Songoftheday 4/6/23 - Another day has almost come and gone, can’t imagine what else could wrong...

 

 

"Bring On The Rain" - Jo Dee Messina with Tim McGraw

from the album Burn (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #36 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 4

 

Today's song comes from singer Jo Dee Messina, whose third album Burn had scored a number one country radio hit that crossed over to Billboard magazine's Hot 100 top-40 in the summer of 2000 with "That's The Way". The second single from the record was "Burn", a cover of a great power-ballad by Australian singer/songwriter Tina Arena, which made the country top-10 at #2, but just missed the Hot 100 top-40 at #42. That was followed by the uptempo song "Downtime", which also came close to the Hot 100 top-40 at #46, while hitting #5 on the country songs chart. Both were excellent songs that should have done just a little better.

For the fourth single from the album, Jo Dee called in a favor from Curb Records labelmate and co-producer of her album Tim McGraw, who himself was coming off of two top-40 crossover hits from his Set This Circus Down album in "Grown Man Don't Cry" and "Angry All The Time". The result, "Bring On The Rain", wasn't as bombastic a ballad as "Burn" was, but in return it allowed Jo Dee to pull out emotion from pain, defiant in her intention of overcoming the obstacles in her way. Tim doesn't get a verse of his own, but rather does harmony supporting her, which is quite fine in the end. The production by him with Byron Gallimore doesn't get in the way (think like "I Hope You Dance"), and allows her voice to carry the simple message. In return the song became one of her signature songs and brought her back to the top of the charts....

"Bring On The Rain" topped Billboard magazine's Country Songs chart for a week, and gifted Jo Dee her fourth (and most recent) top-40 crossover hit on the Hot 100 in March of 2002. The song also climbed to #6 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format chart. At the Grammy Awards in 2002, Messina and McGraw were nominated for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals,  losing to "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" from Dan Tyminski's Soggy Bottom Boys from the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? (the Album of the Year winner). 

A fifth single from the Burn album, the uptempo track "Dare To Dream", was more rock inflected than the rest of the singles, and went to #23 on Billboard's Country Songs chart.

The next couple of years saw Jo Dee releasing a Christmas album, A Joyful Noise, at the close of 2002, which had one of its songs, the title track, become a moderate hit on Adult Contemporary radio at #16. That was followed the following year by a Greatest Hits release which included four new songs, two which were promoted to radio as singles. The second one, "I Wish", did the better of the two, climbing to #15 on the Country Songs chart while popping on to the Hot 100 at #75.

Messina's next non-seasonal studio album finally arrived five years after Burn with Delicious Surprise, which was her highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 at #7, while also spending two weeks at #1 on the Country Albums list (her longest stay there), going on to sell over a half-million copies. The lead single, the comedic "My Give A Damn's Busted", topped the country chart for two weeks in America (and also went #1 on the revived Canadian Country chart), but stalled down at #63 on the Hot 100 (a surprise - no pun intended - since most #1 country hits at least made the top-40).. However, the three following singles were just minor hits that at least made the country top-40.

It was at this time that Curb started messing with her. First, after a new single "Biker Chick" stalled down at #48 on the Country Songs chart in 2007, the corresponding album got shelved. Then the following year, another single, "I'm Done", climbed to #34 on that list, but that wasn't good enough to even consider an album. Finally, in 2010, they released three separate EPs (extended play singles) of material, titled Unmistakable with subtitles Love, Drive, and Inspiration. ("Biker Chick" appeared on Drive, but "I'm Done" didn't come in on any of them oddly.) Unmistakable: Love made it to #19 on Billboard's Country Albums chart, and popped on to the Billboard 200 for a week at #106. After this she left Curb Records.

In 2014 Jo Dee released her most recent studio album Me on the indie Dreambound Records label, which went to #156 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and #19 on the Country Albums chart. Since then she's put out a few singles, most recently "Reckless Love" (a cover of a Christian pop song) in 2018. However, Messina's profile got a big boost to a new generation of country music fans when Cole Swindell interpolated her debut single from 1996 for a new song, "She Had Me At Heads Carolina", which topped the Country Songs chart, and made the top-20 on the Hot 100. Cole had Jo Dee perform with him at the 2022 Country Music Awards show, and released a special version of the song with Jo Dee singing on it as well.

(9/10)

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Here's Jo Dee performing the song at an awards show at the time of release...

And lastly, on a web program in 2015...

 

 Up tomorrow: A country duo bid adieu.