Songoftheday 9/10/19 - I bet you any amount of money he'll be coming back to you, I know there ain't no doubt about it sometimes life is funny...
from the album House Of Love (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #37 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4
Today's song of the now comes from Christian music superstar turned pop hitmaker Amy Grant, who had returned from her massive album Heart In Motion, which spun off five top-20 singles. In the fall of 1994 the first single from her follow-up album House Of Love, "The Lucky One", put her back into the top-20. For the second release, Amy put out the ballad "House Of Love", which paired her with country singer Vince Gill. Gill had first been known for being in the country-rock band Pure Prairie League in 1979, singing on their top ten hit "Let Me Love You Tonight". He embarked on the solo career in country music in 1984, releasing an EP Turn Me Loose. The six-track mini-album nevertheless placed three of its songs in the country top-40, starting with his first single, "Victim of Life's Circumstances" (Country #40). With his first full-length album The Things That Matter in 1985, Vince landed his first top ten country hit with "If It Weren't For Him", a duet with Rosanne Cash that peaked at #10. His next effort, The Way Back Home, continued the momentum, putting "Cinderella" in the top-5 at #5 in 1987. Getting oh so closer to the top, the third of four singles from Vince's next record, the title track "When I Call Your Name", peaked at #2 in 1990. Vince topped that by having all four singles from his next album, Pocket Full Of Gold, make the country top 10.
All this led to Gill's fifth studio album I Still Believe In You. Arguably the pinnacle of his success at country radio, the set landed four #1 hits (out of five singles) on the chart, including the title track "I Still Believe In You", which crossed over to the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart reaching #30, his first solo pop exposure. The second, "Don't Let Your Love Start Slipping Away", spent three weeks at the top of the country chart, his longest stay. And the fifth release (and fourth #1) "Tryin' To Get Over You", possibly my favorite song of his, slipped on to the pop Hot 100 in Billboard to earn his first entry at #88 at the beginning of 1994. Later that year, Gill put out When Love Finds You, which racked up six top-20 country hits. Although none of them went to #1, three made it to the runner-up position, including the lead single "Whenever You Come Around", which scored Vince his second Hot 100 hit at #72 in the spring of 1994.
That leads to his collaboration with Amy. At the time, Vince was one of the biggest stars in country market, but as opposed to some of the more popular crossover artists, he was a relative unknown in the pop world. Couple this with a love song done by two people who at the time were married to two different people (Amy to CCM artist Gary Chapman, Vince to Janis Gill of the country duo Sweethearts Of The Rodeo), but would find themselves divorced and wed to each other by the end of the decade. Which made this duet sort of awkward. Naive little me knew something was up between them, so it couldn't have been that hidden a secret. Nevertheless, the chipper mid-tempo song didn't create a backlash enough that it became a pop and AC hit, and Gill's first (and last) pop top-40. The song also appeared on the soundtrack to the Michael Keaton/Geena Davis movie Speechless, and clips from the movie appear in the music video...
"House Of Love" reached the pop top-40 in America in February of 1995. The track was a huge hit on "easy listening" radio, peaking at #5 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary format chart and spending 41 weeks on the list. Internationally, the single was a big success in Canada, going as high as #9, while in the UK it just missed the top-40 at #46, where it was the fourth release from House Of Love, following "Say You'll Be Mine" which stopped at #41, and a remake of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi", which in the U.S. and Canada served as the follow-up to "House Of Love". That cover went to #67 on the pop Hot 100 and #18 on the Adult Contemporary chart here at home, while in the UK it got to #20 and #25 in Canada. Since Amy's next top-40 radio hit, "Takes A Little Time", wasn't released commercially as a single, it didn't make the pop Hot 100 (it hit #21 on the Hot 100 airplay list and is a future SOTD) so as of now this is her most recent American Top-40 hit. She continued to have some success at the Adult Contemporary format; her most recent hit there was the holiday entry "I Need A Silent Night" from her Christmas Collection, which went to #29 in 2009. Also, her most recent album, Tennessee Christmas, climbed to #31 in 2016.
As for Vince, he continued to have success on country radio, though his fortunes there have diminished a bit (as the discriminatory genre ages its artists off in machine-like form). His 1996 album High Lonesome Sound scored five top-20 country hits (four hitting the top ten). However his next record The Key did the reverse, having only one top ten hit of the four top-40 tracks from the set. 2000's Let's Make Sure We Kiss Goodbye contains his most recent top ten country hit, "Feels Like Love" (#6 Country). His most recent top-40 country hit came in 2006 with another collaboration, this time with bluegrass queen Alison Krauss, on "The Reason Why" (Country #28) from his ambitious and rewarding originals box set album These Days. That same year, he also was a featured performer on Brooks and Dunn's "Burning Bridges", which got to #4 on the Country Airplay list and #66 on the pop Hot 100. His most recent album, Okie, was just released and hit #10 on the Country Albums chart, so don't count him out yet.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's Grant and Gill performing "House Of Love" together on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 1994...
...and without Vince on Letterman in 1995...
Back to the pair in concert (but with only Amy singing) in 2007...
And finally, Vince and Amy recalling a funny story together in 2017...
Up tomorrow: Cuban-American pop princess' romance goes on and on and on.
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