Dreaming Out Loud

by Bruce Feiler

  And just like that it was over. He turned to head inside, but, as he did, he noticed me standing behind the “ET” crew. Since midsummer, Wade had been elusive, keeping mostly to himself. “How ya doin’?” he asked. He walked over and took my hand. “Good to see you, man.” He nodded in a gesture of mock horror and, for him, endearing self-effacement. “Boy, can you believe what happened to me the last few months? Whoever would’ve imagined.”

  On a Good Night, the second album by twenty-seven-year-old Wade Hayes, was released by Columbia/DKC Music on Tuesday, June 25 (since SoundScan most albums are released on Tuesdays to give stores an additional high-traffic day along with Saturdays and Sundays). The reviews were mixed, though mostly positive. On the glowing side, Country Music magazine likened Wade to his idols: “He’s got the sort of guts, attitude, and instincts that you just can’t fake. At times he sounds like he sort of sprang full-blown from the Oklahoma dirt. While a lot of his ‘new country’ contemporaries were cutting their teeth on Queen, Aerosmith, and the Eagles, Hayes was obviously busy soaking up Keith Whitley, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. Throughout On a Good Night, Hayes not only wears his Waylon Jennings influence on his sleeve; he practically sounds like he’s got a touch of seventies outlaw fever flowing through his veins.”

  The Dallas Morning News said Wade’s second album was better than the first: “A decade after Randy Travis spearheaded the new traditionalist movement, Nashville’s cowboy culture continues to crank out male hat acts that try to balance country roots with radio sensibilities. Unfortunately too many of them opt for the latter—Tim McGraw and John Michael Montgomery, anyone? But every once in a while, authenticity takes a stand. A second album by Oklahoma native Wade Hayes, the twenty-seven-year-old honky-tonker with the booming baritone, proves Merle, Waylon, and Willie are still inspirational.” Perhaps the best review came from Michael McCall, writing for the Microsoft Network: “Put Wade Hayes in a lineup with a dozen young male newcomers and his lanky frame, his baby-face good looks, and his oversized Stetson would make him nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the hat pack. However, blindfold a listener and make each of them sing, and Hayes’s deep, grizzled baritone would be the voice chosen as least likely to belong to anyone in that young country bunch. In that sense, he’s a modern-day Nashville dream. He’s a handsome young man with an old man’s voice, and he knows exactly how to use it.”

  The harshest review came from USA Today, with David Zimmerman giving the album two and a half out of four stars. “Hayes is a double-threat guitarist/singer who had distinguished himself from the pack, but he stumbles badly on this sophomore album. While he’s as appealing as ever on the up-tempo tracks, an overwrought approach diminishes such ballads as ‘The Room’ and ‘I Still Do,’ in which Hayes’s vocals lose the engaging naturalness that first won him notice with such early hits as ‘I’m Still Dancin’ with You.’”

  The Washington Post was more balanced, with Geoffrey Himes writing: “Hayes’s Old Enough to Know Better was the only debut country album of last year to be certified gold, and a lot of the credit goes to the young Oklahoman’s deep, twang-filled baritone. His follow-up effort doesn’t have as many knockout songs, but it confirms that he has a very special voice. Hayes’s producer is Brooks & Dunn mastermind Don Cook, and Hayes had the opening slot on B&D’s recent tour, so it’s not surprising that he imitates the boot-scootin’ duo from time to time. He’s at his best, though, when the production values fall back and leave room for his voice to grab hold of a vowel and turn it into a note of desire and regret, as on ‘Where Do I Go to Start All Over?’”

  The album sold 12,268 copies in its first week in stores, placing it eleventh on the country album charts, directly behind Garth Brooks’s Fresh Horses and in front of Lorrie Morgan’s Greater Need, By comparison, On a Good Night sold one fifth as many as Shania Twain’s The Woman in Me, which was at number one on the country chart that week, and one twentieth as much as Metallica’s Load, which was at number one on the pop chart. Perhaps more importantly, Wade sold fewer copies in his first week than Bryan White’s 14,000 when his second album, Between Now and Forever, debuted several months earlier. On the bright side, though, Wade did have the highest debut that week. “All in all, we’re thrilled,” said sales VP Mike Kraski.

