GROW BIGGER EARS #6: The "Audio Autopsy" Suburban Cowboy Playlist: Wang Dang Sweet Tune Twang🎸

Where the Front Row & Backstage F-150 pulls out of the driveway, weekend-roadtrips to the country, and mounts a tractor on a farm just outside of town...with, of course, the appropriate tuneage!🚜

I was born and raised in Texas, but I didn’t manage to acquire the requisite love of country music native folks seem to have (or a penchant for chawin’ tobbakky, or an F150 anything).

But, my mom managed a very pop-leaning country-western singer from the 1970s through the early-’90s, so I enjoyed following his rise up the country charts from my little corner of the rock-centric record biz.

So, we’ll hear from Dale McBride in the Playlist, for, if nothing else, a Mom shout-out!

In short, I found a lot of the Urban Cowboy (film, soundtrack, and trend) pop-country artists and songs quite palatable, and even discovered some new favorites!

Getting an armload full of promo albums from Dad once a week from the late ‘60s thru the mid-’70s (and getting my own for nearly a decade after that in radio, etc) allowed me to find some casual faves, also, I’d otherwise not have had a chance to hear. What…I’m gonna have KIKK-AM as a pre-set on my car radio in the ‘70s?

So, I’ll share some of those favorites here…just don’t ask me to line dance! Feel free to share your country faves through the years, too, whether they were keepers to the point of buying their records, or just ones you grew to love when they came on your pop radio station, or passing by a country station while driving!

1. Terry McBride “Corpus Christi Wind,” 2020

Terry McBride rocks Vegas in a recent show. Terry used to play guitar and tour in his dad’s band in the ‘80s. 📸Ethan Miller/ACMA

As a heartfelt nod to his dad, Dale McBride, and one of his earliest self-penned country hits, Terry (who just turned 64) recorded this very true-to-Dad arrangement of “Corpus Christi Wind” (even hitting the “money note” on the nose with no trouble, just like Dad!). The song appears on Terry’s 2020 album, Rebels & Angels.

Dale got to #70 on the Billboard country charts with his self-produced recording on the tiny Thunderbird label (that he helped to found) in 1971. Dale died at 55 of a brain tumor in 1992.

Terry, like his father, hales from Lampasas, TX, a little berg of 7,000 just an hour-and-a-quarter NNW of Austin. McBride the younger found success on his own in Nashville, forming and having hits with McBride & the Ride from 1989-1994 (on MCA Records), and again, 2000-2002.

After McBride & the Ride disbanded in 1994, Terry found work as a songwriter, with Brooks & Dunn recording more than twenty of his songs! This includes the #1 hits “If You See Him/If You See Her” (recorded with Reba McEntire), and “Play Something Country.”

For his many successes as a songwriter, Terry has taken home 12 awards from BMI.

2. Dale McBride “A Sweet Love Song the World Can Sing,” 1978, Con Brio Records

Written by Dave Woodward and Dale’s young label-mate, Don King, “A Sweet Love Song the World Can Sing” is just the kind of breezy, sing-along tune I was sure would be perfect for pop crossover. I kept hounding Mom to get Dale heard and signed by a major label (RCA, Columbia, MCA), but with Dale leading the Con-Brio pack, label founder/owner, Bill Walker wasn’t about to let his kingpin jump ship.

Working at a Houston record store in the late ‘70s when this was released, I had weekly access to Billboard magazine, and would enjoy checking the country chart to see where Dale’s latest single was! Even more fun was taking the phone calls from Mom to find out where Dale’s single would be in the coming week, info she’d have access to from the Con-Brio chief, Walker.

Dale’s 1977 “The Ordinary Man Album,” released on Con Brio Records, the Nashville-based label owned by Bill Walker, longtime music director for the Johnny Cash ‘60s- era TV specials. Dale was an extremely genial gentleman, who could’ve easily slotted into the crossover pop-country lane inhabited by the likes of Glen Campbell, Eddie Rabbitt, and even John Denver.

3. Carlene Carter “Between You and Me,” 1978, Warner Bros. Records

Photographed recently back in Nashville after a couple decades in L.A., Carlene relaxes in a Native American-inspired dress. For Carlene, the draw of coming back to Nashville was to be close to her grandchildren and watching them grow up. Today Carter has a band, performs in a trio and sings in a duo. She told AmericanaHighways.org she likes to roam around East Nashville, hang out at Dave’s Cocktail Country Lounge and head over to Honky Tonk Tuesdays at the Veterans Hall Post 82. “I’m just having a real good time,” she adds. “I really am. Old Carlene’s back in town!”📸AmericanaHighways.org

Staying in the same year as Dale’s contribution comes this song by the daughter of June Carter Cash and her first husband, Carl Smith: Carlene Carter, which makes her Johnny Cash’s stepdaughter.

