It’s Saturday, a day of posting persiflage, and so I proffer another section of my life of “Coyne’s Best songs.” Remember, I’m limited to judging what I’ve heard, and here are what I consider to be. . .
The Best Country Crossover Songs
El Paso Marty Robbins
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry Hank Williams
End of the World Skeeter Davis
Crazy Patsy Cline (written by Willie Nelson)
We’ll Sing in the Sunshine Gail Garnett
Stand By Your Man Tammy Wynette
Wichita Lineman Glenn Campbell
Gentle on My Mind Glenn Campbell
Galveston Glenn Campbell
Behind Closed Doors Charlie Rich
Ruby (Don’t Take Your Love to Town) Kenny Rogers & the First Edition
Right Time of the Night Jennifer Warnes
I Will Always Love You Dolly Parton
Here You Come Again Dolly Parton
Send Me Down to Tucson Mel Tillis
I Need You LeAnn Rimes
Amy Pure Prairie League
Snowbird Anne Murray
Sixteen Tons Tennessee Ernie Ford
Now not all these songs were recorded to be “country songs,” but all of them are at least countrified—that is, in the stuyle of country music. And I love all of them. Some are now very obscure (e.g., “Send me Down to Tucson,” “Snowbird”, and of course who remembers “Sixteen Tons,” once hugely popular), but all are great music. I’ll put a few up for your listening pleasure. You are invited to note your own country crossover songs in the comments:
You’ll notice that there are three songs featuring Glenn Campbell on the list, and “Galveston” is the least popular of the three, but it’s the one that most moves me (all are wonderful). Campbell, originally a session musician in the famous “Wrecking Crew“, was a world-class guitarist, you’ll see below from his fantastic solo that starts slowly with the melody at 4:27 and then goes off into space. (For another example of his virtuosity, see the section of “Gentle on My Mind” performed live here). “Galveston” was written by Jimmy Webb and released by Campbell in 2003 after it flopped with Don Ho.
The YouTube notes:
From 2002, Glen Campbell & Steve Wariner perform “Galveston”, introduced by Brad Paisley, with video intro that includes comments by Merle Haggard, Keith Urban, Melissa Etheridge, Toby Keith, Radney
Foster, Tracy Byrd, Robert K. Oermann, and Tom Roland.
The performance starts at 2:32, but don’t miss the introductory interviews.
Oh, hell, I’ll put his “Gentle on My Mind” performance below. How many country stars can you recognize?
The inimitable Dolly Parton (“It takes a lot of money to make me look this cheap”), singing one of her more recent hits, “Here You Come Again“, written by the famous duo Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and released in 1977.
Another early one from Dolly, written by her and released in 1973. It was her fond farewell to Porter Wagoner, who was her mentor but was also overbearing (they were not romantically involved). A bit from Wikipedia:
Country music singer-songwriter Dolly Parton wrote the song in 1973 for her one-time partner and mentor Porter Wagoner, from whom she was separating professionally after a seven-year partnership. She recorded it in RCA Studio B in Nashville on June 12, 1973.
Author Curtis W. Ellison stated that the song “speaks about the breakup of a relationship between a man and a woman that does not descend into unremitting domestic turmoil, but instead envisions parting with respect – because of the initiative of the woman”. The country love track is set in a time signature of common time with a tempo of 66 beats per minute. (Larghetto/Adagio) Although Parton found much success with the song, many people are unaware of its origin; during an interview, Parton’s manager Danny Nozel said that “one thing we found out from American Idol is that most people don’t know that Dolly Parton wrote [the track]”. During an interview on The Bobby Bones Show, Dolly Parton revealed that she wrote her signature song “Jolene” on the same day that she wrote “I Will Always Love You.” Parton clarified later, “I don’t really know if they were written in the same night.”
LeAnn Rimes may still be around, but she doesn’t have a high profile. Released in 2000, “I Need You” (there’s another country song with the same title) may have been the apogee of Rimes’s career, and it’s a great song. Here it is performed live on the Jay Leno Show in 2000. It may be classified as a “pop ballad,” but I’m putting it in the country crossover category become Rimes was a country singer before this came out.
“We’ll Sing in the Sunshine,” recorded by Gale Garnett in 1964, was a hit on both country-music and pop charts. Who remembers this one? It’s very bittersweet, about a woman who tells her man that they’ll have their day in the sun, but it will last only a year. This is clearly a lip-synch of the original version.
And Skeeter Davis (real name Mary Frances Penick, with a nickname that means “mosquito” in slang) singing “The End of the World” (1962). It’s another lip-synched song, but no less great for it. (Her hair is definitely country here.) She died of breast cancer at 72, performing right up to the end.
Finally, Charlie Rich singing “Behind Closed Doors” (1973), with a theme similar to “Send me Down to Tucson,” but with the latter involving two different women.
I’ve neglected songs by greats like Hank Williams and Patsy Cline, but you can check them out for yourself. Remember that Cline’s big hit “Crazy” (1961) was written by Willie Nelson, who’s still with us.
Some of us old farts even remember the lyrics to Sixteen Tons! 😄
I absolutely love the tribute to Ernie Ford by Jeff Beck and Billy Gibbons–and Tal Wilkenfeld on bass!
. . . another day older and deeper in debt.
