Every weekday afternoon at 3pm I will use our immensely powerful yet frightingly rickety time travel technology buried deep within the hills of the Geysers north of Healdsburg to travel back to an earlier year of country music.
If you're thinking to yourself, "Gee Splash, I'd like to submit a song for the Splashback."
Well, damn howdy, you can!
Send me an E-Mail with your name, phone number, song suggestion and artist and you'll have a chance to introduce your very own Splashback!
AUGUST 15, 2008
Juice Newton (born Judy Kay Cohen18 February1952 in Lakehurst, New Jersey) is a Grammy Award-winning American pop music and country singer and guitarist. To date, Newton has received a total of five Grammy nominations in the Pop and Country Best Female Vocalist categories (winning once in 1983), as well as a CMA Award for Best New Female Artist and two Billboard Album Artist of the Year awards (won consecutively). She has several Gold and Platinum records to her credit, including Juice, Quiet Lies and her first Greatest Hits album. In the 1980s, Newton charted 14 top-ten hits across the Billboard US Country, US AC, and the US Hot 100, with many of the recordings achieving crossover success.
Early career
In the early 1970s, Juice Newton, Otha Young and Tom Kealey formed a band called Juice Newton and Silver Spur that, due to local success, was signed to RCA Records. The group released two RCA albums (in 1975 and 1976) and scored only one charting country single with "Love Is a Word". The band signed with Capitol in 1977, but disbanded shortly after releasing one album for the label. In 1978, Newton went solo (but remained with Capitol Records), although Silver Spur would remain the name of her backup band until 1982. Later in 1977, the one-off single "It's a Heartache" became Newton's first solo record and a major hit in Mexico, where it eventually went Gold. In 1978, Newton released the song in the United States, and it became the first of her 11 "Hot 100" pop hits. Also, in 1978, The Carpenters recorded the Newton-penned song "Sweet, Sweet Smile"; the single, which was co-written by Otha Young, reached #7 on both the Country and Adult Contemporary charts and #44 on the pop chart.
Newton's solo debut album, Well Kept Secret, was released later in 1978. The album saw Newton cultivating a rock sound, and it stands as Newton's most rock-oriented record, to date. Unfortunately, neither the record nor its single ("Hey Baby") charted, though Capitol Records proceeded to renew Newton's contract. Capitol's investment in Newton began to pay off in 1979, when Newton had her first country top-40 hit with "Let's Keep It That Way" (another one-off single). Later that year, the album Take Heart featured five modestly charting singles: "Until Tonight", "Any Way That You Want Me", "You Fill My Life", "Lay Back In The Arms of Someone" and "Sunshine". The latter became Newton's second top-40 single on the country charts (in 1980), with "You Fill My Life" reaching #41 and "Until Tonight" reaching #42. Both of Newton's initial solo efforts performed with modest success but failed to have a lasting impact on the album charts.
Early '80s pop music success
In 1981, Newton's third solo album, simply titled Juice, was released. It spawned her biggest country hits up to that point, each crossing over into the pop Top 10: "Angel of the Morning" (written by Chip Taylor and originally recorded by Merrilee Rush and The Turnabouts in 1968), "Queen of Hearts", and an updated version of "The Sweetest Thing (I've Ever Known)" (the original version appeared on the 1975 Silver Spur debut album), which earned her the first of several country #1 hits. A fourth top-40 country hit, "Ride 'Em Cowboy", was culled from Juice in 1984 to support Newton's first Greatest Hits album.
Juice sold more than a million copies in the United States and an excess of 300,000 copies in Canada. "Angel of the Morning" and "The Sweetest Thing (I've Ever Known)" also reached #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, where Newton would chart regularly until the release of her 1985 album "Old Flame", her first album targeted solely at the country market. In 1982, Newton received two Grammy nominations for Best Female Vocalist: one for "Angel of the Morning" in the Pop category, and another for "Queen of Hearts" in the Country category. These two singles became her biggest sellers in the United States, both earning RIAA Gold certifications. (Note: in 1981 and 1982, when these singles were certified, the RIAA standard for Gold singles was 1 million units sold. In 1989, RIAA lowered the standard to 500,000 for Gold single certifications.) The songs were also sizable hits in Australia, Germany, Holland and other countries.
