In
1980, the biggest news blast in music was country, thanks to the release
of the film Urban Cowboy. Discos changed decor overnight to
become country dance clubs and Americans by the millions traded in their
loafers for cowboy boots. RCA Records had country's first
platinum-selling album with "Wanted:
The Outlaws."
Though it didn't grab many headlines at the time, the
label had another important first that year, when on May 31st it
released "Tennessee River," the debut single from a band named
Alabama. The song shot to #1, the first of 40 Radio & Records
chart toppers. The band went on to win the Academy of Country Music's Artist
of the Decade title for the 1980's, sell in excess of 45 million
albums, become the first group to ever be named the Country Music
Association's Entertainer of the Year and forever change the way
bands were accepted in the country format.
It wasn't an over night success story. Cousins Randy
Owen and Teddy Gentry grew up working the fields and picking cotton on
Lookout Mountain, outside of Fort Payne, Alabama. Money was tight for
the families, and they spent much of their time entertaining themselves
by singing and playing gospel music. Randy, his parents and sisters
started a gospel group, The Singing Owens.
By the time Randy and Teddy were in the fifth grade
the boys had discovered
Merle Haggard and decided to pursue careers in
country music. Another cousin, Jeff Cook had been playing ukulele and
performing at school functions from the time he was in the second grade,
and by the time he reached his teens he'd progressed to guitar,
keyboards and fiddle. He was a deejay at a local radio station by age
14, and founded J. C. And The Chosen Few (the band referred to in
"Tar Top"), while still in high school.
In 1969, using equipment Jeff had been collecting, the
three cousins started a band called Young Country. By 1972 the
band had added friend Bennett Vartanian as the drummer and was calling
itself Wild Country, and even though they would ultimately
achieve superstar status as Alabama, Wild Country remains the
band's corporate identity.
In 1973 the band relocated to Myrtle Beach, South
Carolina to become the house band for a club called The Bowery. Working
for tips, they played six nights a week honing the harmonies that would
later become a trademark. They stayed seven summers at The Bowery,
gaining a huge regional following, changing the band name to Alabama
and utilizing one drummer after another before Mark Herndon came into
the picture.
Mark had grown up in a military family and was
influenced by his concert pianist grandmother and classically-trained
pianist mother. Fortunately for the group Alabama, Mark's
interests lay in other forms of music. He was playing rock 'n' roll when
his mother learned of a band in Myrtle Beach who needed a drummer.
Though she would have no doubt wanted him playing in a symphony, she
steered her son to Alabama.
The band had gone through a series of independent
record releases when they finally had the opportunity to play at the New
Faces Show during Country Radio Seminar in Nashville. One problem
they faced during the New Faces Show was the fact that Mark and his
drums were not allowed on stage. Nashville was still locked into the
idea of "group" as opposed to a "band." Bands were
considered unreliable. Bands were considered rowdy. Bands were
considered rock. Far better to present four young men who could
harmonize and let them do just that.
These particular four young men wouldn't have it.
Their sound depended on them playing their instruments and Mark adding
his drum edge. RCA listened to that sound and agreed and with the major
label backing them up, Alabama began to change the way the
industry looked at bands. The debut album on RCA was title "My
Home's In Alabama," and every song released from it became a #1
hit.
By 1981 Alabama was named Top Vocal Group of
the Year by the Country Music Association, the first of more than
150 major music awards they would receive in the next fifteen years. The
following year the band again took home the CMA's Vocal Group of the
Year, as well as the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year.
They also won the CMA's Instrumental Group of the Year, signaling that
the CMA, for one, recognized that something new was afoot.
One event in 1981 has a lasting effect. Alabama
played a charity concert in their hometown of Fort Payne, and the money
raised somehow never got out of the promoters' hands and into Fort
Payne's coffers. The following year the band took control, staging the
first June Jam, an entertainment
extravaganza that brings in an excess of 60,000 fans a year and has
raised millions for charitable causes. Years later fans are still being
treated to country superstars as well as up-and-coming acts, whose
careers are given a huge boost by the band from Fort Payne.
