Songoftheday 6/22/15 - Changin' my life with your love has been so easy for you, and I'm amazed every day and I'll need you...

"I'll Still Be Loving You" - Restless Heart
from the album Wheels (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #33 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5

Today's SOTD comes from the country band Restless Heart, who came together as a "demo group" for producer/writer Tim Dubois. After their original lead singer was replaced by the mullet-ly handsome Larry Stewart, they released their self-titled debut album in 1984. The first single, "Let The Heartache Ride", rode on their tight harmonies and was a moderate country hit at #23 the following year. They followed up with three top-ten country hits from that debut disc, with "Back To The Heartbreak Kid" reaching #7 (this was the song that got me to buy their album after seeing it on VH1). With this momentum of a cohesive country band that wasn't Alabama, fans were all ready for their second album, Wheels, in 1986. The first single, "That Rock Won't Roll", became their first #1 country hit, and the first of six consecutive #1 country singles. The second, the ballad "I'll Still Be Loving You", was written by the team of Pat Bunch, Todd Cerney, Mary Ann Kennedy, and Pam Rose, and sounded plucked from pop radio in 1981. However, enough of an audience was there nostaglic of the Urban Cowboy times to send the single to the pop charts, the last top-40 country hit of the 1980s....

"I'll Still Be Loving You" reached the top-40 on the American pop chart in June of 1987, three months after it topped Billboard's country chart. The single also climbed to #3 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


and here's the reunited band in 2011 performing the song live...

Up tomorrow: The first "post-disco" smash from 1980 returns with a remake seven years later.