  The second week, which included the Independence Day holiday (and, more importantly for country music, a payday for many country consumers), the album actually ticked up in sales, reaching 13,217 units. It stumbled one place in the rankings, though, to twelfth. The following week, with sales of 12,001, the album fell to fourteenth. The week after it tumbled to sixteenth. By week five, with sales of a mere 8,643 units, On a Good Night was on its way to slipping out of the Top 20 entirely. Even more ominously, the album’s descent was taking place even as its debut single, “On a Good Night,” continued to climb the singles chart, a clear sign that the public didn’t much care for the song, since customarily as a single ascends the chart it spurs more album sales.

  As Debi Fleischer had predicted, Ricochet’s second single, “Daddy’s Money,” went to number one the first week of July. “It’s a happy day,” Debi said in her office as the Jack Daniel’s flowed freely. For all the joy, though, the success of “Daddy’s Money” actually presented a problem for “On a Good Night.” All the research indicated that Ricochet’s single was strong enough to stay number one for a second week. If Debi tried to hold the song at number one, though, she might jeopardize Wade’s chance to go to the top three weeks later, since Columbia would be asking for additional favors. In the end she took the chance, and it backfired. “Daddy’s Money” dropped to four, while Wade inched forward to six bullet. Though Wade was on every R&R reporting station at this point and his record was spinning 6,154 times a week, he was in a testy situation. Above him was George Strait’s “Carried Away,” a surefire number one, and coming up strong behind him was Brooks & Dunn’s “I Am That Man.” Debi, knowing she had only one Hail Mary shot, announced that on July 29, the fourteenth week of the record, “On a Good Night” would go for number one. This meant her field reps were asked to tell their stations to give the record its maximum number of plays that week, after which they could drop back if they chose. This was payday for any favors Columbia had done over the previous months.

  It failed. “On a Good Night” peaked at number two in the last week of July on both the Billboard and R&R charts. “I was disappointed,” Wade told me. “I like getting number ones. I like the way that feels. And I had hoped the first single off the new album would do that.” Considering its uneven history, though, number two was actually a remarkable achievement. “Radio still believes in Wade Hayes,” Debi said. “I never believed it was a number one record.” She also didn’t believe the album would achieve Allen Butler’s goal of selling 1 million copies. “It’ll be gold-plus,” she said, “but I’d be surprised if it took him to platinum. I’d be thrilled, but I’d be surprised. I’d like to go three singles, then move on. That’s really the best we can hope for.”

  As it turned out, they didn’t even get that far. After a several-week hiatus, Columbia Records made what would turn out to be the crucial decision for the life of On a Good Night. Instead of releasing “The Room,” which everyone in Wade’s camp believed to be the best song on the album, they decided to release “Where Do I Go to Start All Over?”, a brooding ballad about a man wondering how to put his life back together after a breakup. “It’s the strongest vocal performance,” Mike Kraski said, “and it’s the one most likely to get Wade a performance slot on the CMAs.” “The Room,” he said, was “too dark.” “Where Do I Go” also proved to be too dark (and, many radio programmers complained, seemed to be cut in the wrong key). It lingered at radio for several weeks, then died before reaching the Top 30. The album, burdened now by lack of exposure, also suffered, dipping to below 5,000 units a week and plummeting to the bottom of the charts. After licking its wounds, Columbia decided to reverse its fortune by releasing “It’s Over My Head,” a
ditty written by Wade and Bill Anderson. It didn’t chart at all.

  By early fall, less that six months after its release, On a Good Night fell off the Top 75 country album charts entirely and, with Columbia deciding to release no more singles, was officially dead. It had sold fewer than 150,000 units on SoundScan. With record clubs and some generous accounting, Sony was able to have it certified gold, but the fact remained: Wade had fallen into a sophomore slump.

