Here's som information on my favorite group. I hope you enjoy it.
Members
Teddy Gentry
Jeff Cook
Mark Herndon
Randy Owen
This is alot of stuff about my Favorite Group....
The music business turned up the heat on country music's most popular and enduring band this year and the group responded with the outpouring of creativity that you hear on Alabama's Twentieth Century.
Once RCA's executives got a copy of God Must Have Spent A Little More Time on You, the collection's first hit single, they urged Alabama to deliver the album ahead of schedule.
"We were going to just relax, sit back and have a wonderful time," reports lead singer Randy Owen. "Then when they heard God Must Have Spent a Little More Time On You, they went, 'Wow. How fast can you get this sucker done?' It really put the pressure on and took a lot of extra effort. But you know what? When things are toughest, that's when this band is the closest."
Alabama's Randy Owen, Teddy Gentry, Jeff Cook and Mark Herndon all shine on Twentieth Century. This is the band's 22nd studio album for RCA, but one of the hallmarks of Alabama is its ability to continually reinvent its sound to always sound fresh.
God Must Have Spent a Little More Time On You features background harmonies by the redhot quintet 'N Sync, which had already enjoyed a big pop hit with the song.
"I have always believed that music is music, that a great song is a great song," comments Owen. "If we put aside our prejudices and just go for what is truly a hit, I think music in general benefits, and so do its fans." Alabama's previous disc partners have included Lionel Richie and K.T. Oslin.
Country broadcasters went wild when they heard the new collaboration and began airing a pirated copy of God Must Have Spent a Little More Time On You. This pressured RCA to issue it five weeks before its intended release date. That, in turn, accelerated the pace of Twentieth Century's production.
"Sometimes in your greatest hour of stress you can rise to a new level of creativity," says Owen. He co-wrote six of the album's songs, including the tender fatherhood ballad I Love You Enough To Let You Go, the zippy romp Life's Too Short To Love This Fast and the gently soulful ode to enduring commitment Too Much Love.
He and Alabama's Teddy Gentry are among the collaborators on Write It Down In Blue, an irresistibly memorable mid-tempo meditation on the end of a relationship. They also provided the album's sexy up-tempo rocker I'm In That Kind of Mood and its romantic ballad Little Things. Gentry sings lead on Then We Remember, which has a swaying r&b groove. Guitarist Jeff Cook wrote and sings the album's horn-punctuated "beach music" number Mist of Desire.
We Made Love is embellished with romantic piano work and a lovely string section. On Small Stuff, Alabama delivers a blue-collar lyric of facing the daily grind of mortgage payments, household problems, the minimum wage and family life. The album's title tune, Twentieth Century is country music's first millennium song.
Alabama's has been on the charts longer than any other contemporary country act. The group's longevity is one of the marvels of the music world. And its popularity is in an upswing as the century draws to a close. Last year's For the Record, a compilation of 41 No.1 hits, was a Double Platinum sales success and inspired a hit live cablecast from Las Vegas. The set also spawned the band's 42nd No. 1 hit, How Do You Fall In Love. Alabama now has more chart topping singles than any band in music history.
Other developments of the past year have included the installation of Alabama's star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame last October. It is located in the 7060 block of Hollywood Boulevard with Stevie Wonder, Paul Newman, Sophia Loren, The Supremes, Miles Davis and The Temptations as its neighbors.
The band began the year with a Grammy nomination and by becoming the most awarded act in the history of the American Music Awards. In mid year Alabama was voted People magazine's favorite band. It opened its second Alabama Grill theme restaurant. By year's end its career sales topped 60 million records, ranking it alongside The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones and Chicago as one of the 10 biggest selling bands in the annals of popular music.
Alabama has sold more concert tickets than any other country group. It has won more than 150 show-business awards. Seventeen of its prior albums are Platinum sellers. Mountain Music, released in 1982, is Quintuple Platinum, as is 1986's Greatest Hits. Roll On (1984), The Closer You Get (1983) and Feels So Right (1981) are all Quadruple Platinum. Christmas (1985), Greatest Hits III (1994), 40 Hour Week (1985) and the act's debut album, 1980's My Home's In Alabama, were joined by For the Record as Double Platinum sellers.
"We've been so blessed", says Owen. "I'm just a grateful ol' farm boy. I didn't start out to have No.1 records and all this stuff with Alabama. Everybody in this band had just one goal when we started and that was to just have a job in the music business and not have to go back to factory work. We are among the fortunate few, who were able to make a living playing music.
Alabama remains committed to its career by still performing more than 125 concerts a year.
"We just want to do it. It's not the money. It's the fact that people still want you to come and play for them. It's great to be wanted. And we feel that today we have the best band backing us up that we've ever had." Randy Owen and his bass playing cousin Teddy Gentry joined multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter Jeff Cook, a distant cousin, to work as professional musicians in 1973. They took up residence in a Myrtle Beach, S.C. honky-tonk called The Bowery. Drummer Mark Herndon joined the group in 1979.
