Songoftheday 4/3/24 - Learned that happiness on Earth, ain't just for high achievers...

 

 

"Red Dirt Road" - Brooks & Dunn

from the album Red Dirt Road (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #25 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 9

 

Today's song comes from the country music duo Brooks & Dunn, whose seventh album Steers & Stripes in 2001 reinvigorated their career with three #1 country radio hits that crossed over to the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart with "Ain't Nothing 'Bout You", "Only In America", and "The Long Goodbye".  At the close of the following year, the pair released a holiday album, It Won't Be Christmas Without You, which climbed to #81 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #12 on the Country Albums chart. Four tracks from the set got enough airplay to make Billboard's Country Songs airplay chart, with "It Won't Be Christmas Without You" just missing the top-40 at #41. 

Kix and Ronnie returned in the spring of 2003 with their next regular release, Red Dirt Road, with the title track as its lead single. Written by the duo, who co-produced the song with Mark Wright, the uptempo track is a nostalgic look back at their rural upbringing (Dunn grew up in not so small town of Coleman, population around 5000, while Brooks is from the city of Shreveport). Still, Ronnie paints a vivid picture of growing up simply, touching on his evangelical past in the lyrics. All in all it's an inoffensive form of personality branding that country would drown in pretty soon enough. And in fact, the pairs warmth in Dunn's vocals are a nice break from the jingoistic streak the genre was immersed in (and they haphazardly lucked out on "Only In America", which radio co-opted for 9/11).

 

"Red Dirt Road" brought Brooks & Dunn back to #1 on Billboard's Country Songs chart, while making the Hot 100's Top-40 in August of 2003. The Red Dirt Road album, released in July of that year, came in at #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and topped the Country Albums list for a week, going on to sell over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2004, "Red Dirt Road" was nominated for Best Duo/Group Country Performance with Vocals, losing to Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder for "A Simple Life". 

Both Brooks & Dunn and the Red Dirt Road album will be back to the series.

(6/10)

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Here's Brooks & Dunn performing the song at Farm Aid in 2003...

and lastly, on their CMT Crossroads episode with Cody Johnson...

Up tomorrow: the Atlanta rapper is getting silly for this single from his franchise movie.