The Top 20 Country Love Songs of All Time - Number 13

Glen Campbell - Gentle On My Mind

Photo courtesy glencampbellshow.com.

A unique song in many ways, Gentle On My Mind has both folk and country sensibilities. It’s a folk song by virtue of the detailed descriptions of people and states of mind. But it’s a country song, especially when Campbell sings it, because of its vivid country places – back roads, wheat fields, junk yards, and clotheslines. At the time he recorded Gentle On My Mind, Campbell was at the height of his singing prowess (he should have been … he’d just spent 18 months singing with the Beach Boys), and the clarity and sureness of his voice comes across with every line. The instrumentation – a gentle wall of music with elements of both country and bluegrass – stands behind Campbell’s voice like a stage curtain. You barely notice its there, and its effect is to allow you to focus on the abundance of lyrics.

John Hartford, a folk musician, wrote Gentle On My Mind in 15 minutes (he says) after watching Doctor Zhivago. It won four Grammys in 1968, including one for Hartford for Best Folk Performance and one for Glen Campbell for Best Country and Western Solo. The song was a phenomenal crossover, reaching pop, easy listening and country charts in two separate ‘chart attacks’ – 1967 and 1968.

Buy Gentle On My Mind at Amazon MP3 or iTunes. Visit Campbell's website here.

The Top 20 Country Love Songs of All Time - Number 14

Keith Whitley - When You Say Nothing At All

Keith Whitley. Photo courtesy of photobucket.com.

When You Say Nothing At All has the distinction of having topped the charts for three different performers: Keith Whitley, Alison Krauss and Ronan Keating. We’re featuring Whitley’s version because we think it’s the best of the three, and because he had one of the great voices for country singing – deep and expressive, with a twang that can only be described as western timbre... The song itself (by Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz) is finely crafted, with a chorus that offers unexpected turns – small but satisfying. The musical accompaniment for Whitley will sound to an experienced ear a bit too much like the over-produced and ponderous ‘80s, but still the song has withstood the test of three decades.

Behind the song is a tragedy. Although he had been a musician since the late ‘60s, Whitley’s talent wasn’t commercially recognized until 1982, with the release of his solo album Don’t Close Your Eyes (with When You Say Nothing At All). For the next few years, he began to be thought of as an emerging superstar in Country Music. Sadly, he died of alcohol poisoning in 1989.

Buy When You Say Nothing At All at Amazon Mp3 or iTunes.

The Top 20 Country Love Songs of All Time - Number 15

by Jim Poulton

John Michael Montgomery: I Swear

A great addition to your iPod lineup, I Swear is hard to put down once you’ve heard it. Montgomery’s voice has the range to make the demanding melody his own, and his band works well in counterpoint with the lyrics. A well-produced, well-conceived track with nice balance between multiple guitars, steel guitar, piano, and a nicely subtle drum track. Note how the instruments are in conversation with each other – just after the first chorus, for example, the piano first plays a brief resolving phrase, which is immediately echoed by the steel guitar, and then again by the acoustic guitar – giving the song satisfying texture and depth. Definitely deserving to be in the top 20.

John Michael Montgomery. Photo courtesy of countrymusictattletale.com.

Here's a video version of Montgomery's I Swear with a nice international flavor.

Visit Montgomery's website here. Buy I Swear at Amazon mp3 or iTunes.

The Top 20 Country Love Songs of All Time - Number 16

by Jim Poulton

Hank Williams: I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

Not your run of the mill love song - more of a love lost song - but I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry is a tune so perfectly constructed it embedded itself in the unconscious of an entire nation - ready to play its lovelorn melody whenever we're feeling blue about love. Williams sings it in a plaintive voice, somewhere between a lament and a wail, that will awaken delicate memories of yearning and loss, and the delicious loves so powerful they could make us feel this way.

Hank Williams. Photo courtesy of Last.fm.

Here's I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry along with a nice montage of photos of Williams:

A song this good has to have been covered by other musicians, right? You bet. Here's Johnny Cash:

Here's Elvis:

And here's a link to Glen Campbell's version - the best part is its soulful, bluesy harmonica accompaniment by Steve Hardin.

The Top 20 Country Love Songs of All Time - Number 17

by Jim Poulton

Keith Urban: Making Memories of Us

Keith Urban. Photo courtesy of keithurban.net.

Making Memories of Us is a song written from innocence, from the earliest tiptoes of love. Where Remember When (Number 18) looked back on years that have passed, Urban sings about his promise to make memories worth remembering. ‘I’ll earn your trust making memories of us,’ he says. It’s a sweet devotion to all those expansive, live-altering and often foolhardy emotions that invade us with Cupid’s arrows. Fortunately for the love song industry, many of us survive all those emotions. For others, those arrows are a bit more like spears and harpoons. But keep the faith. With 7 billion people in the world, there’s got to be somebody for you.

See Urban's website here.