Chart Week: January 7, 1978
\nSong: \u201cDon\u2019t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue\u201d – Crystal Gayle
\nChart Position: #16, 22nd week on the chart. Peaked at #2 for three weeks in November\/December 1977.<\/p>\n
What is the first American Top 40 show I remember listening to? If you know me, you understand that I wish I could identify that broadcast to give it the appropriate commemorative post. My first vivid memories of hearing Casey\u2019s voice for which I can clearly identify the year are from 1978. Mostly in the spring, after my parents separated for the first time, and my mom and I moved in with a friend of hers for a few months until we got our own apartment. <\/p>\n
However, there are murkier memories from earlier that year in which I remember specific songs, but can\u2019t be sure whether I recall hearing Casey introduce them on his program. <\/p>\n
When I listened to this countdown there was a flood of recollections from this moment in my life. Specifically of a big snowstorm that hit southeast Missouri in January 1978, wiping out several days of school. Snow days are always awesome, but this time the Star Wars action figures that my parents got me for Christmas, which famously had to be shipped to kids all over the country weeks after the holiday<\/a>, arrived the day before this bonus break. I remember sitting in my room playing with the most prized possessions I had owned to that point in my young life while we were stuck inside, the biggest hits of the day playing on the very cool, European clock radio my aunt and uncle had sent me from Germany.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019m guessing that storm came a little later in January than this countdown aired. So let\u2019s say that sometime in the opening month of 1978 was the first time my brain registers me listening to Casey countdown the 40 hottest records in the country.<\/p>\n What entries sparked memories of that snowy month? Lynyrd Skynyrd\u2019s \u201cWhat\u2019s Your Name,\u201d \u201cSometimes When We Touch\u201d by Dan Hill, \u201cI Go Crazy\u201d by Paul Davis, ELO\u2019s \u201cTurn to Stone,\u201d \u201cJust the Way You Are,\u201d by Billy Joel, \u201cWe Are the Champions\/We Will Rock You,\u201d by Queen, and Styx\u2019s \u201cCome Sail Away.\u201d I can hear them coming out of the speaker of that little radio as the sun reflecting off the piled up snow lit up my room. I can even feel the cold radiating off the window. <\/p>\n The tune that stuck out the most was Crystal Gayle\u2019s biggest pop hit, \u201cDon\u2019t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,\u201d which spent three weeks at #2 in late 1977.[2]<\/a> I think it registered the most because my dad loved it, and, under the tree for him on Christmas morning was a copy of Gayle\u2019s We Must Believe In Magic<\/em> album. I remember that LP vividly for two reasons. First was Gayle\u2019s striking appearance. She was a dazzlingly attractive woman<\/a>. I might have been just six, but I wasn\u2019t too young to sneak peaks at her pictures on the album sleeve when my parents weren\u2019t looking. I\u2019m sure the photos were super wholesome, but it felt like I was getting away with something when I sat in the corner next to our record player and stared at them. Second, we had no country music in our house. Nothing even close. So, even as a wee youngster, I was surprised by the addition of an album by a \u201ccountry star\u201d to the family album collection.[3]<\/a> <\/p>\n I think my dad, and tons of other people, liked it because it doesn\u2019t sound country at all. It has a more jazzy, adult contemporary vibe. There\u2019s just a hint of swing to it, as well, the gentlest cocktail hour nudge. Unlike Dolly Parton, who was at #5 this week with her delightful \u201cHere You Come Again,\u201d<\/a> Gayle sang without any twang. \u201cDon\u2019t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue\u201d certainly leans more towards cheesy, country club cotillion schmaltz than Hee Haw<\/a> honky tonk. <\/p>\n That lack of true country character is remarkable because of Gayle\u2019s geographic origins and sibling connection. She was born in Paintsville, KY, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. You would expect her voice to drip of that hilly country, just like her oldest sister, Loretta Lynn. There was no mistaking where Lynn was from. On this song, at least, Gayle could just as easily have been from Southern California or New York as deep in the mining country of Kentucky. Some of that is explained by her family moving to Wabash, IN when she was four. Compared to rural Kentucky, Wabash was much more urban, which led to Gayle listening to all kinds of music other than country. And, apparently, softening her accent.<\/p>\n Casey referenced that biological link as he introduced \u201cDon\u2019t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue\u201d this week. He noted that despite her reputation as one of THE queens of country music, Loretta Lynn had never had the kind of Top 40 success her baby sister was having. For years there were rumors the sisters didn\u2019t get along because of professional jealousy. They both tried to quash that talk, but for some reason it came to define their relationship in the music press. You wonder if it started with relatively innocent comments like Casey\u2019s. Or if it\u2019s just because people suck.<\/p>\n Gayle would crack the pop top 20 a couple more times in the Seventies as a solo artist, then hit #7 with the Eddie Rabbit on the duet \u201cYou and I\u201d in 1982. She was a monster in the Nashville world, though. She hit #1 a staggering 18 times on the country chart, with 16 other singles reaching the top 10. That\u2019s a hall of fame career. I haven\u2019t listened to any of those tracks, so I don\u2019t know if she sounded more traditionally country on them, or if her voice always landed in that sweet range where no genre could entirely claim it.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t love this song, but I don\u2019t hate it, either. While lacking any regional identifiers, her voice is very nice. Gayle does an effective job portraying her sadness about a romance that is ending, but adds a subtle smokiness that should make her man want to come running back to her. Legend has it that it features the first studio take she recorded of \u201cDon\u2019t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.\u201d She took a couple more cracks at the tune, but the producer told her to stop, as her initial effort could not be topped. She doesn\u2019t show off a huge range, but stays in a pocket where every note is perfect. To bad the rest of the track kind of stinks. But a pretty face and a pretty voice can go a long way. Especially when you are six. 6\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n
![She was a dazzlingly attractive woman<\/a>. I might have been just six, but I wasn\u2019t too young to sneak peaks at her pictures on the album sleeve when my parents weren\u2019t looking. I\u2019m sure the photos were super wholesome, but it felt like I was getting away with something when I sat in the corner next to our record player and stared at them. Second, we had no country music in our house. Nothing even close. So, even as a wee youngster, I was surprised by the addition of an album by a \u201ccountry star\u201d to the family album collection.](\"https:\/\/iv1.lisimg.com\/image\/23835652\/740full-crystal-gayle.jpg\"){kind=link}