCA/Curb)
1999: Wish You Were Here — Mark Wills (Mercury Nashville)
2009: It’s America — Rodney Atkins (Curb)
2019: Beautiful Crazy — Luke Combs (Columbia Nashville)
2019 (Airplay): Make It Sweet — Old Dominion (RCA Nashville)
A tribute to law enforcement officers:
Released by Smith Music in 1999 (it was recorded January 2, 1999), long after the end of Conlee’s years as a hit-maker (his last chart record having occurred nine years earlier), Live At Billy Bob’s Texas serves as a useful recap of Conlee’s career and as an exemplar of John Conlee in live performance.
While the sound quality of the recordings is slightly below that of the studio recordings and Conlee’s voice, at least on this evening, sounded a bit shopworn, the set still shows Conlee for the masterful showman that he is. Moreover, John gives the audience complete versions of his hits, neither the truncated versions often found on live recordings and nor the vapid hits medleys that often plague live recordings. There is one medley among the seventeen song selections but that medley is of the Willie Nelson standard “Night Life” and the Percy Mayfield classic “Please Send Me Someone To Love”, neither song a John Conlee hit.
The remainder of the record is essentially John Conlee’s fifteen biggest hits. Crowd noise is sufficient to let the listener know that this is a live recording, but not so loud as to be intrusive. The band is Billy Bob’s house band augmented by the great Weldon Myrick on steel guitar. My biggest complaint about the band is the somewhat cheesy keyboards of Micky G, but that is but a minor annoyance.
The album opens up with “Common Man” and closes with “I’m Only In It ForThe Love”. All told this album sees John performing his fifteen biggest hits, the medley noted above and Conlee’s last chart hit from 1990, “Doghouse”. In fact until recently, this album was the only place to find “Doghouse”, a much underrated record that would have been a bigger hit had it been released earlier in Conlee’s career.
The man’s in the moon, the cats in the cradle and I’m in the dog house
It never would have happened if my best friend wasn’t such a loud mouth
She’s heard things that she don’t like about my nights out
Now she’s on me like old cheap suit, I’m in the dog houseThe dogs eating good and he don’t care
I’m chewing bones in the cold night air
The whole thing seems just a little unfair
There he sits in my favorite chair
I do prefer the studio versions, but for a live album, this is a good representation of John Conlee’s talent and his performance persona. I only had the opportunity to see him in live performance one time, early in his career when he was still largely doing other peoples’ hits, so it is nice to have a live show that is a good career retrospective. Here we have a confident professional putting on a really good show.
Grade: B+
Track List
1. Introduction
2. Common Man
3. Busted
4. Domestic Life
5. Old School
6. Lady Lay Down
7. Dog House
8. Miss Emily’s Picture
9. I Don’t Remember Loving You
10. The Carpenter
11. Backside Of Thirty
12. As Long As I’m Rockin’ With You
13. Friday Night Blues
14. Lay Around And Love On You
15. Rose Colored Glasses
16. Night Life / Please Send Me Someone To Love
17. Got My Heart Set On You
18. I’m Only In It For The Love
John Conlee’s only studio album of wholly new material since 1989 was a religious album released in 2004. It is impeccably sung and produced throughout.
Much of the material is familiar, but a few new songs were included. ‘They Also Serve’, written by Tony Seibert and drawing of the words of the poet John Milton, is a tribute to the sacrifices of military wives and families,
That unsung corps of warriors who stay behind and wait
…
Prayin’ by the phone to learn their loved one’s fate
But they’re still in the war, let there be no mistake
They also serve, those who stand and wait
‘What Else Does He Have To Do’ is an emotional piano-led ballad about Jesus.
‘Pass It On’, written by Harley Allen, is a strong song about the influence we all have on those around us:
Grandfather smoked and had a taste for booze
Next thing you know granddaddy’s son did too
And when that boy had children of his own
Addiction was the only seed he’d sowPass it on
Pass it down
We all leave more than a headstone in the ground
Pass it on
At the end will you leave them all your love or all your sin
You can make it right or wrong
Pass it onHe had a special name for every man
For any one that wasn’t just like him
His children used the words they heard from Dad
“If they’re not just like we are we don’t like that”
The third verse brings in Jesus and the transmission of Christian witness.
