Songoftheday 2/7/23 - I can do anything with her here beside me, leaning on her is where I make my stand...

 

 

"Love Of A Woman" - Travis Tritt

from the album Down The Road I Go (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #39 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 1

 

Today's song comes from mulleted country singer Travis Tritt, whose seventh studio album, and first on Columbia Records, Down The Road I Go, proved to be a huge success, already scoring a pair of top-five country hits that made the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 "big" chart, with "Best Of Intentions" and "A Great Day To Be Alive".  The third single pulled from the record was the ballad "Love Of A Woman", written by Kevin Brandt and produced by Travis with Billy Joe Walker Jr.. The song has your basic platitudes for the female race, especially tied in to how they can "tame" their man. I mean, it's nothing that hasn't been sung before, but it's an effective product, and it has its market, and and Tritt's soulful voice carries it off. The melody is overfamiliar, but the production makes it sound earthy and organic. As a result, Travis did something he hadn't done since 1991 - have three top ten country radio hits from an album...

"Love Of A Woman" became the third song from Down The Road I Go to reach the top-40 on the Hot 100 in November of 2001. The song also spent three weeks at #2 on Billboard's Country Airplay chart. 

A fourth single from the album, "Modern Day Bonnie And Clyde", was a crime-based story song, and arguably the best of the singles. It reached #8 on the Country Airplay chart, making four top ten hits from the set, while getting to #55 on the Hot 100. 

 

In the fall of 2002, Travis returned with his next album, Strong Enough, which returned the singer to the top 40 on the Billboard 200 sales tally at #27, while peaking at #4 on the Country Albums list, though it sold considerably less than its predecessor. Both singles from the album were only moderate to minor country hits, with "Strong Enough To Be Your Man" making it to #13 on the Country Airplay chart, while missing the Hot 100 by a pair of notches, "bubbling under" the list at #102. Two years later, Tritt's third and final album with Columbia, Honky Tonk History was released. It also made the top ten on the Country Albums chart at #7, but with only a month on the Billboard 200 with a high of #50, even sold less than Strong Enough. The record spun off three minor top-40 country radio hits, with a collaboration with John Mellencamp, "What Say You", an attempt of a "kumbaya moment" between the liberal and conservative America, doing the best at #21, while again "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #117. After the lackluster showing, Tritt and Columbia parted ways.

Signing with the indie label Category 5 Records, Tritt came back with his tenth studio album The Storm in 2007. The record made the top-40 on the Billboard 200 at #28, and #3 on the Country Albums list. The lead single from the set, "You Never Take Me Dancing", went to #27 on the Country Airplay chart, his most recent as a lead artist. He went for years without releasing any new music of his own, and didn't really resurface until the COVID-19 pandemic where he went full-on lunatic, joining the anti-vaccination death cult klan and worshipper of the Cheeto Benito. In 2020, Travis was featured on Dierks Bentley's side project Hot Country Knights on the single "Pick Her Up", which stalled at #41 on the Country Airplay chart. His most recent album, Set In Stone, was released in 2021, and spent a solitary week at #49 on the Country Albums chart (one notch from the bottom). But he don't mind, he's riding the Fox News gravy train.

(6/10)

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and here's Travis performing the song in concert in 2004...

 

 Up tomorrow: Midwestern rapper is on top.