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Carl's Scrapbook: 80s Original Songs: Music City News Award Show
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Award
Show's co-hosts Ray Stevens and Sylvia |
LAST NIGHT'S program was televised from the Tennessee Performing Arts Center live on Channel '17 in Nashville and about 50 other stations, and was taped for later syndication on several others.
The writers of nine additional songs took the spotlight on their "night of nights" for compositions chosen as favorites by country music fans from, all over the U.S.
The Fourth Annual Music City News Top Country Hits of the Year presentation is the only fan-voted awards show devoted entirely to country songwriters.
SINGING JANIE Fricke's hit It Ain't Easy Being Easy was Mark Gray, who co-wrote the song with Shauna Harrington and Les Taylor. Gray, a former member of Exile who has a hit of his own now as an ,artist with Wounded Hearts, was also nominated for The Closer You Get. The latter tune he co-wrote with James P. Pennington, the only remaining original member of Exile. Gray confessed to being nervous following a flawless performance.
Fricke herself appeared via videotape to sing her second nominated hit, He's a Heartache Lookin' for a Place to Happen, penned by Larry Henley and Jeff Silbar. The duo is also responsible for Wind Beneath My Wings.
Sylvia traded her tuxedo outfit for a glittery mini-dress for her performance of the smash Nobody, which was a feature of last year's program. She donned a different ankle-length number later in the evening to sing I Never Quite Got Back From Loving You.
WARNER BROS. heartthrob Gary Morris received an enthusiastic reception during his beautiful rendition of Dennis Linde and Bob Morrison's wonderfully romantic ballad, The Love She Found in Me.
The Osmond Brothers took the stage to sing Conway Twitty's hit The Rose, a hit for Bette Midler before Twitty took it home to country fans. Sylvia told how writer Amanda McBroom was inspired by a poem and wrote both lyrics and melody in 15 minutes.
"It never occured to me that anybody would want to record my song in the first place," McBroom said, choked with emotion. "To have it recorded twice is too much to bear." McBroom came especially for the ceremony from Chicago, - where she's working on a musical.
THE OSMONDS later "took a musical stroll down memory lane," singing some of the winners from past years, including Some Memories Just Won't Die, There Goes My Everything and He Stopped Loving Her Today.
In a moment of levity, Stevens cracked, "John Hartford just called. He just saw the Barbra Streisand movie Yentl and he went home and wrote another song Yentl on My Mind." Hartford is the writer of the classic Gentle on My Mind.
Maggie Cavender, executive director of the Nashville Songwriters Association International, introduced 1980 NSAI Hall of Fame inductee Ray Stevens as the "total songwriter's total songwriter." Stevens, as adept at turning out a tearjerker as he is at writing funny tales, then energetically delivered a medley of his hits.
TOM LONG, president of NSAI, presented a special Hall of Fame award to Stevens "for outstanding service to country music."
Lee Greenwood, like Fricke, was unable to be present, but sang the beautiful I.O.U. via tape.
In a prerecorded interview, he revealed that it was the song's title that first caught his ittention when he was searching for material. "I never forgot the title. It stuck with me. It's amazing how an artist's career depends on the songs he records. Kerry Chater and Austin Roberts, IOU "
The quintessentially laid-back Don Williams was the recipient of the first Music City News Songwriter and Patron's Award. The bearded singer and his band treated the crowd to I Believe in Love and Stay Young.
BECAUSE ALABAMA was unable to be present, co-hosts Sylvia and Stevens sang Carl Chambers' Close Enough to Perfect, which was inspired when Chambers and his wife were stapling paneling in the Bellamy Brothers' tour bus. When his spouse questioned his handiwork, Chambers replied, "Well, it's close enough to perfect for me," and thus was born a hit.
The last top country song nominee, The Closer You Get, was performed by Alabama through the wonders of electronics.
Although this was only the fourth annual televised event, Music City News has been honoring a "Song of the Year" for the past 17 years.
Musical accompaniment throughout the evening was provided by the Bill Walker Orchestra. Steve A. Womack was director, and Richard C. Thrall was producer.