Alabama's string of No.1 hits began in the summer of 1980. The band was named country's Entertainer of the Year in 1982, 1983 and 1984. Twenty-one consecutive singles went to No.1 in 1980-87 and in 1989 Alabama was named the field's Artist of the Decade. In the 1990s, 15 of its singles have topped the charts so far.
The boys did, indeed, return to Ft. Payne -- not as common laborers as predicted, but as the town's most beloved citizens. The four have not lost their just-folks humility and have maintained their common-man work ethic. That is why Twentieth Century is the record that it is.
"It was a hellacious deadline, " says Owen, "the most difficult album we've done since Feels So Right, which was recorded in two weeks and its Old Flame was out as a single the day after we recorded it."
"Well, if this turns out to be as successful as that, then it will all be worthwhile. I'm just very grateful to still be around after all these years. Things look good these days. Take Cher for example, she started in this business before we did and today she's No.1 all over the world."
Biography
Alabama is the longest lasting hitmaker on today's country music scene. Their 58 million in worldwide sales ranks it as the ninth biggest selling group of all time, ahead of such rock greats as Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Queen, The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd and The Who. Alabama is second only to the legendary Conway Twitty as having the most No. 1 records in all of music; and if you're counting only solo chart-toppers, subtracting duets, then Alabama reigns supreme.
Alabama doesn't need "hype." The statistics speak for themselves -- 17 million-selling albums, 12 American Music Awards as the public's favorite country group, 42 No.1 hits (so far), more concert tickets sold than any country band in history and more than 200 major show-biz awards.
All of this has been bestowed on four ordinary guys who have maintained their "just folks" humility through it all. Their journey has taken them from obscurity in little Ft. Payne, Alabama to an extraordinary achievement like For The Record, the band's latest compilation.
Just "for the record," Alabama is lead singer, rhythm guitarist and songwriter Randy Owen; his cousin is bass player, songwriter and harmony vocalist Teddy Gentry; their distant cousin multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter Jeff Cook; and drummer Mark Herndon.
Randy, Teddy and Jeff became professional musicians in 1973, taking up residence in a honky-tonk called The Bowery in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. There the band sometimes played for 13 hours a day, going through three drummers during the next six years. To survive, they not only played all the time, they played a little of everything -- rock, country, pop, dance music, r&b, whatever. The boys recalled these early years in their gold-selling 1997 CD Dancin' On The Boulevard.
In 1979, the year Mark joined, RCA Records signed the band. This was an unusual event at the time. Prior to the rise of Alabama, the concept of groups in country music was rather unfamiliar. Although common -- indeed, dominant -- in rock 'n roll, the idea of bands being stars in country was foreign. Alabama changed all that. Its stardom led to an infusion of bands into the genre in the 80s and 90s, forever changing its complexion.
Alabama's string of No. 1 hits began in the summer of 1980 with Randy's song "Tennessee River." Its success made Alabama the first country group to top the chart with its first major-label release. That record and all 40 of its No. 1 successors are included on For The Record. The ballad "Why Lady Why" topped the charts as 1980 drew to a close. Then "Old Flame" followed suit. By the touring season of 1981, Alabama had three straight No. 1's. The members' long hair and country-rock sound mad it the hottest "youth appeal" act on the country scene.
They took that responsibility seriously. Drinking, cheating and sinning are not in Alabama's musical vocabulary. One recurring theme has been fidelity, commitment and enduring love. The first single to explore this was 1981's "Feels So Right." Since then, Alabama has returned to this kind of romance several times. "Face to Face," featuring a cameo appearance by K.T. Oslin, topped the charts in early 1988. "When We Make Love" (1984), "There's No Way" (1985), "(You've Got) The Touch" (1987), "Once Upon a Lifetime" (1993) and "Forever's As Far As I'll Go" (1990) also became chart-topping Alabama love ballads. In addition to going to the peak of the country hit parade, the mid-tempo love song "Love In The First Degree" became a No. 15 pop hit during Christmas Week in 1981.
Alabama returned to the Southern-rock style of "Tennessee River" in 1982's Grammy Award winning "Mountain Music." Other staples of the band's early repertoire that showcased Jeff's rompin', stompin' fiddle style were 1984's "If You're Gonna Play In Texas (You Gotta Have A Fiddle In The Band)" and 1983's "Dixieland Delight."
But as this landmark album clearly demonstrates, these tunes showcase just one of this band's many stylistic sides.
Alabama scored several of its biggest hits with working-man's anthems and homages to its Southern roots. "Roll On (18 Wheeler)" saluted truck drivers in 1984. Even more stirring was 1985's "Forty Hour Week (For A Livin')." The band's proud-of-Dixie songs include such No. 1 hits as "Song of the South" (1989), "High Cotton" (1989) and "Southern Star" (1990). "Down Home" (1991), "Hometown Honeymoon" (1993) and "Born Country" (1992) also mine this rural vein. The band has proved equally capable with sophisticated pop-rockers as Exile's "Take Me Down" (1982) and "The Closer You Get" (1983, Beth Nielsen Chapman and Vince Gill's "Here We Are" (1991) and the Dave Loggins tune "She and I" (1986). Alabama's 1985 favorite "(There's A) Fire In The Night" later appeared on the soundtrack of the Patrick Swayze movie Roadhouse.
