CMT REWIND: Reba McEntire, Brooks & Dunn, Close Out 1991 With “Broken Hearts” Before Mega Success

by Marcus Ok. Dowling

10h in the past

1991 is a yr in nation music caught instantly amid nation music’s mainstream crossover between the countrypolitan and neotraditional eras reigning supreme. It was additionally a time when multimedia innovation uncovered acts to an unprecedented mix of economic glitz and video glamour that yielded mega-sized success. Thus was the case for 2 acts who closed out the yr on the high of the charts, Reba McEntire and Brooks & Dunn. Intriguingly, although finally completely different, the previous’s single “For My Damaged Coronary heart,” and the latter’s hit “My Subsequent Damaged Coronary heart” have been the final two Billboard Scorching Nation Music chart No. 1 tracks for the yr. Although each songs deal in heartbreak when contemplating what lay past for each acts, it’s a case of the darkest hour being earlier than the brightest daybreak for the track’s performers and people round them, too.

The seasoned songwriting trio of Ronnie Dunn, Kix Brooks, and Don Prepare dinner penned Brooks & Dunn’s “My Subsequent Damaged Coronary heart,” the September-released follow-up to Model New Man’s title observe. Like Brooks & Dunn, Prepare dinner was a songwriter affiliated with Tree Publishing who had already achieved a measure of trade success by way of “Tonight,” a top-five hit for Barbara Mandrell in 1977, plus No. 1 single “Woman Lay Down” a yr later for John Conlee.

Like a lot of the album’s content material, it’s based mostly on a vibe instantly associated to the thought of recovering from a breakup by shifting onto another person, usually by going out for a honky-tonking night time in town. The lyric, “I assumed all alongside you’d be the demise of me / However I discovered one tonight who desires what’s left of me,” as carried out by Ronnie Dunn, notes the slight tinge of satan might care humor one tends to have earlier than willingly risking struggling heartbreak once more — if solely as a result of the story behind the way it will probably happen can be well worth the disappointment after that.

Although unified by the phrases “Damaged Coronary heart” within the title, Reba McEntire’s “For My Damaged Coronary heart” has a profoundly completely different origin story. Her December 1991 chart-topper is from a similarly-titled album that was her first album recorded after an airplane crash that killed many of the members of her touring band. Thus, the recording is, as McEntire states within the album’s notes, “a type of therapeutic for all our damaged hearts.” Songs together with her cowl of Vicki Lawrence’s 1972 hit “The Night time The Lights Went Out In Georgia,” “The Biggest Man I By no means Knew,” and “Is There Life Out There” have been chosen to reflect this album’s narrative theme.

A decade into life in a “ten-year city,” “For My Damaged Coronary heart’s” co-writer Liz Hengber lastly achieved success with the one she penned for McEntire six months after signing to her (and then-husband Narvel Blackstock’s) growth firm Starstruck Leisure. “Liz was a reasonably good waitress, and he or she’s a beautiful songwriter,” famous Amy Kurland within the foreward of Hengber’s 2006-published e book, The Do’s And Don’t’s Of Music Row the founding father of Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Café, described by PBS as a “perennial outlet for proficient Music Metropolis songwriters and artists to debut new materials and earn new followers.”

McEntire initially deliberate the track as a duet with Clint Black. Nevertheless, he was unavailable when she went into the studio to work on the album. Notably, one have a look at the observe’s cinematic, Jack Cole-directed video clip highlights the place this truly may’ve led to even higher success for the track. Wet nights accompany a youthful girl sitting at a nook sales space at a restaurant, a middle-aged girl in her condo, and an aged girl — additionally in an condo — lipsyncing to McEntire lamenting that she was “so certain life wouldn’t go on” below the stress of heartbreak, however then realizing that “the world didn’t cease for my damaged coronary heart.” Including in Black alongside McEntire, like say, her 1986 breakout observe “Whoever In New England,” is one thing to ponder, for certain.

Nevertheless, the success that “For My Damaged Coronary heart” yielded for the album of the identical identify proved that heartbreak, on many ranges, occurred simply earlier than unimaginable acclaim. McEntire was nominated for Entertainer of the 12 months, Feminine Vocalist of the 12 months, Album of the 12 months, and Music Video of the 12 months on the 1992 Nation Music Affiliation Awards, plus a Finest Feminine Nation Vocal Efficiency nomination on the 1992 Grammy Awards. On the 1992 Academy of Nation Music Awards, she received twice within the Video and Feminine Vocalist classes. The latter win, she devoted to her “eight buddies” who had tragically handed and impressed “For My Boken Coronary heart.” “I feel nation music has received a number of the finest individuals in it,” McEntire mentioned, providing gratitude to those that supported her within the months after the crash. “I would like you to understand it means the world to me.”

Furthermore, for the track’s author, Liz Hengber, she composed three extra Billboard top-five nation hits for McEntire — “It’s Your Name” (1993), “And Nonetheless” (1995), and “Without end Love” (1998). Furthermore, she turned a high-ranking member of the Nashville Songwriters Affiliation Worldwide, wrote hits for a dozen different Music Metropolis stars, plus wrote the previously-mentioned The Do’s And Don’ts Of Music Row, nonetheless thought of by many to be important studying for each aspiring songwriter or faculty scholar getting into the nation music trade.

As for Brooks & Dunn, 1992 noticed them win Academy of Nation Music Awards for Vocal Duo of the 12 months, Album of the 12 months, and Single File of the 12 months, a Nation Music Affiliation Award for Vocal Duo of the 12 months, keying success that has seen them win 17 CMA Awards, 26 ACM Awards, and two Grammy Awards previously three many years. Furthermore, they’ve achieved 20 No. 1 Billboard hits.

Regarding “My Subsequent Damaged Coronary heart”’s co-writer Don Prepare dinner, he was additionally the lead producer of Brooks & Dunn’s debut album. His skill to write down and produce songs about beer-soaked one-night heartbreaks and extra led to that album promoting six-million-plus copies. It additionally spurred a profitable profession whereby he labored with Alabama, Conway Twitty, George Strait, Vince Gill, Waylon Jennings, and extra, plus being named Chief Inventive Officer and Senior Vice President of Nashville’s Sony/ATV/Tree Music Publishing in 1994.

Once more, although each these 1991 No. 1 hits deal in heartbreak, additionally they spurred sensible, profession redefining success for all events concerned.