The Sonny Throckmorton song ‘Safely In The Arms Of Jesus’ is a nice cheerful number set to an upbeat hymnlike tune. Dickey Lee’s ‘Peace Within’ has a lovely soothing melody.
The hymns chosen are all treated with understated reverence. A medley of ‘Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus’ and ‘Softly And Tenderly’ opens proceedings, and another of
‘Amazing Grace’ is set to the strains of an organ backing, and ‘Peace In The Valley’ is piano-led. A tasteful string arrangement backs ‘The Old Rugged Cross’. Conlee’s takes on ‘I Know Who Holds Tomorrow’, ‘His Eye Is On The Sparrow’, ’Take My Hand, Precious Lord’ and ’Farther Along’ are lovely too.
The pace picks up for the urgent ‘This Old House’ and for a closing medley of ‘I Saw The Light’ and ‘I’ll Fly Awy’.
This album really feels like a labor of love.
Grade: A
John Conlee’s career was one of the casualties of the wave of young stars emerging in the late 80s swept away the old guard. Columbia having dispensed with his services, he signed a deal with prominent independent label Sixteenth Avenue, which had also recently picked up superstar Charley Pride.
He decided to ‘Hit The Ground Runnin’’, a nice upbeat tune about moving on with some cheerful accordion. Next up was the reflective ‘River Of Time’, written by Larry Cordle and Jim Rushing (although iTunes miscredits it having confused it with the Judds’ song of the same name). This song looks at the changes in attitude brought as one grows up and older:
I was 16 and strong as a horse
I didn’t know nothin’ ‘bout nothin’
But I knew everything of course
I turned 21 totin’ a gun
And losing some good friends of mine
I was crossing my first dreams of sorrow
On the way down the river of timeThis river rolls like a rocket
It don’t meander and wind
Ain’t a power on earth that can stop it
We’re all swept up in the grind
So find your companion
The one that will love you
All the way till the end of the line
It’s the dearest of dreams
In the great scheme of things
Goin’ down the river of timeI woke up at 30 and started to worry
About the glaring mistakes of my past
I still had high aspirations
But I knew that I’d better move fast
Now I’m starin’ at 40 and oh Lordy Lordy
I’m still a long way from the top
I’ve still got the heart but I’m fallin’ apart
Reachin’ the hands of the clock
Both tracks received enough airplay to chart in the 40s.
The third single was ‘Hopelessly Yours’ written by Keith Whitley, Don Cook and Curly Putman. It had been cut a few years earlier by George Jones, and was a bona fide hit a few years later for Lee Greenwood and Suzy Bogguss. Conlee’s version is melancholy and very effective, but despite its quality it got little attention from country radio. The final, non-charting, single was even better. ‘Don’t Get Me Started’ is an emotional ballad written by Hugh Prestwood which portrays the lasting sadness of lost love:
Well, thank you for askin’
I know you mean well
But friend, that’s a story I’d rather not tell
To even begin it would take all night long
And I’d still be right here and she’d still be goneSo don’t get me started
I might never stop
She’s just not a subject that’s easy to drop
There’s dozens of other stories I’ll swap
But don’t get me started on Her
I might never stopYou see, deep in my heart is a dam I have built
For a river of tears over love I have spilled
And the way I make certain that dam will not break
Is to never look back when I’ve made a mistake
Prestwood contributed a number of other tunes to the set. ‘Almost Free’ is about a relationship on the brink:
Last night you pushed me a little too far
I was not coming back when I left in the car
There was a time, an hour or two
I was feeling so free – from you
I picked up a bottle and drove to the Heights
Parked on the ridge and I looked at the lights
The engine was off and the radio on
And the singer sang and I sang alongAnd I was almost free
There almost wasn’t any you-and-me
I was almost free
Whole new life ahead of me
Almost freeSunrise rising over the wheel
Bottle’s empty and so is the feel
This car knows it’s the wrong thing to do
But it’s driving me home – to you
Maybe I’m too much in love to be strong
Maybe you knew I’d be back all along
If I could be who you wanted, I would
If I could forget I’d be gone for good…
It’s just too hard to walk your line
Maybe baby I’ll cross it next time
American Faces was John Conlee’s ninth studio album, and second for Columbia. Released in February 1987, the album reached #16 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart, his last top twenty-five album, all of his previous albums having reached at least #22. Three singles were released from the album in “Domestic Life” (#4), “Mama’s Rockin’ Chair” (#11) and “Living Like There’s No Tomorrow” (#55). After “Mama’s Rockin’ Chair” no John Conlee single would ever again reach the top forty.
