Songoftheday 7/27/21 - I just dropped her off I'm thinkin' oh what a night, I oughta be flying but I'm sittin' here at this green light...

 

 

"It Must Be Love" - Ty Herndon

from the album Big Hopes (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #38 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 2

 

Today's song of the day comes from country singer Ty Herndon, who grew up in Alabama before moving to Nashville to start his music career. A member of an early incarnation of a band that would evolve into Diamond Rio, Ty competed on Star Search and by the early 1990s was signed to Epic Records. Herndon released his debut album What Mattered Most in the spring of 1995, and the title track and lead single went all the way to #1 on Billboard magazine's Country Songs radio chart. However, just as he released his follow-up, "I Want My Goodbye Back", Ty was arrested in Texas for drugs and alleged indecent exposure involving an undercover cop in a public park. But since it was the time before the internet, and Epic had enough pull to bury the story in the press to just a drug mishap, that song still managed to make the top ten at #7, while the album rose to #9 on the Country Albums list, and #68 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over half a million copies.

A year later, Herndon returned with his sophomore album Living In A Moment. It seemed like everything was forgotten, and "Living In A Moment" scored Ty his second #1 hit in the summer of 1996. The album was his highest-ranked on both the Country Albums (#6) and Billboard 200 (#65) lists, again going gold (over 500K sold). 

In 1998, Ty released his third disc Big Hopes. The lead single from the set, "A Man Holdin' On (To A Woman Lettin' Go)", rose to a respectable #5 on the Country Songs chart, and since it was released as a retail single, it became his first hit on Billboard's pop Hot 100 list at #81. But it would be the second track promoted to radio that would become Ty's biggest chart success. "It Must Be Love", written by Craig Bickhardt and Jack Sundrud, and produced by Doug Johnson, was an uptempo love song that has Ty contemplating a date he just had with a woman (cough) and pondering the romantic possibilities for the future. He was apparently thinking it would be a fling, but his heart is drawing him back to her to proclaim his love. Yes, it's quite tacky, but Ty sells it with his model looks and his charm, as well as his honeyed voice. And the music video is sure pushing the heterosexuality of it all...

Since "It Must Be Love" wasn't released as a retail single, it initially wasn't able to place on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. However by luck the song reached #1 on the country radio chart the week that the music industry trade bible changed their rules of that list to allow all songs, and Ty found himself in the top-40 for the first and last time in December of 1998. The Big Hopes album, released in April of 1998, rose to #140 on the Billboard 200, and #22 on the Country Albums list.

Ty's next single, from the album, "Hands Of A Working Man", rose to #5 on the Country Songs chart (making Big Hopes his only album with three top ten country hits), and just missed the Hot 100 top-40 at #47. 

Despite this success, when Herndon returned in 2000 with his fourth record, Steam, he found a different reception, as the overly seductive title track missed the top ten on the country songs chart at #18 (and #83 on the Hot 100). Even a return to the solemn ballad, "No Mercy", didn't do any better, stopping at #26 on the Country Songs chart and landing his final Hot 100 hit at #92. A year later, after the prospective first single from his next album, "Heather's Wall", a try at heavier material, just skirted the country top-40 at #37, Epic cancelled the set, and after a greatest hits album with a final minor country hit in "A Few Short Years" (#55 Country), they let him go in 2002.

Since then, Ty has released six studio albums independently, including two Christmas collections. In 2010, he put out the gospel record Journey On, which was nominated for a Grammy Award, his first, for Best Southern, Country, or Bluegrass Gospel Album, ironically losing out to none other than Diamond Rio for their The Reason release.

In 2014, Herndon came out as a gay man, and has since been a leading voice for the LGBT community in Nashville. His most recent album, House On Fire, came out in 2016, where it went to #42 on Billboard's Country Albums chart. 

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Here's Ty performing "It Must Be Love" for a gig in 2017...

 Up tomorrow: New Jack Kings and an R&B newcomer join forces for some animated rugrats.