Robbed hit of the week 1/14/19 - Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochee"...
from the album A Lot About Livin' (And A Little 'Bout Love) (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #46
This week's "robbed hit" comes from neo-traditional country artist Alan Jackson, who grew up in Georgia before moving to Nashville for a music career, first as a hired hand at the old Nashville Network (TNN) before signing to Arista Records. Alan released his first single, "Blue Blooded Woman", in 1989, but that song missed the top-40 on the country airplay chart, stalling at #45. However, that would be his last single to miss the top-40 on the country list till 2001. Jackson's next release, the ballad of "Here In The Real World", made it all the way to #3 on the country chart. In total, four of the tracks from his debut album, Here In The Real World, hit the top three, with the final single, "I'd Love You All Over Again", becoming his first to top the chart.
Jackson's sophomore effort, Don't Rock The Jukebox, was an even bigger success, with four of its five singles going to #1 with the title track spending three weeks at the top. Wasting no time, Alan's third record, A Lot About Livin' (And A Little 'Bout Love), arrived in the fall of 1992, with Jackson now one of the biggest-selling and most-played artists in Nashville. The lead single from the set, "She's Got The Rhythm (I've Got The Blues)" again raced up to #1, followed by the somber break-up ballad "Tonight I Climbed The Wall", which peaked at #4. But it would be the third offering from the record that not only would be the album's most successful track, but in no time become one of Alan's signature songs. "Chattahoochee", written by Jackson with Jim McBride, was a simple song about relaxing and boating in the river that connected Georgia and Alabama. A nostaglic yet bouncy fun little ditty, it would sell so much as to reach the all-inclusive Hot 100 chart with scarcely any airplay except a few southern stations who got into the Bayou groove...
While "Chattahoochee" spent a full month at #1 on Billboard magazine's Country Airplay chart, ending up the year-end #1 for 1993, the single stopped a handful of notches short of the pop Hot 100 at #46. His profile was so high at the time that album cut "Tropical Depression" was sneaking in enough airplay to slip on to the Country Airplay chart at #75. Alan's next physical single from A Lot About Livin', "Mercury Blues", made it to #2 on the Country chart, followed by "(Who Says) You Can't Have It All" which peaked at #4. He would return to the Hot 100 in 1996 with "Little Bitty", and then finally cracked the top-40 in 1999 for the first (but not last) time with "Little Man".
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's Alan performing "Chattahoochee" live on the Music City Awards show in 1994...
...and again at Farm Aid in 2000...
Now here's Alan bringing a taste of the Opry to Carnegie Hall in New York City...
And finally, for a special taping for Walmart in 2015...
Comments