Songoftheday 2/27/23 - I was just out of the service thumbing through the classifieds, when an ad that said old Chevy somehow caught my eye...

 

 

"Riding With Private Malone" - David Ball

from the album Amigo (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #36 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 2

 

Today's song comes from neo-traditional country music singer David Ball, who had a crossover top-40 hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with his song "Thinkin' Problem" in the summer of 1994. He also had two more decent country radio hits from that album of the same name, with one, "When The Thought Of You Catches Up With Me", also nearly making the Hot 100, "bubbling under at #107. 

In 1996, Ball returned with his next album on Warner Brothers Nashville, Starlite Lounge, but that record stalled down at #44 on Billboard's Country Albums chart. The lead single from the set, "Circle Of Friends", also stopped short of the top-40 on the Country Songs list at #49. That downward momentum continues with his third and final disc on Warners, Play, which hit #60 on the Country Albums chart with the first single "Watching My Baby Not Coming Back" topping out at #47. At this point Ball and the label parted ways.

Ball then signed with the independent label Dualtone Records, where he recorded his fifth album Amigo, which came out in the autumn of 2001. The lead single for the set was the nostalgic story ballad "Riding With Private Malone", written by Wood Newton and Thom Shepherd. The song tells the story of a recently discharged military man buying a car sight unseen and finding out it was an old Corvette. The note found in the glove compartment forms the chorus, where the former owner, a soldier killed in war decades prior, wanted it to go to someone else to have. Bringing the story back to the first person, he fixes up the car and proceeds to drive, where the ghost of "Private Malone" is his shotgun rider. The final verse has Ball crashing the car, and seemingly saved by that same ghost. It's an oversentimental tale to tell, but those were the days immediately following 9/11, the that was just was America, and specifically the country music fans, wanted. The production from Wood Newton was simple and organic, and made the record much less cheesy than it could have been. The result was that Ball not only came back on the country chart matching the peak position of "Thinkin' Problem", but also had the biggest crossover hit of his career on Billboard's Hot 100...

 

 

"Riding With Private Malone" became Ball's second song to reach the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart in December of 2001. The song also spent one week at #2 on their Country Airplay Songs list. The Amigo album, released in October of that year, peaked at #120 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and just missed the top ten on the Country Albums chart at #11.

Despite the big success of "Private Malone", Dualtone and Ball weren't able to get another track from the Amigo album on to either the pop or country chart. He came back in 2004 on another indie label, Wildcatter, and released Freewheeler. That disc contained the single "Louisiana Melody", which slipped on to the Country Songs chart at #60, his most recent chart appearance. Since then, David has released four more studio albums in as many labels, the most recent being Come See Me in 2018. 

(9/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's David performing the song in 2019...

Up tomorrow: A country legend is on the move.