It’s The Nineties Episode 2: Number Ones from Joe Diffie, Bryan White, Kevin Sharp and Martina McBride
By Jonny Brick
1995 Joe Diffie – Pickup Man
A simple year-by-year rundown this week, mapping the number one songs in country music in four consecutive years. We begin with one of Diffie’s most cherished copyrights, perfect for line-dancing by pickup men and the women they pick up, gals who are the real life equivalent of ‘Bobbie Jo Gentry, the homecoming queen’.
They may be attracted by the ‘romantic glow’ of the lights on their vehicle, be it ‘a bucket of rust or a brand new machine’. Plus without trucks, there’d be no tailgates, and you never have to make the ‘eight-foot bed’. Best part of the song? When Diffie rhymes ‘I can be found’ with, incredibly, ‘chaise longue’, which comes out as ‘chaise lounge’.
1996 Bryan White – Rebecca Lynn
Do you remember this song? I have an excuse because I was seven years old and barely knew who Dolly Parton was. White had four number ones in a row, was garlanded by the awards bodies and didn’t wear a hat. His voice was smooth, akin to Bruce Hornsby’s, and there’s a dobro wrapping its way around this reminiscin’ song about childhood romance.
The perky ballad, with a chorus full of playground games – ‘ring around the roses’, ‘pattycake’ and ‘tag, you’re it!’ – is a cross between Strawberry Wine and Check Yes or No; the latter was one of the biggest smashes of 1995, although White put out his song before Strait and Emmylou Hayes became well known.
The opening verse is in G, the second verse is in A and the third sees a resolution to White’s infatuation with ‘Becky’: a ‘miracle’ named Laura Jean. It’s warm and lovely – Luke Combs could have covered it on his Fathers & Sons record – and it’s a tonic to all that rock’n’roll stuff on the radio in late 1995, like Dust On the Bottle and Shania Twain’s I’m Outta Here.
1997 Kevin Sharp – Nobody Knows
Fun fact: Sharp was on the same label, Asylum Nashville, as White. He grew up in California and Idaho, and was bald due to a sarcoma bone cancer, which needed heavy treatment when he was young. His death in 2014 at the age of 43 was due to complications with digestive issues.
As with the Tony Rich Project original, Sharp’s narrator is miserable beyond words: ‘The nights are lonely, the days are so sad’. Every other chord is a minor one, although the key is the very bright F-sharp major: ‘nobody knows it but me,’ he sighs, knowing that ‘a million years from now’ he will still be pining for his beloved. Heartache sells…
1998 Martina McBride – A Broken Wing
…And so does female empowerment and, regrettably, what we would now call gaslighting.
Written by three blokes, and opening with a passage of pedal steel, Martina’s narrator describes a woman who gave her husband ‘everything she ever had’ in spite of his propensity to ‘break her spirit down’. We had already heard Martina singing Independence Day, so it’s no surprise that she is given the tale of a character who ‘still sings’ despite having ‘a broken wing’. And boy, does Martina’s narrator sing.
Magnificently, the woman is emboldened to leave her abuser, making her escape after she hangs back and doesn’t go to church one Sunday morning. Given that she was told ‘only angels know how to fly’ by her oppressive husband, it is stunning to hear Martina sing ‘man you oughta see her fly’. Carrie Underwood, the true heir to Martina’s slot on country radio, would repeat the trick several times over in the next two decades. Carly Pearce or Ashley McBryde would give this some welly too.
Follow Jonny through The Nineties episode by episode.
For more country music evangelism, go to countrywol.com where you can read Monday essays, Friday reviews and Sunday Hymn Sheets. Follow Jonny’s Country Music Calendar at the Country Way of Life Facebook page (facebook.com/acountrywayoflife).
Any Given Songday and Stuck at Two, the pair of series which celebrate the centenary of the Grand Ole Opry, can be found at CountryWOL.com
