Songoftheday 5/24/23 - There's a man standing on the corner with a sign saying "will work for food"...

 

 

"What If She's An Angel" - Tommy Shane Steiner

from the album Then Came The Night (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #39 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 3

 

Today's song comes from Tommy Shane Steiner, who grew up in Texas, where he started a music career performing before getting discovered and signed to RCA Nashville Records. At the close of 2001, Steiner released his debut single, "What If She's An Angel", the lead single from his upcoming album Then Came The Night. Written by Bryan Wayne (Gallentine), it's a "message song" that preaches about the downfalls of mistreating the downtrodden, whether it be the poor, the sick, and the abused. In each of the three vignettes, it counters ignoring the person with "what if it's a stand-in so God can judge you", as if morality is something exclusive to the religious (news flash, it's not). But nevertheless, the intention was good, but having it come from such a fresh-faced boy was a little jarring, but his voice was pleasant enough to carry it through. The music video basically took the lyrics literally with a healthy serving of Steiner's pin-up looks, and Tommy found himself out of the gate with his first and by far biggest success. I still think its a pastiche of what Vince Gill does a million times better...

"What's If She's An Angel" made the top-40 on Billboard magazine's all-genre Hot 100 in May of 2002. The song has a big country radio hit, spending a week at #2 on Billboard's Country Songs chart. Tommy's debut (and only) album, Then Came The Night, was released in April of that year, and peaked at #71 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and #6 on the Country Albums list. 

That album, produced by Jimmy Ritchey, had some "ringer" guests like Randy Travis, Richie McDonald from Lonestar, and Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, a former Miss Teen USA who had a role on the TV soap opera Santa Barbara. However, the choice of follow-up single was quite odd. "Tell Me Where It Hurts" seems good on paper if you only knew it was written by Diane Warren (RCA was really pushing him), but after you learn it was originally recorded by the group Try-N-B, made up partly of the people who really sang on the Milli Vanilli record, then it's a little soured. (Christian pop singer Kathy Troccoli also had a minor hit with it at #88). Tommy's version tried to make it into a lite country-rock track, but it lacked any feeling despite the lush production, and it stiffed down at #43 on Billboard's Country Songs chart. That was followed by Steiner's duet with Wilson-Sampras (coincidentally tennis ace Pete Sampas' wife), "What We're Gonna Do About It", which again totally drowns his vocals out, Bridgette was relegated to inane "phone chatter" on the record, and again the song stalled at #43. RCA felt the investment didn't pay, and Tommy was released. He hasn't released any new music since. Sadly, Gallentine passed away in 2020 from Lou Gehring's disease.

(5/10)

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Here's Tommy performing at the Christian Country Music Awards in 2002...

And lastly, in concert in 2005...

Up tomorrow: The temperature is definitely rising for this midwest rapper.