Conway has always been one of my favorite country singers. Unfortunately I was a kid during his biggest years and he passed away in June 1993 when I was 16...so I was never in any position to buy his albums or go to his concerts. I started finding out all I could about him in the years after his death...writing letters to people in Nashville and Hendersonville, etc etc. This was a pre-Internet time for me and so I literally wrote letters and mailed them out. Once I got a job I started to buy whatever I could that was available in the stores. I also bought things through the mail, 45 singles and vinyl albums that just weren't carried in shopping stores anymore, plus a poster advertising Conway's 1983 holiday album. When I got onto the internet I added to my Conway collection even more through eBay.
Warner Brothers released "The Legend and the Man" as a single. It is from his late 1985 album called Chasin' Rainbows that unfortunately went under-rated. When I learned that this single peaked in the Top-20 and it's follow-up, "You'll Never Know How Much I Needed You Today" peaked in the Top-30, I was a bit curious as to why because his previous two singles in 1985 both hit the Top-10, one going all the way to #1. Also, his follow-up singles in 1986 were both #1 hits so it's always been a mystery why these two particular singles didn't fare any better as the singles before and after them did. Here's a list in chronological order of his singles beginning with 1985 through 1987 to give you an illustration of what I'm talking about:
Ain't She Somethin' Else; 1985 #1
Don't Call Him a Cowboy; 1985 #1
Between Her Blue Eyes and Jeans; 1985 #3
The Legend and the Man; 1985 #18 Cashbox
You'll Never Know How Much I Needed You Today; 1986 #26
Desperado Love; 1986 #1
Fallin' For You For Years; 1987 #1 Radio and Records
Julia; 1987 #1 Radio and Records
I Want To Know You Before We Make Love; 1987 #2
Perhaps the timing wasn't right when Warner Brothers issued "The Legend and the Man" and it's follow-up? It's baffling how an artist can hit the Top-10 with amazing consistency but then release back-to-back lower charting singles but then hit the Top-10 with another stretch of singles. I've often bought vintage issues of Music City News...sometimes purposely buying copies from the late 1985/early 1986 time period to see for myself what was happening to cause that sort of a disruption in his Top-10 out put. After "Fallin' For You For Years" hit the top in 1987 he left Warner Brothers and returned to MCA, the label he departed from in late 1981.
The album Chasin' Rainbows was a Top-30 hit, which is even more ironic because the 1986 album, Fallin' For You For Years charted lower but contained two #1 singles. Oh well...some speculate that country radio deliberately under-played "The Legend and the Man" as well as "You'll Never Know How Much I Needed You Today". I have no way of knowing...had I been older back in 1985/1986 I probably would have a better answer.
Here's a look at the album's track list:
1. The Legend and the Man
2. All I Can Be Is a Sweet Memory
3. Keep On Chasin' Rainbows
4. True, True Love Never Dies
5. What's a Memory Like You Doing In a Love Like This
6. You'll Never Know How Much I Needed You Today
7. Lay Me Down Carolina
8. She Did
9. I'm the Man in the Song
10. Baby I'm a Want You
The choice of songs was a departure from his earlier 1985 album Don't Call Him a Cowboy but each song on here is performed well. You get the sense that he put everything into this Chasin' Rainbows album...but he puts everything into all of his albums...
Two of the songs from this album would become hits for other artists. Collin Raye came along in the early 1990's with his take on "All I Can Be Is a Sweet Memory". Actor-singer John Schneider had a hit with "What's a Memory Like You Doing in a Love Like This". The album also contains Conway's version of a former pop hit. "Baby I'm a Want You" was a pop hit for a group known as Bread. It's easy to give analysis after the fact, of course. 23 years after this album was released I will say that Warner Brothers and Conway were correct in releasing "The Legend and the Man". It's a wonderful song...whether it's commercial enough or not.
I would not have released "You'll Never Know How Much I Needed You Today" as a single. I like the song and it's 'classic Conway' all the way, right up to the narration at the beginning "Have a seat...I reached for you at dawn..." but in hind-sight I would have released "She Did" as a possible single. It carries a traditional heartbreak theme plus it also could have caused listeners to be reminded of Conway's 1982 #1 "We Really Did But Now You Don't" with all of the "did" words sprinkled throughout both songs and given the familiarity, "She Did" could have hit the Top-10 easily. "I'm the Man in the Song" is what i'd call Conway's favorite on the album. I say that because throughout his career he often used to say that he sang songs that said things women wanted to hear but men were unable to say. This song paints the picture that a couple is listening to a song and the man is telling the woman he's with to listen to the words the singer sings because it's telling her what he's wanting to say.
Chasin' Rainbows has it's share of ballads and up-tempo songs but several of the ballads are rather lengthy which makes the entire album come across ballad heavy even though the song sequences bounce from ballad to up-tempo throughout...especially "Keep On Chasin' Rainbows", "Baby I'm a Want You", and the over 4 minute long "The Legend and the Man". To be fair, "All I Can Be is a Sweet Memory" is also lengthy...but it's a sing-a-long, instead of a ballad, and it includes back-up harmony from Vince Gill. So, this album's lengthy ballads make the album come across as ballad heavy. For those curious...earlier I mentioned how this album was vastly different in material from his earlier 1985 album. Here are the songs from Don't Call Him a Cowboy...
1. Don't Call Him a Cowboy
2. Somebody Lied
3. Between Her Blue Eyes and Jeans
4. The Note
5. Whichever One Comes First
6. Everyone Has Someone They Can't Forget
7. Those Eyes
8. Except For You
9. Green Eyes Cryin' Those Blue Tears
10. Take It Like a Man
"Somebody Lied" became a major hit for Ricky Van Shelton and "The Note" became a hit in the late 1990's for Darryl Singletary. The only song that departs from the traditional love song theme is "Take It Like a Man", the album closer, which is a story about a man who is confronting the concept of a woman leaving him but fights with himself over his father's advice to take things like a man and hide his tears and feelings.
On the Chasin' Rainbows album were heard Conway sing several non-traditional love songs: "Lay Me Down Carolina", a sing-a-long that carries a religious/inspirational over-tone and it features The Whites as background vocalists. "The Legend and the Man" is the other obvious non-traditional love song on the album. "Keep On Chasin' Rainbows" is an inner-strength song carrying subtle touches of a love song. That's probably confusing but what I mean is, the song doesn't become a love song until near the end with a twist of the lyrics.
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