Easily a “gateway” artist to get into some country for a rocker (as I did upon its release), “Between You and Me” was written by Graham Parker, whose The Rumour backing band plays here (so does Nick Lowe on bass and backing vocals).

Going one further, they recorded her debut, self-titled album (on which this track is placed third) in London…not Nashville! In fact, veteran pub-rockers and known Rumour-mongers, Brinsley Schwarz and Bob Andrews (with Martyn Smith), produced.

Under the “Country Connection” Category (and Playlist Segue Dept.), this photo:

From June 7, 2019, Carlene (r) is photographed at the Nashville Palace with country music legend, Jan Howard (l), who was on Con Brio Records with Dale McBride in the 1970s! (roll your cursor over the photo for Carlene’s caption!)📸Vicki Langdon

Tammy Wynette “‘Til I Can Make it on My Own,” 1976, Epic/CBS Records

From one legendary country family to another, “‘Til I Can Make it on My Own” comes from Tammy Wynette’s March 8, 1976 album of the same name, her fifteenth for Epic. Released as a single in January, preceding the album, the song topped the U.S. country charts (as it did in Canada), as 14 of her previous singles had done.

On air as an FM rock DJ at the time, I nevertheless got the single and album from the CBS Records regional Houston-area rep. I was surprised at just how quickly the song grew on me, probably due to its lacking any overt, hallmark “country music” sounds, like banjo, fiddle, foot-stompin’ or cows mooing.

Of course, a good song and a great singer can heal a lot of wounds, and win a lot of ears. To that end, I’m surprised that it only made it to #84 on the Billboard pop chart, while hitting just #41 on the AC (Adult Contemporary) chart, again a surprise.

The album in question, in its white-label promo edition, the kind that was routinely serviced to radio personnel and record industry types. Note the standard CBS Records timing/banding strip that adorned each promo album’s jacket. That sticker, the record’s white label (instead of the customary red CBS label, or orange Epic “street edition” labels), plus an occasional gold-stamped “PROMOTIONAL NOT FOR SALE” imprint on the back, all kept promos from being sold at retail. But, oh, the secondary market amongst collectors!

Wynette had noted on multiple occasions that this song was her personal favorite of all that she had written or recorded (according to her Wiki page), and it would remain a staple of her concerts for the remainder of her career.

Tammy wrote the song with George Richey (who became Tammy’s husband and manager two years later), and Billy Sherrill, Tammy and George Jones’ longtime songwriter and producer (Sherrill produced this song).

Another easy on-ramp to country was the overtly pop-forward “country singer,” Billy Gilman, whose career I enjoyed following around the turn of the century. He covered “‘Til I Can Make it on My Own” on his debut album in 2000; here he is, at 12, impressively belting it out in front of the discerning crowd at the Grand Ole Opry:

Ronnie Milsap “Smoky Mountain Rain,” 1980, RCA Records

Milsap’s one of my favorite takeaways from the late-’70s “Urban Cowboy” craze that saw country artists travel en masse from Nashville and the country charts to the suburbs and the pop charts. Somehow cementing Milsap’s and/or the song’s crossover standing, no less an august rock rag as Rolling Stone, in 2014, ranked “Smoky Mountain Rain” #96 on their list of the 100 greatest country songs.

The song was Milsap’s 16th number one hit on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart. This was the first of his two number one hits on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart (the other being “Any Day Now”), and did well at #24 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.

Since about 1980, when “Smoky Mountain Rain” was released, I’ve called Milsap “the Barry Manilow of country.” Like Barry, Milsap is a piano player first, his records were well-produced, and the arrangements were creative and never lacking in production values like swirling strings, stirring background vocals and harmonies, and the trademark Manilow modulations! Producing the song was Milsap and veteran producer, Tom Collins.

All of that is present in this song, composed by veteran Nashvillians Kye Fleming and Dennis Morgan. Having played piano and sung on Elvis Presley’s “Kentucky Rain” sessions in February 1969 (the song wasn’t released until nearly a year later), Milsap recalled those Memphis sessions to Fleming and Morgan when they asked what kind of song he’d like. “Something that reminds me of the Smoky Mountains where I grew up,” replied the six-time Grammy winner.

Remembering Elvis kept reminding Milsap before takes to “give me more thunder, Ronnie,” the string arrangement, keyboard glissando, and what sounds like a literal hammer striking that thunderous piano string in the chorus raise a great song into a wondrous listening experience.