It’s The Nineties: Number Ones from John Michael Montgomery , Brooks & Dunn , Bryan White , Tim McGraw

By Jonny Brick

1993 John Michael Montgomery – I Love the Way You Love Me

A first chart-topper for a photogenic kid from Kentucky who borrows from the Garth template; the song is co-written by Victoria Shaw, who has had her hand in a few of Garth’s big hits.

It’s a big wedding ballad that lists things people typically like in one another: some concern what you see (‘your eyes dance when you laugh’), others what you hear (‘when I’m slightly off key’) and others what you smell (‘your scent lingers’), and there’s an eye-rolling mention of a ‘two-hour bath’. The love of Montgomery’s woman is ‘strong and wild, slow and easy…so completely’.

Louis Walsh, a country fanatic, passed this on to Boyzone, who sing of loving ‘the sound of old R&B’ rather than imitating ‘old Jerry Lee’.

1996 Brooks & Dunn – My Maria

Thirty years on and the pair are winning awards all over again, with their rockin’, twangin’ country sound back in fashion. This is one of their most cherished songs, albeit one they didn’t write.

It’s a simple, three-chord declaration of love: ‘When she’s around, she takes my blues away’, ‘you’re a miracle’, ‘the sunlight when skies are grey’. Matching this love is the way Ronnie Dunn’s vocals rise an entire octave when he sings Maria’s name in the chorus.

1997 Bryan White – Sittin’ on Go

How many songs are written every week in Nashville in which the singer is forced to wait patiently for his lady to say yes? Here, White coos and oohs his way through a lyric in which he sings he is ‘not above a little arm-twisting’.

The key goes up for the chorus, which is supremely melodic.

1999 Tim McGraw – Please Remember Me

Rodney Crowell co-wrote this enduring ballad, which McGraw selected as the first single from his new album. ‘Part of you will live in me,’ he sighs of a former flame, whom he asks to remember ‘over the valleys and the peaks’.

Patty Loveless provides harmonies, while the string section skews it more towards Adult Contemporary than country.