Although by this time Conlee had established himself as a major country artist with a long string of hits, the country music market was becoming increasingly youth-oriented and at forty-one years of age, Conlee didn’t fit the “handsome hunks and sweet young things” profile that Nashville was marketing at the time. Too bad, as the quality of Conlee’s recorded output remained high.
The album opens with “Domestic Life”, Conlee’s last top ten hit. That song, with its saxophone riffs and lyrics addressing typical Conlee concerns like everyday life and dreams, is a worthy addition to his canon of hits.
Cruising in my Station Wagon
Trying to keep my muffler from dragging
Sometimes it seems so defeating
As I’m hustling to make it to the Cub Scout meetingI dream about Mexico
Where all the pretty people go
But we’re on a budget that just won’t budge
Not much money but a whole lot of loveLiving that domestic life
Happy children and a pretty wife
Our Cocker Spaniel’s always having puppies
How could anybody be so lucky?
“Slow Passin’ Time” is a quiet ballad about the passage of time with a mildly Caribbean feel to the arrangement. The song would have made a good single, as evidenced by Anne Murray’s Top 40 success with the song a few years later
We both had our dreams when we left that sleepy little town behind
Things have gotten so mixed up, I tell you I’ve forgotten mine
It all had something to do with money and a better way of life
When that old alarm goes off it’s getting hard to open our eyesOh, but somewhere in my mem’ry the afternoon sun’s hangin’ in the trees
And the sun is comin’ up from the gulf coast on a sultry breeze
You and me, we’re together in a porch-swing state of mind
Lovin’ each other to the rhythm of slow-passin’ time
“Love Crazy Love” features some nice saxophone lines in the accompaniment
“American Faces” is one of those nostalgic songs that would have likely been a hit if released as a single after 9/11. The song is a medium slow ballad. “American Faces” might have seemed like a cynical flag-waver in the hands of a less capable vocalist, but Conlee sings it confidently and comfortably giving the song a finely nuanced performance.
Met a black man down in Memphis with lines on his face that looked like the Mississippi
He was the son of a slave, the father of a PhD
He’d squint his eyes at the new day sun, spit tobacco from a toothless gum
And say “Boys, it’s a good day to be free”American faces I have seen, American voices I have listened to
They’re a lot like me and you
They’re all red, white or blue
American faces I have seenSaw a veteran in a halfway house, a monkey on his back and the whole world on his shoulder
On his dresser was a medal and a picture of a long lost friend
He’d won a purple heart when he lost his mind but he’s kept his dreams since 69
That one day he’ll be coming home again
“Faded Brown Eyes” is a very slow ballad that I regard as filler. It is an okay song about a life of disappointment and a faded relationship.
“Mama’s Rockin’ Chair” is one in a long list of “mother songs” and stalled just shy of the Top Ten. It is deserved a better fate. It describes a trip many of us remember taking
When I think of my childhood days
Growing up in the small town USA
The fondest of my many memories
Is that a front porch rocking chairAnd all of us children gathered there
Waiting our turn to climb up on Mama’s knee
With her imagination
Around the world she’d take us
With the stories of the places she knew we’d never seeIn Mama’s rocking chair
She could a take us anywhere
To a tropical island
Or a snow covered mountain
Or a desert caravan
“It’s Not Easy Being Fifteen” is an interesting song about the difficulties in the passage of the teen years. The song is a slow ballad bears repeated listening.
“I Can Sail To China” is a slow ballad about a man experiencing a breakup. The catch line is ‘I can sail to China on the tears I’ve cried for you’. I like the song as an album cut.
