Songoftheday 7/25/23 - No rush though I need your touch I won't rush your heart, until you feel on solid ground until your strength is found girl...

 

 

"The One" - Gary Allan

from the album Alright Guy (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #37 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 5

 

Today's song comes from singer/songwriter/guitarist Gary Allan, who grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, where he started performing country music as a child with his musician father. He later fronted his own band before getting discovered and moved out to Nashville to try to kickstart his career. Gary eventually was signed to Decca Records, where he released his debut album Used Heart For Sale in 1996. The lead single from the set, "Her Man", was traditional love-ballad country, and moseyed up the Country Airplay chart in Billboard magazine to #7 (and #9 on the Canadian Country chart). The album made the Billboard 200 sales tally at #136, and #20 on the Country Albums list and selling a half million copies, but the three follow-up singles from the album all just missed the country top-40 by a handful of notches each. 

Allan came back in 1998 with his sophomore effort, It Would Be You. The title track, another straightforward love ballad, returned the singer to the #7 position on the Country Airplay chart, while just missing Billboard's main Hot 100 chart, "bubbling under" the list at #101. But again, the two follow-ups stalled in the 40's on the country chart, as Decca was in the midst of being absorbed into the MCA/Universal giant star in the merger craze near the end of the millennium. The album got to #21 on the Country Albums chart and #132 on the Billboard 200, but sold quite a bit less.

Moving over to MCA Nashville, Gary released his third disc Smoke Rings In The Dark in the fall of 1999. With this set Allan changed up his sound greatly, eschewing the mainstream Nashville country blandness for a more California-based take from Bakersfield in the vein of Dwight Yoakam and pop singers like Chris Isaak. The title track, released as the first single, was spacious in sound and emotional at its lyrical core, and while it missed the country radio chart at #12, the song spent 29 weeks on the charts, more that any single he had before then, and was his first to make the Hot 100 at #76. It also went to #5 on the Canadian Country chart. A cover of Del Shannon's 60's pop hit "Runaway", an album cut, got enough airplay to pop on to the Country Airplay chart for a week at #74. The second promoted single from the album, "Lovin' You Against My Will", did the usual follow-up fall-off, but at least this time making the country top-40 at #34. But the third offering from the disc, the rock infused "Right Where I Need To Be", caught on with radio and the public, climbing to #5 on the Country Songs chart and almost making the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100 at #42 in the summer of 2001.

The following year, Allan returned with his fourth studio album Alright Guy, preceded by "Man Of Me", which continued the minor-key country rock approach of his last success. Although the song spent a hefty six months on the Country Songs chart, it stopped short at #18, while only "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #107.

For the second single from the record, Gary went back to what made his first impression in Nashville, the love ballad. "The One", written by Billy Lee and Karen Manno, In the lyrics, Allan promises to do whatever it takes for his partner to feel comfortable with him and prove his love, with no extravagant boasts or gifts. It's a simple and true message, and while it's a well-trodden path, his world-weary voice is able to deliver an emotion others in the genre don't have the depth for. The production from Tony Brown and Mark Wright is more adult-pop than country, but Gary's inflection and phrasing takes is back down home. In return, country radio and the public reversed his momentum and put him back into the top ten, and for the first time have a bona fide crossover success...

"The One" became Allan's first single to crack the top 40 on Billboard's Hot 100 in August of 2002. On the Country Songs radio chart, the song spent two weeks at #3, taking 34 weeks on the list. Internationally, the single made it to #4 on the Canadian Country Radio chart. The Alright Guy album, released in October of 2001, peaked at #39 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #4 on the Country Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies. 

Both Gary and the album will be back to the series.

(7/10)

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Here's Gary performing the song in concert in 2016...

Up tomorrow: A rapper and a Grammy-winning powerhouse want some illicit romancing.