Conway Twitty: Media Timeline, Part Four

In this fourth installment of the media time-line in Conway Twitty's career I came across a small sampling of a June 1986 article taking pot-shots at the country music theme parks in existence at the time. Opryland, of course, and the brand new theme park, DollyWood, as well as the House of Cash. Obviously, the inclusion of Twitty-City in the discussion is what prompted me to create this blog entry.

"...If you're going to be a theme park in Nashville," says park flack Tom Adkinson, "you'd better be about music." But not just country music: Opryland's 120 acres embrace doo-wop and Duke Ellington in as many as a dozen simultaneous stage shows. Then it's 20 miles northeast to Hendersonville and a stop at Twitty City, the monument Country Star Conway Twitty has built to himself, including a guided tour conducted by a giant mechanical Twitty Bird. (Just down the road is Johnny Cash's House of Cash..."

I highlighted the area that reeks of ignorance on the part of the author of the article. The author apparently doesn't care about the truth or didn't do much research on the subject. Conway never built the theme park for himself...I happen to believe what Conway said back in 1982 and all the years afterward. That Twitty-City was built for the fans. In various interviews throughout the '80s and into the early '90s he always was citing the fans for all of his success and that he had Twitty-City built as a thank you gift for fans to stop by and take in all of the success they helped him achieve. Also, he knew that the fans loved the chance of being up close, or is close proximity, to their favorite singer and that's why he lived there, on the grounds...along with his children and his mother.

Now, obviously, that little article from 1986 didn't do any harm because the park remained in business on into 1994 before it was ordered shut down by the courts during the infamous estate battle. Anyway, I singled out the 23 year old article because it shows how ignorant people are when they write-up country music. The author writes from a slanted view point, filling the commentary with the most cliché driven rubbish imaginable. The commentary goes longer than what I quoted but I wanted to pin-point the Conway reference. The longer commentary is filled with other ignorant opinions.

The by-standers, or, non-country music fans, I feel have no right to deliver their opinion if they don't know what they're talking about. I mean, at least get some facts before writing a story or making accusations.

Because the comment wasn't based on facts and it was based on the writer's opinion, Conway is made out to be a gigantic egomaniac who built a palace devoted to himself for the pure sake of basking in his own success. That's what the author was hinting at even if they didn't come right out and say it...and the truth is, Conway built the complex as a treat for his fans and a place the country music fan in general could go to and learn about his career...but there are other things in the area besides Conway's park.

Just in case anyone out there may wonder "but didn't Conway make a ton of money from this theme park?".

Yeah...but big deal if he turned a profit and sold merchandise to fans in the gift shop?

I sometimes come across blog sites and message boards that make Conway and his people out to be bad guys because they ran a gift shop within the park, like it's some sort of crime. I suppose in a critic's view everything should be free and entertainers should have no capitalistic influence? When you think about it the entire music industry thrives on revenue from music buyers. Record companies want a profit for the money they put into marketing a singer. Advertisers want a profit from radio stations. Songs that "aren't commercial enough" don't become hits. It doesn't mean a song isn't any good...it simply means it lacks the qualifications of turning a profit. I assume a lot of people have heard of this before? It's capitalism.

But to all the belly-aching people out there today: America is a capitalist society and when did "turning a profit" or "making a buck" become such terrible phrases and looked upon with scorn!?

Music Village USA was the umbrella name for the area that featured Conway's place, along with a museum dedicated to Bill Monroe, plus destinations to museum's centering on the life and times of Ferlin Huskey as well as Marty Robbins. All of it was in Hendersonville, Tennessee and was part of the Opryland tour in nearby Nashville. I look back to those days and wish I could have experienced it.

Tennessee being so many miles away from where I live, I never went to Twitty-City in person but I've seen video footage of the place and I've seen pictures that had been taken from the inside and it was an incredible sight...and that's just the opinion of one that never went there in person...I feel I'd have even higher praise had I gone there in person. It seems funny, though, how polarizing Conway tended to be among the critics. One critic could be absolutely savage and blood thirsty while another critic was championing the style of songs Conway preferred to write and sing while writing glowing reviews of Twitty-City and then another critic could write about how puzzled he is that Conway's concerts defy common sense. It was always this back and fourth relationship.

I find it ironic, though, that in June 1986, the very same month and year that the commentary that I quoted was written, that very same month and year, we have a write-up in another publication on a more positive note revealing that Twitty-City drew an estimated 750,000 visitors during the summer of 1985 and that they predicted the tourist attendance would be in that same level for 1986 as well. There was another positive review of the theme park from August of 1986...it came from the Spokesman-Review...and the author of the glowing salute was Bob Garfield. Yes...that is the kind of commentary that is preferred. Plus, you don't get any cynical and anti-Capitalistic vibes while reading it, neither. Bravo write-up! It was in August of 1986 that Conway hit #1 for the 40th and final time on Billboard's country chart...with a song called "Desperado Love". When tallying up the #1 songs from other charts, this was his 51st single to reach a #1 position. His 50th #1 was "Don't Call Him a Cowboy" in the summer of 1985.

Conway Twitty Birthday

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.