I do not know why “Living Like There’s No Tomorrow (Finally Got to Me Tonight)” was chosen as the album’s third single as I regard it as one of the weaker songs on the album in terms of commercial appeal, as it just wasn’t what radio was playing at the time, although five or six years earlier (think Con Hunley) it would have fit in better. The arrangement is good (nice saxophone work), the song has a strong blues feel to it and Conlee sings it well. The song died at #55, a harbinger of things to come for Conlee.
The album closes with “Right Down To The Memories”, another nostalgic ballad, this one of a man looking back with great fondness at this life with his partner.
Time turns the ashes into diamonds
And then the diamonds into dust
But even time can’t steal the magic
That’s here between the two of us‘Cause I love you right down to the memories
And I need you right now in my arms
You’ll always be the greatest gift that God has ever given me
Right down to the memories
This album wasn’t Conlee’s strongest album, but John Conlee is always an effective singer and always treats his songs with respect. I would give this album a B+
Track List & Songwriters
Domestic Life (Martin/Harrison)
Slow Passin’ Time (Rocco / Burke / Black)
Love Crazy Love (Deborah Allen / Rafe Van Hoy)
American Faces (Nelson / Nelson / Boone)
Faded Brown Eyes (Reid / Martin)
Mama’s Rockin’ Chair (MacRae / Menzies)
It’s Not Easy Being Fifteen (Curtis)
I Can Sail To China (Grazier)
Living Like There’s No Tomorrow (McBride / Murrah)
Right Down To The Memories (Bogard / Giles)
When John Conlee released his eighth album, Harmony, in 1986, he was also making his transition from MCA to Columbia. Although he would only release two albums for the label, his hit-making streak continued.
Three singles were released from the album, including the mid-tempo title track, which hit #10. The other two came from prominent artists and had varying quality. Conlee’s seventh and final #1 came courtesy of Dobie Gray’s unspectacular “Got My Heart Set On You.” He much deserved to peak higher than #6 with Guy Clark’s “The Carpenter,” an excellent salute to an everyday working man:
Let us now praise the carpenter and the things that he made
And the way that he lived by the tools of the trade
I can still hear his hammer singing ten-penny time
Working by the hour till the day that he died
He was tough as a crowbar, he was quick as a chisel
Fair as a plane and true as a level
He was straight as a chalk line and right as a rule
He was square with the world he took good care of his tools
He worked his hands in wood from the crib to the coffin
With a care and a love that you don’t see too often
He built boats out of wood, big boats, he worked in a shipyard
Mansions on the hill and a birdhouse in the backyard
He said anything that’s worth cutting down a tree for
Is worth doing right don’t the lord love a two by four
If you asked him how to do something he said like Noah built the Arc
You’ve got to hold your mouth right son and never miss the mark
Piano and steel guitar is an effective backdrop for “Class Reunion,” about a man who finds his reunion notice between his stack of bills. The story is very relatable but the lyric could’ve been sharper. He continues in this territory on “Cars,” a love song between a guy and the “motors and wheels” that get him through life:
She was sittin’ on a car lot looking like a dream
Underneath a string of lights
A 49 model and I was sixteen
But I knew it was love at first sight
And the man said, son, I’ll make you a deal
And I knew I had to make her mine
I held my breath and slid behind the wheel
It was my very first time
Cars, just motors and wheels
Rubber and glass and steel
Still, I think back over the years
And it sounds strange, I suppose
But it’s cars I remember most
She was parked on the street by the First Baptist Church
As we ran down the steps hand in hand
My brand new Chevy waiting there at the curve
And we waved to the crowd and got in
Well, the miles went by and so did the years
And I thought that we were doing alright
Till she packed up the kids and picked up the keys
And just drove away one night
Well, the years have gone by and a lot of thing changed
I hardly see the kids any more
Took a new job and moved to LA
And bought me a two-seater Porsche
There’s lots of pretty girls out here and you know
I could be doing alright
But mostly at night I just drive up the cost
And look at the city lights
The album’s truest country moment comes courtesy of Bobby Braddock’s delightful “She Told Me So,” which seems like it was written for Keith Whitley. Also wonderful is “I’ll Be Seeing You,” which has a downbeat lyric about a guy kicking his woman to the curb set to a rather cheerful ear-catching melody.
