Why Earl Thomas Conley Is Irreplaceable
Let me start by saying two things: 1. I know you’re never gonna click on this (if you have, you’ve proven me wrong and you’ll be better for it) and 2. I don’t care, because this is for me.
When we got into work yesterday and Debbie asked me if I’d seen that Earl Thomas Conley had died, a part of me died.
When I first got into country radio business as a college student in 1989/1990, here’s the list of the biggest and most successful acts at the time: George Strait, Randy Travis, Alabama, and Earl Thomas Conley. Sure you could throw in names like The Judds or Restless Heart, but they didn’t have the chart success these four did. In fact other than Alabama, no one had more number one hits in the 1980s than ETC.
He had a way of writing and/or singing a song from the perspective of an “everyman” that really struck a nerve with me. Earl Thomas Conley was able to sing what I felt, and that was powerful to me.
I could give you a laundry list of songs that I love (shoot, I have 22 on my phone right now), but if you’ve never heard of him, I wanted to expose you to three that stand out. All are from the 1988 CD The Heart Of It All. It’s the first country CD I ever bought, and I wore it out.
The second track is “Love Out Loud.” Its infectious groove hooked me from the start, and then the opening lyrics about a man who wants to assure his woman that his lack of open emotion/affection should not be taken as a bad sign, well…there’s a lot of us like that.
“I don’t brag about you to everyone I meet,
I don’t sing your praises in crowd.
Oh, but deep inside my heart, you’re the most important part.
Oh, I’m just no good at love out loud”
At 18…19…shoot, 49 years old…that’s me.
The next song I want to share with you is the one that still echoes in my soul when I hear it. I don’t think you ever get over that first, real heartbreak. Mine came in the late summer of 1990. Her name, Kathy, and to this day when I hear this song, it is hers. This is “What I’d Say.”
“How’s it going? Might be what I’d say.
You broke my heart, you know,
Or it looks like rain today.
Or maybe God I missed you, since you went away
You’re looking well,
Or go to Hell,
Might be what I’d say.”
The final track from this CD is the title track, “Too Far From The Heart Of It All.” To me it was a comment on ETC’s observations of society’s decline. I didn’t get it as much then, but it REALLY rings true some 30 years later.
“Still the question to be answered,
Is who’s to go on trial?
And find the freedom for the child
That wears tomorrow’s smile.”
I could go on all day about this great man and his music. If you love country, then do yourself a favor and just search, listen, and enjoy Earl Thomas Conley. For me, there will never be another like him.
