Phil Collins, Elton John, and Gloria Estefan dominated Adult Contemporary radio back in the 1980s and '90s, yet have disappeared from modern radio. Seemingly, the only time you ever hear them is at the grocery store or your local CVS. This blog remembers the music, the stories and the quirky characters from my days working in Adult Contemporary radio.
Included on the Hope Floats Soundtrack, the ballad "Chances Are" features the unmistakable Bob Seger with Martina McBride. The duet charted on the Adult Contemporary Chart in 1998, but wasn't the album's crown jewel. That gem belonged to Garth Brooks who remade Bob Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love". The remake finished first on the Country Chart during the summer of 1998 and earned Brooks a Grammy nomination in 1999. Other big names on the soundtrack include The Rolling Stones, Lyle Lovett, Trisha Yearwood, and Sheryl Crow.
The 1991 Persian Gulf conflict spurred a documentary and song from dozens of musicians, athletes, and comedians all in support of those fighting in Operation Desert Storm. The song, "Voices That Care", featured everyone from Michael Bolton to Michael Jordan, Garth Brooks to Ted Danson, and Kenny G to Sissy Spacek. And, yes, even Peter Cetera!
Please raise your hand if you've covered Garth Brooks' "If Tomorrow Never Comes". I see hands from Barry Manilow, Westlife, Engelbert Humperdinck, Elliot Yamin, and the Soul band Joose. The Joose version spent 12 weeks on the Adult Contemporary Chart in 1997. (Editor's note: this is post #1000 on Growing Up Adult Contemporary)
Garth Brooks' alter-ego Chris Gaines released "That's The Way I Remember It" as a follow up to "Lost in You". While the song got some airplay on radio stations, the song never charted. To show just how off my musical tastes were with popular culture, I actually liked this song more than "Lost in You".
Ask someone what type of music they like, and they'll undoubtedly say that they like all types of music...except for country. Despite that, country music artists like Shania Twain and Taylor Swift have huge fan bases on both sides of the aisle thanks to their country-pop crossover appeal. In 1999, Garth Brooks decided to take it one step further. Perhaps it was all the doomsday talk about Y2K that caused Garth Brooks to create an alter ego named Chris Gaines and record a pop-rock album. Gaines seemed to take his look from the movie Zoolander, as he sported a soul patch and different hair style to complete his image transformation. While the album wasn't a huge hit, it did produce a top 10 song called "Lost in You" that was all over the radio that summer. As quickly as the hullabaloo over Chris Gaines began, it was over. At the time, the Program Director at the radio station I worked did not want us to reveal on-air that Chris Gaines was actually Garth Brooks whenever we played "Lost in You". He clearly hadn't known about this groundbreaking thing that would tell you anything you want to know called "the internet."
