Robbed hit of the week 5/9/22 - Clay Davidson's "Unconditional"...

 

 

"Unconditional" - Clay Davidson

from the album Unconditional (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #49

 

Today's song comes from singer Clay Davidson, who grew up in western Virginia before moving to Nashville to start a country music career. Signed to the newly-minted Nashville division of the Virgin Records label, Clay released his debut album in 2000, with the title track "Unconditional" as the lead single.  Written by Deanna Bryant, Liz Hengber, and Rivers Rutherford, the song is a moral parable about the love no matter what, with scenes with a father then a wife illustrating the concept. It's heavy-handed for sure, but Clay's voice does a good job with the material, and in return he got his first and biggest hit. I quite like the chord changes in this song...

While "Unconditional" spent a week all the way up at #3 on Billboard magazine's Country Singles chart, the song stalled right above the halfway mark on the crossover "pop" Hot 100 in June of 2000. Internationally, the single peaked at #9 on the Canadian Country chart. Davidson's Unconditional album, released in April of that year, got to #33 on the Country Albums sales tally, spending 50 weeks on the list. 

Clay's follow-up single, "I Can't Lie To Me", tried to go down the southern-rock vein that Montgomery Gentry had success with. He co-wrote the track which went to #26 on the Country Singles chart, while "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #117. A third release, the love ballad "Sometimes", also written by Davidson with Casey Beathard and Kenny Beard, rose to #21 at country radio, also "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #112.

Unfortunately, Davidson was a victim of timing and music business glut, as Virgin Nashville didn't last long enough for Clay to release another album, even after shifting to Capitol in the closeout. As far as I can tell, he completely faded from the industry after this one album.

(6/10)

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Here's Clay performing "Unconditional" at the Grand Ole' Opry in Nashville..