Today is Conway's birthday. He was born September 1, 1933 as Harold Lloyd Jenkins in Friars Point, Mississippi. He passed away suddenly on June 5, 1993 at the age of 59. I touched upon this in my previous blog entry back on June 5th. I haven't been updating the Conway blog too much because I crammed so much information about him in my earlier blog posts that it's difficult to come up with something new to write about. I've touched on his hits, his awards, and the critic reviews.
The album/cassette, Mr T, is a 1981 release on MCA Records. At the time it was his final album for the label. While the final single from that album was climbing the charts in late 1981/early 1982, Conway had departed MCA for the much smaller label, Elektra/Asylum. Conway's first single for this label, "The Clown", was released within weeks of his previous single on MCA, "Red Neckin' Love Makin' Night", which had reached #1 in early 1982. In addition to that #1 single, the album boasted "Tight Fittin' Jeans", which became a long-standing concert favorite and a #1 hit. It wasn't until 1994 that I learned that Conway's widow, Dee Henry, hated "Tight Fittin' Jeans". No matter...it was a huge hit for Conway and his audience loved it, as did country radio.
Interestingly after Conway left MCA they released two more singles off of the album. "Over Thirty But Not Over the Hill" made the charts in 1982, peaking in the Top-70 while "We Had It All" almost made the Top-40 in 1983. In fact, "We Had It All" was considered to be such a strong performance that it appears on the career retrospective box set, The Conway Twitty Collection, one of the few album songs to make the line-up. A fifth song from the album, a song that could have been a single, "Slow Lovemakin", appeared on a 1985 compilation called The Best of Conway Twitty.
Chasin' Rainbows is a 1985 release on the Warner Brothers label. It's one of the most under-rated and under-appreciated albums during this era of his career. Earlier in the year he had celebrated "Don't Call Him a Cowboy" becoming the 50th single of his career to achieve a #1 position. He followed it with the Top-5 single, "Between Her Blue Eyes and Jeans"...everything appeared to be going smoothly and then this album comes along. Chasin' Rainbows is it's title. The album consists of 10 exquisite songs...but there was something happening at country radio. Some say that the album being released in late 1985 and having it on the market through the latter part of 1985 and into 1986 hurt it's potential because this was the era that Randy Travis was becoming a super-star, and then on top of this you had George Strait cementing his popularity along with Reba McEntire rocketing into super-stardom, Ricky Skaggs blending country and bluegrass, and the country group Alabama. Even some of the more well-established acts like Hank Williams Jr, Ronnie Milsap, and Willie Nelson were continually grabbing onto a younger audience. The 1985-1987 time period was a pivotal time in country music...paving the way for the complete destruction and reconstruction of the format in the early 1990's where only a few survived.
And so, what was on Chasin' Rainbows you might be asking? There were 10 songs...two of them were issued as singles and both of them didn't do too well on country radio by comparison with a good majority of his singles up to this time. "The Legend and the Man" is a nice ballad and it reached the Top-20 in the late winter of 1985. He followed this in early 1986 with another ballad, this time a typical love song, "You'll Never Know How Much I Needed You Today". This song peaked in the Top-30. Due to the songs performing well under expectations you can see why the album is obscure and overlooked. The other songs convey a down-home feeling...some spiritual sing-a-longs. In hindsight, "She Did", should have been released as a single. It sounds like a Conway Twitty song...like something radio and music buyers are more familiar with from Conway. This album contains "Lay Me Down Carolina", a bouncy sing-a-long, and one of my favorites. Track number two, "All I Can Be Is a Sweet Memory", features a repetitive title throughout. It became a hit several years later for Collin Raye.
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