Robbed hit of the week 10/28/24 - Tracy Lawrence's "Paint Me A Birmingham"...

 

 

"Paint Me A Birmingham" - Tracy Lawrence

from the album Strong (2004)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #42

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from neo-traditionalist singer Tracy Lawrence, who after years of success on country radio slipped into the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the spring of 2000 with "Lessons Learned", the lead single and title track from his sixth studio album. However, concurrently his record company, Atlantic Records, was being shuttered in Nashville with its remaining acts dumped to Warner Brothers Nashville. His next album, a self-titled set (which usually indicates a change in sound, but in this case, notsomuch), became his first to miss the top ten on Billboard's Country Albums chart (though came close at #13), as well as first to miss the top half of the Billboard 200 sales tally at #136. Of its two singles, only one barely managed to scraped the top-40 on the Country Songs airplay chart when "Life Don't Have To Be So Hard" peaked at #36. He was dropped from Warners not too long after that.

Wanting to reunite with former collaborating producer James Stroud, Lawrence signed on with the imprint Stroud was then an executive for, DreamWorks Nashville. In 2004 he released what would be his only album on the label, Strong. The lead single was "Paint Me A Birmingham", which at the time was also released by Ken Mellons, a relative contemporary in the field (he had a top ten hit in 1994 with "Jukebox Junkie"), but definitely not the success that Tracy had. Since Lawrence had the name recognition and the major label backing, it was natural that his version won out on the radio. Written by Gary Duffy and Buck Moore, "Paint Me A Birmingham" has Tracy coming across a painter-for-hire at a beach resort, and asked him to make him a portrait of the life he wishes he had, with a woman he doesn't have in his life anymore. It's a succinct and relatable story, and Tracy is great at interpreting heartbreak with his crack-ready vocals. The production from Stroud is reverent and unobstructive to Lawrence's storytelling. In return, country radio gave Tracy another shot...

While "Paint Me A Birmingham" spent a hefty eight months (32 weeks) on Billboard's Country Songs airplay chart, the song stopped a couple notches short of the top-40 on the all-genre Hot 100 in May of 2004. Internationally, the single got to #10 on the reinstated Canadian Country Chart. The Strong album, released in March of that year, came in at #17 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and #2 on the Country Albums list. 

The second single from the set, the record-opener "It's All How You Look At It", tried to pick up the pace for a rock-country hybrid and was maybe a little too cutsie for the time, but again only managed to climb to #36 on the Country Songs chart. That was followed by "Sawdust On Her Halo", which was refreshingly more akin to his trad-country roots, but the western swing song stalled at #46.

(6/10)

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For comparison, here's the concurrent version of "Paint Me A Birmingham" from Ken Mellons, which went to #54 on Billboard's Country Songs chart...

 

 

Here's Tracy performing "Birmingham" at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville...

and lastly, in concert more recently..