Robbed hit of the week 8/23/21 - Randy Travis' "Spirit Of A Boy, Wisdom Of A Man"...

 

 

"Spirit Of A Boy, Wisdom Of A Man" - Randy Travis

from the album You and You Alone (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #42 

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from country singer Randy Travis, who originally recorded under his birth name of Randy Traywick when he released his first music. Born in south central North Carolina, he first moved to Charlotte, where Randy met his manager and eventual wife Elizabeth Hatcher. Moving to Nashville and signing with the indie label Paula Records, Randy's single "She's My Woman" grazed the lower stretch of the Country Singles chart for a month, peaking at #91 in 1979.  From there Travis disappeared for six years before getting a deal with Warner Brothers under the possibly more palatable name Randy Travis. His first single on the label, the cheating treatise "On The Other Hand", was originally another minor hit on Billboard magazine's Country Singles chart at #67, but after the follow-up, "1982", climbed all the way into the top ten at #6, it was re-released, where it spent a week at #1 in 1986. Then came "Diggin' Up Bones", which followed "Other Hand" to #1 and landed Randy's first Grammy nomination for Best Male Country Vocal Performance, which went to 70s holdover Ronnie Milsap for his crossover single "Lost In The Fifties Tonight". Although the "countrypolitan" side of Nashville won that night, Randy's position as the stalwart of the neo-traditional movement in the genre was solidified with a fourth big hit with "No Place Like Home", spending a pair of weeks at #2. Travis' debut album, Storms Of Life, topped Billboard's Country Albums chart. While it stopped at #85 on the all-genre Billboard 200 sales tally, the record spent 100 weeks on the list and went on to move over three million copies. 

With his position as the biggest star in the new traditionalist movement in country, Travis' return in 1987 with his sophomore effort was huge. The lead single from Always & Forever, "Forever and Ever, Amen", was an event record, the first I truly remember in the genre. The song went to take three weeks on top of the Country Singles chart, and it was followed by three more #1's in "I Won't Need You Anymore", "Too Gone Too Long", and "I Told You So", each so different from each other yet equally great. The Always & Forever album, which also topped the Country Albums chart, scored Randy's first top-40 set on the Billboard 200 sales tally at #19, selling over five million copies. In 1988, the album was nominated as a whole for the Best Male Country Vocal Grammy, and won. Travis' next release, Old 8X10 that same year, also won that award in 1989, and spun off a trio of #1 country radio hits with "Honky Tonk Moon", "Deeper Than The Holler", and "Is It Still Over". Travis closed the decade with No Holdin' Back, which claimed his fourth consecutive #1 Country Album, accompanied by a pair of Country Singles #1's with his cover of the Brook Benton soul classic "It's Just A Matter Of Time" and "Hard Rock Bottom Of Your Heart". "It's Just A Matter..." was nominated for the Best Male Country Vocal Grammy in 1990, this time losing to Lyle Lovett for his Lyle Lovett & His Large Band release.

Randy's first album of the 1990's was a duet album, Heroes & Friends, which gave the singer his fifth (and so far last) #1 country albums placing. It was his first, though, to fail to land a #1 country single, with the sole solo cut, "Heroes & Friends", stopping at #3 in 1991. His collaboration with George Jones from the album, "A Few Ole Country Boys", was nominated for a Best Country Vocal Collaboration Grammy Award, as was Travis' track from the same album with blues master B.B. King on "Waiting On The Light To Change", with both losing to Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits' "Poor Boy Blues" (probably splitting the vote). He returned to the top though on his next record High Lonesome, whose second single "Forever Together", co-written with fellow country star Alan Jackson, topped the radio list later that same year. As a testament to his incredible success, Travis released two separate volumes of Greatest Hits albums the same week in 1992, which each hit the top-20 on the Country Albums chart, and each produced a #1 country radio hit with "If I Didn't Have You" and "Look Heart, No Hands". 

The mid-1990's was a roller-coaster ride for Travis; his next studio album Wind In A Wire, a soundtrack to a television series that was his first record not produced by Kyle Lehning. The album stalled at #24 on the Country Albums chart, and #121 on the Billboard 200, while neither of its two singles even made the country radio top-40, with "Cowboy Boogie" stalling at #46. However his next release, This Is Me in 1994 which reunited Randy with Lehning, returned the singer to the top ten at #10 while landing four top ten radio hits including the #1 "Whisper My Name". Also from the set "Better Class Of Losers" was up for a Grammy for Best Country Male Vocal, which went home with Vince Gill for his classic "I Believe In You". Randy's next album, Full Circle, his last with Warner Brothers, had only a pair of moderate country hits with "Are We In Trouble Now" stopping at #24. 

Randy moved to DreamWorks Records, hiring Byron Gallimore and James Stroud to co-produce his first record with the company, You and You Alone. The lead single from the set, "Out Of My Bones", spent a week at #2 on the Country Singles chart, and was Travis' first to make Billboard's "pop" Hot 100 at #64. That was followed by "The Hole", which rose to #9 on the country list, while "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #105. Which brings us to the third release from the album, "Spirit Of A Boy, Wisdom Of A Man". A predictor of his upcoming move to more spiritual work, this inspirational song written by Trey Bruce and Glen Burtnik (a New Jersey native that was a member of the rock band Styx for a bit) tells of a guy in his formative years at the crossroads of his life having to decide whether to continue the folly of his youth or settle down, as the question of a surprise teen pregnancy looms. It's a hard subject for Randy to tackle, and he at least doesn't seem too preachy, even at the end, when temptation calls. And like always, Travis' voice is honey to the ears...

While "Spirit Of A Boy" spent a week at #2 on Billboard's Country Singles chart, the track just missed the Hot 100 top-40 by a couple notches in January of 1999. Internationally, the single peaked at #7 on the Canadian Country chart. The You and You Alone album, released in April of 1998, got to #49 on the Billboard 200, and #7 on the Country Albums distillation.

A fourth release from You and You Alone, "Stranger In My Mirror", climbed to #16 on the Country Singles chart, and #81 on the Hot 100. Eventually, Randy will find himself in the pop Top-40, and on the Song Of The Day series. 

(6/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

The song was originally on country singer Mark Collie's 1995 album Tennessee Plates...