In 1982, Alabama had #1 hits with
"Mountain Music," "Take Me Down" and "Close
Enough To Perfect." Two of their albums went platinum, "Mountain
Music" (which won the '82 Grammy) and "My
Home's In Alabama," and they took home honors as Entertainer of
the Year and Group of the Year. Another album Grammy was presented to
the band in 1983, this one for the platinum-selling "The
Closer You Get." The title cut from the album hit #1, as did
two more in 1983: "Dixieland Delight" and "Lady Down On
Love." Once again, they swept the awards shows in the categories of
Entertainer, Group and Album.
The fans kept right on buying Alabama's albums,
too. "Feels
So Right" and "Mountain
Music" were certified triple platinum in 1984, "Roll
On" and "The
Closer You Get" were certified double platinum. One of their #1
singles that year, "If You're Gonna Play In Texas (You Gotta Have a
Fiddle In The Band)" is considered one of the most important
singles released that year and became one of the all-time most covered
tunes by other groups.
Another signature song, "Forty Hour Week (For a
Livin')," was a tribute to America's working man and hit the top
chart sport in 1985. Because of Alabama's success, more and more
bands were getting a shot at stardom: Both
Restless Heart and
Sawyer
Brown emerged in the mid-1980's and benefited tremendously from Alabama's
ground-breaking work.
By 1990, Alabama had a "Greatest
Hits" package at platinum status, and "My
Home's In Alabama" was certified double platinum.
You'd think that a band with this much star power
might begin to slow down round the time it turned ten years old, but not
so with Alabama. In 1990 Alabama released "Jukebox In
My Mind," which became the biggest chart record they've had to
date, according to the Billboard researcher Joel Whitburn.
Another huge single, "I'm In A Hurry (And Don't Know Why)," stayed #1
for two straight weeks in 1992.
Mark Herndon left the
band in 2008.
Country Weekly Presents the TNN Music Awards |
Minnie Pearl Humanitarian Award |
2000 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1998 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1996 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1995 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1994 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1993 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1992 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1991 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1990 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1989 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1988 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Album |
1987 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1987 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Album |
1986 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1986 |
Academy of Country Music |
Entertainer of the Year |
1985 |
Academy of Country Music |
Top Vocal Group |
1985 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1985 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Album |
1984 |
CMA |
Entertainer of the Year |
1984 |
Music City News Country |
Album of the Year |
1984 |
Academy of Country Music |
Entertainer of the Year |
1984 |
Academy of Country Music |
Album of the Year |
1984 |
Academy of Country Music |
Top Vocal Group |
1984 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1984 |
CMA |
Album of the Year |
1983 |
CMA |
Entertainer of the Year |
1983 |
CMA |
Vocal Group of the Year |
1983 |
GRAMMY |
Best Country Performance by Duo/Group
W/Vocals |
1983 |
Music City News Country |
Vocal Group of the Year |
1983 |
Music City News Country |
Band of the Year |
1983 |
Academy of Country Music |
Entertainer of the Year |
1983 |
Academy of Country Music |
Album of the Year |
1983 |
Academy of Country Music |
Top Vocal Group |
1983 |
American Music Awards |
Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group |
1983 |
CMA |
Entertainer of the Year |
1982 |
CMA |
Instrumental Group of the Year |
1982 |
CMA |
Vocal Group of the Year |
1982 |
GRAMMY |
Best Country Performance by Duo/Group
W/Vocals |
1982 |
Music City News Country |
Band of the Year |
1982 |
Music City News Country |
Album of the Year |
1982 |
Academy of Country Music |
Entertainer of the Year |
1982 |
Academy of Country Music |
Top Vocal Group |
1982 |
CMA |
Instrumental Group of the Year |
1981 |
CMA |
Vocal Group of the Year |
1981 |
Academy of Country Music |
Entertainer of the Year |
1981 |
Academy of Country Music |
Album of the Year |
1981 |
Academy of Country Music |
Top Vocal Group |
1981 |