Randy Travis Picks Winner In Old Song ‘King Of The Road’
Randy Travis reports he finally has a hit with his remake of Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” - sort of, anyway.
When it was first released as a single, “radio just didn’t want to play it for whatever reason,” he recalls.
“But what’s happening now is, the thing is becoming a hit in some markets. It kept hanging on in the charts, down in the low 70s or whatever (of the Top 100), and then it started getting more requests.
“There are now some areas where the thing is a huge hit. I’m doing it in the show (on the road), and there are some places where I’m doing it that it’s getting more response than (his big hit) ‘Digging Up Bones’ and things like that. Last week we were spending a lot of time in L.A., and I heard it like four times on KZLA.”
Laughingly saying he wishes KZLA had seen fit to play the remake of the old Roger Miller smash when it was first released and trying to move up the hit charts, he adds that its burgeoning here-and-there popularity now is “weird.”
The reason behind it, as Travis goes on to theorize, is that the stations initially rejected the single because the three previous ones from the album, Travis’ final one for Warner Bros., had done poorly. But (what Travis does not say) his memorable vocal performance on the song was so adept that some stations couldn’t resist giving it a few plays
Travis never has been one to grouse, but he does say that he does not care for the way most singles seem to be chosen by record companies these days. That doubtless reflects on the fact that he and Warner Bros., which he says used to allow him to choose his own singles, have parted ways after 11 years. He’s now headed elsewhere and leaning toward the new DreamWorks label.
“The way it used to be done was just on a gut level,” he says of the process of picking singles. “The singles we released were what I thought was the best on the album, but that got to be no longer the case.
“It became, ‘OK, here’s a good up tempo thing that’ll be radio-friendly and I think they’ll like to play in drive-time because it’s up tempo.’ Well, that’s just not what art is about, to me. That’s garbage, and it helps explain why this business has lost so much in the sales area and why so many radio stations have lost points over the last few years.”
Vince squared
If you’ve liked seeing Vince Gill hosting Nashville’s annual Country Music Association Awards for the past three years, you’re probably going to be happy with the next two CMA shows.
For the first time in its history, the CMA signed a host for more than one season, and it is Gill. He is committed for ‘97 and ‘98.
Revving up
With his new album, “Nothin’ But the Taillights,” Clint Black is all over the road.
“Every now and then I like to throw myself a curve ball, just to see which way I’ll move,” Black says. “You won’t naturally move in any direction unless you make yourself. I thought it was time to confront myself with another challenge.
“You get with different people and different things are bound to happen.”
The “different” people involved in helping him with “Taillights” include Martina McBride, Steve Wariner, Alison Krauss and Marty Stuart, celebrated songwriters Matraca Berg, Kostas and Skip Ewing, and renowned instrumental talents Wariner, Mark Knopfler, Larry Carlton, Chet Atkins, bluegrass fiddler Stuart Duncan and even the London Session Orchestra.
Speaking of
Matraca Berg, who wrote the Deana Carter hits “Strawberry Wine” and “We Danced Anyway,” grew up in Nashville, but a different Nashville from today’s.
“People had identities and points of view,” she remembers of the Nashville performers of her youth. “They weren’t trying to look like people on a TV series or had any interest in looking like everybody or anybody else. You had Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Mickey Newbury … they were icons! You knew that just as soon as you heard one of their songs or saw them walk in a room.
“Some of that is emulated today. Buck Owens lives on through Dwight Yoakam and Jim Lauderdale. Loretta Lynn is echoed in Patty Loveless. If I could pick a tradition to carry on, it would be the artist/songwriters, because they influenced me so heavily growing up.”
Berg’s first album for Rising Tide Records, “Sunday Morning To Saturday Night,” is due soon.
In case you were wondering
Neal McCoy feels the need to offer an explanation for a track on his current “Greatest Hits” album.
McCoy says he included “Now I Pray For Rain” as a thank-you to his earliest fans.
“That song was the first one to break the top 20 on the charts,” he explains. “And all the people who were coming to my shows back then, the really loyal ones who were there before we had any big songs, they loved that one. I still get requests for it all the time, so we put it on there for them.”