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Four good reasons to like Randy Travis

By Steven Horowitz

There are many reasons to enjoy Randy Travis. The multiple Grammy Award winning American country musician has a wonderful, rich smooth baritone voice that glides over one’s ears as freely as cold butter on warm toast. The good looking, tall and lanky dude also writes catchy, clever story songs whose deep meanings resonate with spiritual charm. During the past three decades he’s recorded more than a dozen albums, charted more than 30 singles and had 16 number one records on the Billboard magazine country charts. Travis helped transform country and western from a second-rate form of popular music to the respectable stature it has today.

Before Travis’ concert at the Riverside Casino at 4 p.m. Sunday, it may be helpful to highlight the man’s many accomplishments. In that spirit, here are four good reasons to like Randy Travis:

1) Back in 1985, country music was suffering in the wake of Urban Cowboy doldrums and a backlash against the soft California sound of the Eagles and other non-country artists. The big chart hits of 1984 included dreck by such dull acts as John Schneider, Earl Thomas Conley and Exile. The Country Music Association (CMA) gave its big awards to the bland band Alabama (Entertainer of the Year) and the insipid singer Lee Greenwood (Male Vocalist of the Year). Then came Travis with his breakthrough debut album, Storms of Life. The disc, with such big hits as “On the Hand,” “Diggin’ Up Bones” and “1982,” became the first country album to go multiplatinum in sales. More importantly, Travis opened the doors to what has been called the neo-traditionalist movement, which is shorthand for young singers performing in the classic country style of the fifties and sixties (think Lefty Frizzell and George Jones). Many critics credit this album for the rejuvenation of country music.

2) Before Travis, the prevailing country music could be divided into two basic schools: rowdy or wimpy. Travis showed the way for country artists to be quiet without being soft. He sang in a tender voice, but his sensitivity made him intense rather than spineless. When Travis sang about getting on his knees and begging his wife to take him back, he came off not as a wimp but as a manly man willing to do whatever it takes. Much of the credit is due to the way he uses his voice. He knows how to hit the low notes without sounding affected and lets the ache in his inflections ride over the lyrics rather than break the words into pieces. This gives the aural impression of strength, like a fist in a velvet glove.

3) Item 3 is for “Three Wooden Crosses,” or Travis’ ability to write and sing Christian-themed material that appeals to non-religious audiences. His number one single from 2002 provides an excellent example. The CMA Song of the Year describes a bus accident that claimed the lives of three of the four passengers (“a farmer and a teacher, a hooker and a preacher”) on a trip between the United States and Mexico. Travis tells the tale in a suspenseful way as the listener learns of the events through the words of a preacher’s sermon, only to discover he is the son of the prostitute who was the lone survivor of the ordeal.

4) The fourth reason has to do with Travis’ consistency and longevity. The music on his most recent album, Around the Bend, is instantly recognizable as distinctly his, even when Travis covers other people’s songs. He does a breezy version of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” that brings the twang back to the folk rock classic, and the other material is just as down home country. Travis still knows how to wrap his supple voice around the lyrics and just let it go. Travis’ interests may have diversified over the years—he’s acted in movies and television shows and made a series of straight gospel albums and won several Dove Awards from the Gospel Music Association—but he has been remarkably constant over the years in terms of his sound and quality.

Travis is the real deal. Not long ago, Country Music Television ranked him number 13 on its list of the 40 Greatest Men of Country Music. His recent efforts reveal that he’s still making good music and will probably move up the rankings as time goes forward.