Mr T

Conway Twitty's 1981 album is called Mr T and it is one of Conway's nicknames thought up by his fans. The album featured two number one singles and a couple of other chart singles that MCA released later on.

This album at the time of it's release was speculated to be Conway's last with MCA, the label he had called home since 1965. In Conway's schedule in 1981 was the ground-breaking of a country music park that at the time was un-named but in time it would be called Twitty City. The first single to be released from this album was the instant Conway classic "Tight Fittin' Jeans", which is a song about tight fittin' jeans...it blends the urban cowboy atmosphere of a couple at a bar with a typical love song approach. Conway puts himself in the song...further adding to his appeal with female country music listeners. The single did create a minor controversy, though...the idea of a song being specifically about women in tight pants and the lust it created for the men looking at them had some critics riled up.

Like in the past involving other Conway songs, the controversies surrounding this particular song didn't affect the single's popularity, either. "Tight Fittin' Jeans" became one of Conway's signature songs, sung in nearly every concert from 1981 onward.

The album cover of Mr T shown Conway on a golf course with classic-era green car. I don't necessarily think it was golf balls on the ground on the album cover...these were multi-colored and way bigger than golfballs...but Conway had a golf club slid under his arm, pulling on his gloves.

After the smash success of "Tight Fittin' Jeans", MCA released a second single from the album in late 1981. The single, "Red Neckin' Love Makin' Night", is a party song. The title itself created minor complaints...not only did it contain the phrase "red neck" but it also contained "love makin" as well. I'm not kidding you, either...back in 1981 country music critics seemed embarrassed or awkward whenever love or lust was explicit in a country recording.

Nevertheless, the single continued to climb the country charts in late 1981 and it hit #1 in early 1982. Conway made an appearance on Barbara Mandrell's TV show around this same time and the producers didn't want him to perform the song because "red neck" may come across offensive to rural America. In his own kind of way Conway let them know that if he wasn't allowed to perform his current single then he wouldn't appear on the show. This was not the first or last time that Conway stood up for his choice of material...other artists may have gave in and changed song choices in exchange for the exposure a TV show would give but Conway wasn't like that. One of his nick-names, besides Mr T, is The Best Friend a Song Ever Had. This name has a couple of meanings...but mostly it refers to the way Conway treated songs and songwriters. He fought hard for the songs he recorded...feeling that country audiences are mature and adult enough to accept intimate love songs and he felt that love songs can be mature in nature without ever veering into sleazy or trashy lyrics. Simply put, he championed songs and their writers.

So, the TV producers of Mandrell's show gave in and let Conway sing "Red Neckin' Love Makin' Night" on national TV. After the success of this song and a couple of duets with Loretta Lynn in late 1981/early 1982, Conway did in fact leave MCA for the smaller Elektra/Asylum label, which was merged with Warner Brothers in 1983. MCA, in the meantime, released a compilation in 1982 on Conway called Number Ones which featured a few singles that came short of #1 but were still big Top-10 hits. MCA, also, issued a single on Conway in 1982 called "Over Thirty But Not Over the Hill", which is contained on Mr T. The single, an un-official release, made the charts and peaked in the Top-70. In 1983 MCA was at it again...they released an un-official single called "We Had It All", which is also found on the 1981 album. This un-official single, however, did a decent chart-run, peaking in the Top-45...it's airplay was in competition with his official single at Elektra/Asylum, "The Rose". MCA also released another compilation album on Conway, this one called Classic Conway featuring a familiar performance pose on the album's cover. This compilation featured the 1982 and 1983 singles that MCA issued on Conway from the 1981 Mr T album.

This album has never been issued on CD under it's official name and probably never will since we're in the MP3 era where songs can be bought and downloaded onto Ipod's and computers from the comfort of your own home or workplace, putting aside the trip to the shopping mall for the latest music. The album did get a CD release in the mid 1990's under the name of Red Neckin' Love Makin' Night but that CD wasn't promoted/distributed heavily and little know about it. Amazon has that CD as a digital album, available for purchase.

Here are the ten tracks on this album:

1. Cheatin' Fire
2. I Made You a Woman
3. Slow Lovemakin'
4. We Had It All
5. Red Neckin' Love Makin' Night
6. Tight Fittin' Jeans
7. Over Thirty But Not Over the Hill
8. Hearts
9. I'm Already Taken
10. Love Salvation

Track #9 was co-written by Steve Wariner who recorded and released the song himself in the late 1990's and it was a big hit for him. Track #3 appeared on a 1985 compilation called The Best of Conway Twitty released by MCA even though it wasn't a single. It also contained a 1979 recording, "Heavy Tears", and a 1978 recording, "That's All She Wrote" among it's eight tracks.