Later in 1982, Newton released her fourth solo album Quiet Lies, which went Gold in the United States by year's end for sales of more than half a million copies and going Platinum in Canada (100,000 copies). From Quiet Lies came the top-10 pop hit "Love's Been A Little Bit Hard On Me" (which garnered her another Pop Female Vocalist Grammy nomination). "Break It To Me Gently" was the second single from the 1982 album, and it hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, #2 on the Billboard country charts, and #11 on the Hot 100. The recording, a contemporary remake of a Brenda Lee hit from the '60s, won Newton a Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, beating out contemporaries Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Rosanne Cash. The third and final single from the album was "Heart of the Night", which, in early 1983, hit #4 on the Adult Contemporary chart (making it her sixth consecutive Top-10 hit on that chart) and climbed to #25 on the Hot 100. The album also garnered Newton an award from Australia as the "Top International Country Artist" for the continent.
The direction for Newton's sixth (and final) Capitol album, 1983's Dirty Looks was decidedly more rock and experimental than her usual blending of folk, pop and country styles. The album spawned a #27 pop/#14 AC hit with "Tell Her No" (originally a hit for the Zombies in 1965) and the title track, a rock number that charted low in the Hot 100. The country-oriented single "Stranger at My Door" had a brief stay on the country charts, but failed to sustain Newton's popularity with country radio. The album was a moderate success, selling in excess of 250,000 copies in the United States and going Gold in Canada (50,000 copies). (The song "Dirty Looks" was written by Dave Robbins and Van Stephenson, who would later become part of the country group Blackhawk in the '90s. The pair also wrote Newton's '84 country single "Restless Heart.")
According to a 1984 front-page article in Billboard magazine, changes at Capitol led Newton to return to RCA. The 1984 album "Can't Wait All Night" continued with a rock-oriented sound. The launch single "A Little Love" and the title track became her final charting pop singles to date, reaching #44 and #66, respectively; while "Restless Heart" made it to only #57 on the Country chart. "A Little Love" became Newton's seventh and final Top-10 Billboard Adult Contemporary single to date, hitting the #7 spot
Career evolution: from pop to country
In 1985, Newton's country-music career would be revitalized with the release of her most commercially successful country album, Old Flame, which reached #12 on the Billboard chart and featured six Top-10 country hits including the #1s "You Make Me Want to Make You Mine", "Hurt" and "Both to Each Other (Friends and Lovers)" with Eddie Rabbitt. The duet, released to the public prior to the pop version "Friends and Lovers" (which hit radio and stores two weeks after Newton and Rabbitt's version first appeared, even though it was recorded first) by Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson, was available only on special editions of the Old Flame album and on the Eddie Rabbitt album Rabbitt Traxx.
Newton continued her Country Top-10 hit streak the following year with "Tell Me True" from her 1987 album Emotion, while the album's lead single, the progressive country tune "First Time Caller", stalled at #24.
Newton's final album of the decade Ain't Gonna Cry (1989) was not promoted by the label and didn't chart, but it did spawn her final Top-40 country hit to date, "When Love Comes Around The Bend," which was never released as a single to stores.
Highlights: 1990s to today
In 1994, Newton contributed a track called "Lovers Of One Day" to the Edith Piaf tribute album, which also included songs by Pat Benatar and Donna Summer.
In 1995, she recorded a double-album of pop duets (which was slated to be sold via info-mercial), but the project was riddled with legal issues, resulting in a low-impact, "accidental" release of the "Platinum & Gold" series of duets in the early 2000s (the CD set was released without Newton's permission). Subsequently, bootleg CDs including most of the duets turned up on U.S. store shelves as "Gold & Platinum, Volumes 7 and 8". Those CDs also contain 1995 solo versions of three of Newton's pop hits ("Angel of the Morning", "Love's Been A Little Bit Hard On Me" and "Queen of Hearts"). During most of the '90s, Juice Newton spent her time touring sporadically, horseback riding, and focusing on her family.