“You’ve Got A Right” is pure filler but it is the album’s most uptempo song. Conlee takes us to Montego Bay, Jamaica on “For A Little While,” and while the setting may be tropical, the downbeat lyric is set to a very contemporary arrangement featuring steel guitars, not steel drums. He concludes the album with “The Day He Turns 65,” a portrait of a man who, on the brink of retirement, must figure out his new life.
Harmony is very much a contemporary country album with solid country production throughout. While there isn’t a truly terrible song to be found, some of the tracks are definitely stronger than others.
Grade: B
What was to be John Conlee’s last studio album for MCA, 1984’s Blue Highway saw him making some adjustments to his sound in the light of the pop-leaning music which was dominating comntry radio at the time.
The lead single, however, ‘Years After You’, was vintage Conlee – an emotional lost love ballad written by Thom Schuyler with strings and a lovely melody. The backing vocals have dated, but the song itself is gorgeous and Conlee’s vocals excellent; it did well on radio, just missing the top spot:
I don’t know if I can explain it
‘Cause there’s really nothing different at all
The sun still burns
And the earth still turns
And the winter still follows the fall
I knew that it wouldn’t be easy
For my heart to find somebody new
But I never thought it still would be broken in two
These years after youThey tell me time is a natural healer
It kinda smooths the pain away
But this hurting within hasn’t yet given in
And it’s been over two thousand days
I still remember the taste of your kisses
And your eyes that were beautifully blue
And I can still hear the sound of your voice
When you said we were through
These years after youYears after, years after you
I’m still cryin’
Tears after, years after you
I’m still tryin’ to make it through
These years after youThere’ve been mornings when I couldn’t wake up
There’ve been evenings when I couldn’t sleep
My life will be fine
For months at a time
Then I’ll break down and cry for a week
‘Cause when I told you I’d love you forever
I know you didn’t think it was true
But forever is nothing
Compared to some nights I’ve been through
These years after you
The next single, ‘Working Man’, peaked at #7. It is a well observed and sympathetic song about coping with everyday life and a difficult boss in a blue collar job. The title track served as the album’s third and last single, and was another top 20 hit. It is a melancholy ballad about having to work away from home and his loved one, with a slightly more AC vibe.
A possible missed opportunity arose with the memorable ‘Radio Lover’, an ironic and dramatic story song about a radio DJ who ends up killing his cheating wife and her lover. Written by Curly Putman, Ron Hellard, and Bucky Jones, it had been recorded by George Jones the previous year; neither man released it as a single at this time, but Jones re-released it in 1989. Few singers can compete with George Jones, and Conlee (although a great vocalist in his own right) is no exception, so the Jones version is obviously better, but it is still an excellent record with Conlee bringing the story to life.
The best of the other tracks (despite intrusive production) is Bobby Braddock’s tender portrait of elderly couple ‘Arthur And Alice’:
Poor Arthur, he’s got a bad heart and she’s nearly blind
At least that’s what doctors say
But his heart’s full of love and she reads his mind
Arthur and Alice, Arthur and Alice are doin’ OK
These are by far the best tracks and the ones worth hunting down.
Although it doesn’t sound very country with the steel pan drum accompaniment, ‘De Island’ is quite interesting lyrically – a story song about a man who starts a new life in the Caribbean with, it emerges, money stolen from his business.
‘Down To Me’ is a pretty loungy AC ballad with a rather busily orchestrated arrangement including saxophone. ‘A Little Bit Of Lovin’’ is quite a nice mid-tempo song, with more (and more intrusive) brass. ‘But She Love Me’ pays tribute to a wife and mother who has sacrificed her own dreams for her man, but is a little dull. Even more dreary musically is the closing ‘Is There Anything I Can Do’.
The album is not widely available at present. Beware: the title has been used for a compilation which is on CD and iTunes but with only a few songs from the original album release.
Grade: B-
My Kind of Country 