  With failure, inevitably, came blame. Wade’s managers targeted Don Cook. “All the songs on the album were from Sony/Tree,” one of them told me, referring to the publishing company Don helped manage. “He refused to consider songs that he didn’t control or benefit from.” Don, though he disagreed with that claim, did accept responsibility. “I think there were a lot of factors that came into play,” he said. “We probably tried to put it together too fast. We probably didn’t have enough choices for the audience and for people who promote records. We probably had some problems in song selection. I’ll gladly take the blame for it. It’s my job to give them the requisite number of pieces.” Even Hazel echoed this point. “I think Wade was undoubtedly not given enough time with that album,” she told me. “If he was given enough time in the studio, then he could very well slide into the Ray Price slot. There’ve been three great voices in country music: Hank Williams, Ray Price, and Wade Hayes. Wade even looks like Ray Price to me. But this album wasn’t there at all. Wasn’t even close. They’ve got to study his voice, and work with him, and see what he can do.”

  The greater problem was Wade’s state of mind. By late summer, he had cut off almost all communication with his managers. “Just stop sending me the numbers,” he told Mike Robertson. “Don’t tell me anything about the album. Don’t tell me anything about the singles. I don’t want to know.” He’d also stopped speaking with Don and went out of his way to avoid running into him around town. “I think he’s going through a depression,” Don told me. “I don’t think it’s anything else.” The only source of hope in this otherwise bleak time was that in late August, just at the point when Wade’s album was reaching its nadir, Marty Stuart and Lorrie Morgan stood outside the front doors of the Grand Ole Opry House and announced the nominees for the CMA Awards. Wade Hayes received his first nomination.

  Inside the Opry House, the preshow hurry-up was well under way. Since 1970, the CMA show has been broadcast on CBS, and since 1993, it has occupied the entire three-hour prime-time block. The show opens with a coveted performance slot—this year taken by LeAnn Rimes—and culminates with the award for Entertainer of the Year. In between, most of the genre’s top performers make an appearance. As a result, the limited backstage area of the Opry is crammed with most of the denizens of Music Row: fidgeting publicists, worrying managers, and frantic wardrobe ladies battling fallen hems and missing sequins with tubes of Krazy Glue and ribbons of duct tape. In Wade’s dressing room, for example, while he sat quietly drinking bottled water, Bryan White stood on one leg as a seamstress tried to remove a wrinkle from his Manuel-made faux Armani suit, and Collin Raye sat before a mirror as a hairdresser tried to layer his thinning hair over his scalp. Because such activities are thought to be of interest to the press (who presumably would love a shot of Bryan White’s legs or Collin Raye’s bald spot), the area is further crowded by a SWAT team of security agents—mostly former high school wrestlers with tight-fitting yellow shirts—that give the space an air of anxiety completely at odds with the stop-by-and-chat friendliness of the Opry itself.

  The stage is even more different than the Opry. On this night, the normally quaint red barn backdrop and plain oak floor had been replaced by a high-tech, pink-and-black set that seemed as if it had come straight out of a video game—the Statler Brothers vs. Super Mario Brothers. The floor was covered in giant black and white tesselated tiles; the stage was crowned with enormous yellow jutting beams that looked like overgrown McDonald’s arches; and the walls were decked out in bright pink neon sculptures, in the shape of eyebrows, that winked whenever they were on camera. As if to accent the theater’s Hollywood metamorphosis, the ceremonial circle of maple that had been transferred from the Ryman Auditorium had been topped with a shimmering gold star. “If anyone still needs proof that country music in the nineties is moving in all kinds of new and exciting directions,” Lorrie Morgan said, presenting the first award, “all you have to do is listen to the five nominees for Single of the Year. You’ll hear everything from blues to swing, from rock to contemporary hymns. It’s all over the map, and it’s all country.”

  Though that last comment—“it’s all country”—was subject for debate, the essence of her remark was vividly true. The CMA Awards are a stunning reflection of Nashville in the nineties—its openness to musical innovation, its desperate longing for glitz and assimilation, its complete artistic schizophrenia. One year the awards were dominated by Garth Brooks, with his pop-country hijinks, the next by Alison Krauss, whose unrepentant bluegrass style and downright twangy voice were a throwback to a bygone period. In the nineties alone, the symbolic opening slot has been filled by, among others, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shania Twain, and LeAnn Rimes, three performers who would be hard-pressed to find a song to sing together, no less find common artistic roots. This, of course, is the great accomplishment of Nashville, but also its biggest source of frustration: What is country music anymore? Is the term even meaningful?

