"My Second Home" by Tracy Lawrence is the only song whose only week in the Top 5 was at #1 (obviously not counting "My Baby's Got a Smile on Her Face" due to its unique circumstances). Its run in the top 10 was 9-7-1-6. It is also tied with Bryan White's "Someone Else's Star" for the fewest weeks spent in the Top 10 for a #1 hit (8-4-1-4). The latter also went recurrent from #11, which I believe is the highest fall-off point for any song in the 90s, #1 or otherwise.
Carrie Underwood sang a cover of The Pretenders' "I'll Stand by You" on an
American Idol charity telecast. The recording was briefly available on iTunes, and it charted at #6 on the Hot 100 from sales while also reaching #41 on Hot Country Songs due to unsolicited airplay. Despite this, the song was quickly withdrawn after the special ended, and has not legally been available anywhere since.
The song "Put Your Best Dress On" was originally on Neal McCoy's never-released
The Luckiest Man in the World album. It was later a single for Steve Holy from an album that was also never released.
Toby Keith didn't think that "Upstairs Downtown" was a good single choice, and would have preferred "Boomtown". He's also expressed disdain for cutting "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying" with Sting. I found this especially interesting since both of those are in my Top 5 of Toby Keith songs.
And now, the "Short Lived Country Labels" special:
Rising TideThe Buffalo Club was the only act to hit the Top 40 for Rising Tide Records, which was only in business for a year. The band itself, which featured then-former Restless Heart drummer John Dittrich, was also active for less than a full year, with Dittrich quitting before the third single and eventually rejoining Restless Heart.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's
Bang Bang Bang was supposed to be released on Rising Tide, and the title track was on the charts when the label closed. They were then moved to Decca, who also closed without releasing the album. DreamWorks Records finally issued the album in 1999 and re-issued the title track. Strangely, the re-release peaked lower than the original release did.
Keith Sewell and Scotty Emerick were both signed to Rising Tide but never released any material for the label. Howard never released any actual singles, but she did cut a rendition of "Softly and Tenderly" for the soundtrack to
The Apostle, which was released on Rising Tide (and won her a Grammy). She later moved to Decca, but never released anything for them either. Rebecca Lynn Howard later went on to have an MCA album that only had one single, and then
three unreleased albums in a row: one each for MCA, Arista, and Show Dog.
ImprintImprint Records was only in business for just over a year, as well. Their only chart entries were "When You Are Old" by Gretchen Peters, "Macarena (Country Version)" by the GrooveGrass Boyz, and three singles from Jeff Wood ("You Just Get One", "Use Mine", and "You Call That a Mountain"). The last of these was also released independently by B. J. Thomas in 2000, for whom it was his first chart entry since 1986.
Jeff Wood was a college roommate of Garth Brooks, is an ex-brother-in-law of Phil Vassar, and co-wrote John Michael Montgomery's "Cowboy Love". After Wood discovered that I wrote his Wikipedia article, he e-mailed me to thank me, and sent me an independent CD.
"You Just Get One" was originally cut by Ty Herndon, and co-written by Vince Gill. Vince sang BGV's on Ty Herndon's version, and played guitar and mandolin on Jeff Wood's version.
Polydor/A&MPolydor Nashville was formed by moving some existing Mercury artists (Toby Keith, Davis Daniel, The Moffatts) over and adding a few new artists. The label was troubled right out of the gate, as 4 Runner was the only other act who managed to hit Top 40 for the label (although Davis Daniel had three Top 40 hits when he was still on Mercury). Daniel's second album was delayed from a 1993 release in order to put it out on Polydor instead of Mercury.
The Moffatts were only children when they were signed. I've found no proof that their first Mercury album even had a single. Their only Polydor disc charted even though none of its singles did. I remember
New Country magazine giving the Polydor album 1 out of 5 stars.
They tried renaming the label to A&M Nashville in early 1996, but that didn't work. A 1996
Billboard article pointed out that the label lacked enough people for leadership, that Keith was still too new to serve as a flagship artist yet, and that there were too few people in Nashville qualified to run a label at the time.
One of the label's signees was Shane Sutton, who cut some songs for
Jetsons: The Movie as a teen. His only Polydor single, "I've Got Your Number", didn't chart but was made into a video.
The label changeover resulted in three different divisions handling Toby Keith's
Blue Moon album as mentioned earlier: Polydor did the first single, A&M did the second single and album, and Mercury did the third single. Keith later said he was only with A&M for 15 weeks.
Daniel's third and final album was promoted by a unique contest on CMT. The music video for lead single "I'm Not Listening Anymore" aired in two different versions: one with his face obscured, one with his face visible. Those who identified him in the obscured version could enter for a chance to win a prize package. It appears that only the
un-obscured version circulates.
Two Polydor artists (Mark Luna and Tasha Harris, the latter a black woman) never released singles. However, Luna had two cuts ("Somewhere to Go When It Rains" and "I'll Prob'ly Be Too Old") on a
1996 A&M Records sampler. Luna also wrote "When a Woman Loves a Man" for Lee Roy Parnell, and sang BGVs for Lari White and Chad Brock.
4 Runner's second Polydor/A&M album was never released due to the label closing, even though "That Was Him (This Is Now)" was on the charts. About half of the album is on YouTube, and lead singer Craig Morris sent me "That Was Him (This Is Now)" when I wrote a column on 4 Runner for Roughstock.
One of the signees on Polydor Nashville was a teenaged girl named Amie Comeaux. Her debut album featured backing vocals from 4 Runner, and Keith had offered to help write songs on her second album which was never released. She released a bunch of songs independently with the intent of promoting herself to another label after A&M closed, but died in a car crash in late 1997.