Newton returned to recording in 1998 with "The Trouble with Angels", a collection of seven re-recorded hits and three new tracks, including the single "When I Get Over You". The 1998 effort was quickly followed by American Girl in 1999, which was Newton's first album of all-new material since 1989 and featured the single "They Never Made It To Memphis". The collection featured tracks written by Otha Young, Freddie Mercury, Nanci Griffith, Tom Petty and Newton herself.
Every Road Leads Back to You (consisting of live material with a bonus EP of four studio recordings of new songs) was released in 2002 with an accompanying DVD. And American Girl Vol. II, which is sold exclusively on cdbaby.com and at Newton's live shows, was released in 2003.
In 2005, Juice Newton appeared on the TV show "Hit Me Baby One More Time" on which she performed a well-received rendition of Ashlee Simpson's "Pieces Of Me" and a truncated version of "Queen of Hearts"; online voters selected her performance as their favorite of the five acts that appeared on the episode. In the mid-2000s, Newton also contributed tracks to the albums "An All-Star Tribute To Cher" and "An All-Star Tribute to Shania Twain".
On November 15, 2007, Newton released The Gift of Christmas, her first Christmas album. The 12-song album includes a new version of Newton's "Christmas Needs Love To Be Christmas" and the classic "Mary's Boy Child", as well as a special Christmas version of "For Believers", an Otha Young-penned song first recorded in 1983 for the Dirty Looks album.
AUGUST 14, 2008
Sawyer Brown is an American country music band founded in 1981 in Apopka, Florida by five members of country pop singer Don King's road band:Bobby Randall (guitar), Joe Smyth (drums), Jim Scholten (bass guitar), Gregg "Hobie" Hubbard (keyboards), and Mark Miller(lead vocals). After King retired in 1981, the five members decided to form a band, first choosing the name Savanna before switching to Sawyer Brown, also the name of a road near where they practiced.
Sawyer Brown first gained national attention in 1983 when they participated on Star Search, a former television talent show on which they won the grand prize of $100,000 and a recording contract with Capitol Records (in association with Curb Records).[1] Their first album, also titled Sawyer Brown, was issued in 1985. It included their first Number One single on the Billboard country music charts, titled "Step That Step". The band continued to chart regularly throughout the 1980s, although many of their late-1980s singles failed to enter Top 40.
Originally, Sawyer Brown was known for a primarily country pop sound dominated by novelty tunes; by 1992, however, the band began to show a more serious side to its music, adding ballads to its repertoire.That year, the band also dropped its affiliation with Capitol, and Curb Records took over promotion and distribution of all subsequent albums and singles (except for 2003, when Sawyer Brown temporarily switched to Lyric Street Records). Bobby Randall also left the band in 1991, and was replaced by Duncan Cameron. Duncan subsequently departed in 2004, with Shayne Hill assuming the role of lead guitarist.
To date, Sawyer Brown has released twenty studio albums, of which three have been certified gold in the United States for sales of 500,000 copies. More than fifty of their singles have entered the U.S. BillboardHot Country Songs charts, including three Number One singles. Sawyer Brown also received a Horizon Award from the Country Music Association in 1985, as well as a Vocal Group of the Year award in 1997 from the Academy of Country Music.
AUGUST 13, 2008
Jackie Keith Whitley (born July 1, 1954 in Sandy Hook, Kentucky, died May 9, 1989) was an Americancountry music singer. Whitley's brief career in mainstream country music lasted from 1984 till his death in 1989, but he continues to influence an entire generation of singers and songwriters. His biggest hits include "Don't Close Your Eyes" and "Miami, My Amy".
Whitley, along with Ricky Skaggs, was discovered by Ralph Stanley when the two teenagers sang Stanley Brothers songs as an opening act for the Clinch Mountain Boys. The two soon joined Ralph's band. Whitley also played with JD Crowe and the New South in the mid-seventies. During this period, he established himself as one of the most versatile and talented lead singers in bluegrass. His singing was heavily influenced by Carter Stanley and Lefty Frizzell. Whitley's first solo album, A Hard Act to Follow, was released in 1984, and featured a more mainstream country style. While Whitley was working hard to achieve his own style, the songs he produced were inconsistent. Critics regarded the album as too erratic. Whitley honed his sound within the next few years for his next album, L.A. to Miami.