  Several years earlier, country music seemed poised to become the dominant form of popular music in America, with an artistic breadth and an audience reach that were not only unrivaled, but also seemingly limitless. Now those ambitions definitely seemed inflated. There is clearly a ceiling on Nashville’s appeal. Though its fan base is now national and increasingly international, and though its sound and message have become mainstream, country is still the voice of a set of beliefs and feelings that are rooted in a particular sense of American longing that not everyone experiences. It’s not the longing for freedom or rebellion that characterizes much of American culture, most notably rock ‘n’ roll. Nor is it the frustrated yearning for escape and self-expression that characterizes many forms of African American music, from blues to hip-hop. Instead, it’s a yearning for security, for comfort, for family, for happiness, and, especially in our rootless society, for rootedness.

  These feelings, besides being expressed most clearly in the lyrics of country music, are also expressed in the music itself. Though the sound of country records has changed over time—higher production value; more cutting-edge guitar licks; powerful, pounding drums—the instruments that jump out of country records and that make people feel most at home in them are the ones that have been around the longest—the raging fiddle, the wailing steel guitar, the plucking mandolin. Even the singers’ voices are more familiar than most of pop music. Stop 100 people at Fan Fair and ask them why they like country music and 99 will cite as one of their reasons: “Because I can understand the words.” For all these factors—the factors that make country music feel like such a club—the word “country” does have meaning today. It’s a password that no longer says “This is where I live,” but instead, “This is who I am.”

  This change in country music from an art form associated with a particular region to an art form associated with a particular set of values is also a source of confusion. Most people still associate country music with certain areas—the Appalachian Mountains, the Mississippi Delta, the Texas flatlands. Critics who dismiss contemporary country say it has lost touch with these places and the people who live there. While this may be true, it misses the point: Country has lost touch with those places because the country, itself, has lost touch with these places. And country music itself has never had as its mandate the preservation of American regional life. Its goal has always been to chronicle the lives of Americans and to do it in a way that other Americans will identify with and buy. That country music today is less about place and more about values is the result of changes in America. Specifically, it’s a lessening of the imp
ortance of place in our lives.

  So how did this change come about? Regionalism was always based primarily on economics—people were rooted to the places where they lived in large measure because they were tied financially to the places where they lived. Fifty years ago, when the Grand Ole Opry was at its peak, a majority of Americans lived in rural areas and half of them didn’t have electricity. As a result, people were less mobile, less wealthy, more isolated (in 1945, for example, only 46 percent of Americans had telephones), and more inclined to define themselves by their communities. In 1970, when the Outlaws were just beginning to wake Nashville out of its stodginess, jet airplanes, interstate highways, and network television (not to mention rural electrification) were just beginning to free Americans from their regional shackles. With greater mobility and prosperity, people began defining themselves less by their immediate surroundings and more by broader social identifiers: race, gender, youth. The foundations for a national culture were being laid.

  Today, regional identity is less important than ever and a new pan-American culture has all but taken hold in the United States. In an era when computers, chain stores, and cable television dominate American life, the sense of isolation and disenfranchisement that were once central to the South have all but disappeared. Instead, they have been replaced by a general sense of well-being and good fortune (down here we’ve got jobs and nice weather), so much so that others have even starting flocking to the region. Twenty million Americans have moved to the South since 1970, twice the rate of emigration to other regions. In addition, non-Southerners were suddenly prepared to identify themselves with the region, something unthinkable two generations ago when the dominant images of the South were of oppressed minorities, barefoot, pregnant women, and toothless, racist men. Even if country music had embraced national themes in 1960, a limited number of Americans would have been prepared to embrace it because of the rank connotations still associated with the place from which it came. This change in perception of the South is still the most underdiscussed—and underappreciated—reason’s for country’s growth in recent years.