It was used in an episode of Mad Men, which gave it some exposure to younger generations.
I’ve always thought “crossover” referred to a song that has “crossed over” into another genre. So in this case it means country songs that are flavored with a rock sensibility: country that has crossed over into rock (or vice versa). In this regard, I’ve always liked Kim Richey. Here are two songs by her:
“Those Words We Said”
“Every River”
Rick Beato has a video on Wichita Lineman, an interview with Jimmy Webb, and more that I bet viewers can find.
I only learned about Campbell/Wichita Lineman from Beato and subsequently added a bunch to my normal playlist.
e.g. By The Time I Get To Phoenix
It really is great music.
… that’s in haste….
Nam-hasté
🎼🎶😁
Great list. How about He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones? Or is that too country?
That’s a great song, but never crossed over. Also, I don’t think the melody is particularly original or catchy, though the words are heartbreaking.
In 1963 Ray Charles recorded an album of country songs including “Born to Lose” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” It was so popular he released a second album.
I hear “Send Me Down to Tucson” regularly on the radio. Of course, it helps if you tune your dial in a place that time has left behind.
Going the other direction from pop hit to country chart topper, I’m fond of Conway Twitty’s cover of “The Rose.” Curiously, I can’t say the same for the original.
Just yesterday I was listening to versions of Always on My Mind, which was a huge cross-over hit for Willie Nelson. I like Brenda Lee’s version as well, definitely not a crossover. Elvis Presley had a crossover hit with Suspicious Minds, charting on pop, country, and r&b.
Gentle on my Mind has wonderfully evocative lyrics. “I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin’, crackling cauldron in some train yard.” It’s on my Spotify playlist of story songs. 16 Tons is also on it. It has at least 2 other country songs, Ode to Billy Joe and King of the Road.
One of my favorite albums of all time is the 1970 country-rock eponymous 2nd album by Poco. Poco had Richie Furay and Jim Messina (both of Buffalo Springfield), the wonderful drummer George Grantham, Randy Meisner on bass, and Rusty Young on pedal steel and Hammond organ …. except – he never used an organ! Some of coolest “organ” solos you will ever hear are on this album, played with an amazing technique by Rusty Young on pedal steel through a rotating Leslie speaker.
Whole album here:
Apologies if I’ve posted this before. 🙂
My favourite video game of all time is Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (the game set in 1992). Within the game there are radio channels which play in cars, and one channel is the Country Music channel K-Rose:-
Jerry Reed – “Amos Moses” (1970)
Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn – “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” (1973)
Hank Williams – “Hey Good Lookin'” (1951)
Juice Newton – “Queen of Hearts” (1981)
Statler Brothers – “New York City” (1970)
Asleep At The Wheel – “The Letter That Johnny Walker Read” (1975)
The Desert Rose Band – “One Step Forward” (1987)
Willie Nelson – “Crazy (1961 Demo)” (1961)
Patsy Cline – “Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray” (1957)
Statler Brothers – “Bed of Rose’s” (1970)
Mickey Gilley – “Make the World Go Away” (1999)
Ed Bruce – “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” (1975)
Merle Haggard – “Always Wanting You” (1975)
Whitey Shafer – “All My Ex’s Live in Texas” (1987)
Eddie Rabbitt – “I Love a Rainy Night” (1980)
I’m not a great Country Music Fan but I often drive about with this channel selected.
May I nominate a song for worst crossover? It’s gotta be “Convoy” from 1975.
By The Time I Get To Phoenix
Tracy Nelson’s version of Stand by Your Man is better than Tammy’s, and the rest of the Tracy Nelson Country album is great, too!
Great lists. LeAnn Rimes is still around. Her “Blue” from 1996 is excellent.
Someone mentioned Kim Richey above. She’s super.
Bonnie Raitt’s “Luck of the Draw” album from 1991 has some excellent crossovers, including the beautiful “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”
Any number of Johnny Cash songs, including “I Walk the Line” made transitions to pop.
And who can forget “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band? (I can’t.)
There are many more, but I don’t think you’ll find a better exemplar of crossover magic than the great Glen Campbell. Check out some of guitar work on YouTube. Breathtaking.
One of my favorite country artists is Kathy Mattea. I’m not sure if she ever had any true crossover hits, but she’s an incredible talent. I saw her twice in concert, once in 1995 at Virginia Tech and next at the University of Washington in about 2015. I introduced myself and told her that I was at that Virginia Tech concert. She said (roughly) “That was a long time ago.” It was.
Thanks for reminding me about Galveston. It really is one of the loveliest songs ever written.
Jimmy Webb also wrote the Wichita Lineman and By the time I get to Phoenix. I guess he had a fondness for city names.
On the topic of country music, in general, here’s a funny thing I’ve learned: if you just slightly slow down the playback speed for some fast-paced country music hits, e.g., Dolly’s Jolene, they sound even better.
I like John Denver. But I haven’t met many people who do.
I would have to include Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, by Ray Charles (and you can pretty much pick any of the tracks on either of the 2 LPs). Willie Nelson is said to have said that these albums “did more for country music than any one artist has ever done.”
Some great songs there. Galveston is beautiful song, and I have always loved it. And I have certainly not forgotten Snowbird, another personal favorite.
ETA: I’d add Roger Miller’s King of the Road!