"People should never pigeon-hole Alabama," Randy comments about the diversity of the band's recorded performances. He has a point; for one of the hallmarks of Alabama's career is its impressive ability to shift musical genres, production techniques and song styles from year to year. Thus, its No. 1 hits include honky-tonkers such as "Jukebox In My Mind" (1990), thoughtful meditations like "Then Again" (1991) and "Close Enough To Perfect" (1982), the lilting Carpenters pop tune "Touch Me When We're Dancing" (1986), the raucous "Can't Keep A Good Man Down" (1985) and 1983's insightful "Lady Down on Love." As different as those sounds are, they share one thing in common. They all became No. 1 hits.
By the close of the 1980s Alabama had smashed all records for chart dominance by a country group. The Academy of Country Music named Alabama its Artist of the Decade. Another major milepost along the way was "If I Had You." In 1989, it became the band's 25th No. 1 single.
And still the band rolled on. This act's first No. 1 hit was in 1980, there is literally no one else from that era who is still in the top-10 today. George Strait and Steve Wariner began topping the charts in 1981; Reba McEntire started hitting No. 1 in 1982; Sawyer Brown's streak began in 1985. In a here-today, gone-tomorrow world of fickle fads and fancies, Alabama has done what no one else has done. It has endured.
In fact, the group entered the 1990s with more audio personality than ever. A cluster of uptempo his served notice that Alabama intends to roar into the new century under full power. The delightfully zippy "I'm In A Hurry (And Don't Know Why)" (1992), the blue-collar rocker "Reckless" (1993), the bopping "She Ain't Your Ordinary Girl" (1994) and the energetic "Give Me One More Shot" (1994) all hit the No. 1 spot. But Randy's favorite from this era is a fatherhood ballad, 1995's "In Pictures."
For The Record is a vivid illustration of that philosophy, for seldom have so many gigantic audience favorites been put into one package. A booklet, career-overview essay by Nashville's Robert K. Oermann and historic photos from the band's collection are also included. A bonus is the inclusion of four 1998 Alabama performances created especially for this collection.
As Alabama rolls into the twenty-first century, their legacy will be immortalized on the fabled Hollywood Walk of Fame (1998). Reflecting on the news of this prestigious honor, Randy shares, "It's something for my wife and children, that they can always see, for all the times I couldn't be with them and for all my family to see that 'the kid done good'.
Awards
American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1998 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1996 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1995 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1994 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1993 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1992 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1991 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1990 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1989 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1988 American Music Awards Favorite Album 1987 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1987 American Music Awards Favorite Album 1986
American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1986 Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year 1985 Academy of Country Music Top Vocal Group 1985 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1985 Academy of Country Music Album of the Year 1984 Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year 1984 Academy of Country Music Top Vocal Group 1984 American Music Awards Favorite Album 1984 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1984 CMA Entertainer of the Year 1984 Music City News Country Album of the Year 1984 Academy of Country Music Album of the Year 1983 Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year 1983 Academy of Country Music Top Vocal Group 1983 American Music Awards Favorite Country Band, Duo or Group 1983
CMA Album of the Year 1983 CMA Entertainer of the Year 1983 CMA Vocal Group of the Year 1983 Grammy Best Country Performance by Duo/Group W/Vocals 1983 Music City News Country Band of the Year 1983 Music City News Country Vocal Group of the Year 1983 Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year 1982 Academy of Country Music Top Vocal Group 1982 CMA Entertainer of the Year 1982 CMA Instrumental Group of the Year 1982 CMA Vocal Group of the Year 1982 Grammy Best Country Performance by Duo/Group W/Vocals 1982 Music City News Country Album of the Year 1982 Music City News Country Band of the Year 1982 Academy of Country Music Album of the Year 1981 Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year 1981 Academy of Country Music Top Vocal Group 1981 CMA Instrumental Group of the Year 1981 CMA Vocal Group of the Year 1981 Academy of Country Music Artist of the Decade 1980-89
Randy Owen
Teddy Gentry
Jeff Cook
Mark Herndon
Country Music Association Awards:
1981, 1982, and 1983 Vocal Group of the Year;
1982 Best Instrumental Group;
1982, 1983, 1984, Entertainer of the Year;
1983 Album of the Year;
Academy of Country Music Awards:
1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, and 1985 - Top Vocal Group;
1981, 1983 and 1984 - Best Album;
1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, and 1985 - Entertainer of the Year;
Artist of the Decade - 1980's
TNN/Music City News Awards:
1982 and 1984 - Album of the Year;
1982 and 1983 - Band of the Year;
1983 - Best Vocal Group
Grammys:
1982, 1983 - Best Country Vocal Performance, Group
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