It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from Clint Black, Sawyer Brown, John Berry, Mark Chesnutt

By Jonny Brick

1990 Clint Black – Walkin’ Away

Entirely by accident, I’ve picked three number ones this week from former CMA Best New Artist award-winners.

In 1989, the prize went to Black, who was on a hot streak with songs from his debut album Killin’ Time. This waltz, with a heavy beat from the snare rimshot and a fiddle solo, is sung by a narrator who knows ‘the difference was day and night’ between him and the woman he can no longer be with.

This was Black’s fourth number one, all of which he wrote, which must have made for a quite enormous cheque when it came in; he would start his own label to which Little Big Town would one day be signed.

1992 Sawyer Brown – Some Girls Do

The act who famously beat Ray Charles to the CMA Award for Best New Artist in 1985 were still having hits into the new decade.

This one sings the praises of a country boy, who thinks he’s James Dean in his Cadillac. ‘I ain’t first class but I ain’t white trash!’ goes the chorus. The verse includes the word ‘purtiest’, rooting it in the world of country, and there’s a winning image of ‘pink fur dice’ in our hero’s car.

1994 John Berry – Your Love Amazes Me

There will be songs from 2025 that are never heard in 2055, just as there are songs that have completely slipped off the radar today.

From South Carolina, Berry had had a career as an independent artist before reaching a nationwide audience. This power ballad must have soundtracked plenty of first dances of the time: his woman is more beautiful than diamonds or rainbows, giving him salvation and ‘something to believe in’.

1995 Mark Chesnutt – Gonna Get a Life

And here’s the CMA New Artist from 1993 with a perky song co-written by Jim Lauderdale. Chesnutt declares he is no ‘lovesick clown waiting for your beck and call’ and ends a relationship which is marked by his lady ‘leaving like a maniac’ repeatedly.

Musically this really pops out of the speakers, with delicious instrumental passages led by fiddle and pedal steel. There is also a false ending to keep the song going an extra minute, presumably after Chesnutt has got his life back.