L.A. to Miami, released in 1986 would give him his first Top 20 country hit single, "Miami, My Amy." The song was followed by three more hit songs: "Ten Feet Away," "Homecoming '63," and "Hard Livin." The album also included "On The Other Hand" and "Nobody In His Right Mind Would've Left Her." "On The Other Hand" was pitched to Keith before Randy Travis released the song as a single and when Keith's version wasn't released as a single, Randy released his in 1986, as did George Strait with "Nobody In His Right Mind Would've Left Her"
During his tour to promote L.A. to Miami, he met and started a romantic relationship with Lorrie Morgan, a fellow country singer. The pair were married in November, 1986, and they had their only child, a son, Jesse Keith Whitley, in June 1987. Keith also adopted Lorrie's daughter, Morgan, from her first marriage.
During the new recording sessions in 1987, Whitley started feeling that the songs he was doing were not up to his standards, so he approached RCA and asked if the project of fifteen songs could be shelved. He asked if he could have more of a say in the songs and production. The new album, titled Don't Close Your Eyes, was released in 1988, and the album did extremely well. The album contained one of the many songs that Whitley had a hand in writing in his years at Tree Publishing, "It's All Coming Back To Me Now." Also on the album was a remake of Lefty Frizzell's classic song, "I Never Go Around Mirrors," and the song became a huge hit at Whitley's concerts. The first three singles off of the album -- "When You Say Nothing at All," "I'm No Stranger to the Rain," and the title cut -- all reached number 1 on Billboard Magazine's country charts during the fall of 1988 and the winter of 1989. "I'm No Stranger To The Rain" also earned Whitley his first and only Country Music Association award.
In early 1989, Keith approached Joe Galante with the intention of releasing I Never Go Around Mirrors as a radio single. Joe approved of the musical flexibility that Keith achieved with the song, however, he suggested that Keith record something new and more upbeat. The result was a song Keith had optioned for his previous album called I Wonder, Do You Think Of Me?, and was to result in his next album release.
Keith Whitley was a longtime alcoholic, who had begun drinking early in his career at Bluegrass concerts -- long before he was legally allowed to drink alcohol. Many times he had tried to overcome his alcoholism, but these methods had failed. Whitley preferred to drink alone, making it tough for anyone to detect that he had a drinking problem.
On the morning of May 9, 1989, after a weekend of drinking and partying with friends, Whitley woke up and spoke with his mother briefly on the phone. He was visited by his brother-in-law, and the two had coffee and planned a day of golf, after which, Keith had planned to start writing songs for him and Lorrie to possibly record when she returned from her tour. His brother-in-law departed, telling Keith to be ready within an hour. Upon returning, Whitley was found face down on his bed and pronounced dead at 11:16 a.m. He was 33.
The cause of death was alcohol poisoning, and the coroner report stated that his blood alcohol level was .477 (five times over the legal limit to drive.)
The day after his death, Music Row was lined with black ribbons in memory of Keith.
Since her emergence on the country music scene in 1987 with her first, self-titled album, Loveless has been one of the most popular female singers of the Neotraditional country movement, although she has also recorded albums in the Country pop and Bluegrass genres.
Loveless rose to stardom thanks to her blend of honky tonk and country-rock, not to mention a plaintive, emotional ballad style. Her late-1980s records were generally quite popular, earning her comparisons to Patsy Cline, but most critics agreed that she truly came into her own as an artist in the early 1990s.
To date, Loveless has charted more than forty singles on the BillboardHot Country Songs charts, including five Number Ones. In addition, she has recorded fourteen studio albums (not counting compilations); in the United States, four of these albums have been certified platinum, while two have been certified gold.[1]
Loveless is also a distant cousin of Loretta Lynn and Crystal Gayle.[2] She has been married twice, first to Terry Lovelace (1976 – 1986), from whom her professional name "Loveless" is derived, and to Emory Gordy, Jr. (1989 – Present), who is also her producer.
