Search - Conway Twitty :: Southern Comfort

So long MCA, hello Elektra...

Jerry McDaniel | 08/26/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"SOUTHERN COMFORT is a wonderful album and it's Conway's debut for the Elektra/Asylum label. The music contained on this album was called light years ahead of the material on his last MCA project, MR T.



Of course, I know that was just promotional talk what with it being a new label and the whole "new start" atmosphere. The material on SOUTHERN COMFORT in my opinion is top-notch. There are shades of country-pop which Conway expanded on with DREAM MAKER later in 1982 and LOST IN THE FEELING in 1983. The songs that SOUTHERN COMFORT is popular for are the two singles: "The Clown" and "Slow Hand".



In fact, "The Clown" was being worked into country radio in early 1982 just as his previous single for MCA, "Red Neckin' Love Makin' Night", was climbing into the #1 position. Specifically, "The Clown" hit the country charts on January 30, 1982 which was a week after "Red Neckin' Love Makin' Night" had hit #1 on January 23. "The Clown" would reach #1 in March 1982.



"Slow Hand" was a hit for The Pointer Sisters several months before Conway's version became a country hit. Conway's version was #1 for 2 weeks. It hit the charts a week after "The Clown" had hit #1. "Slow Hand" reached #1 in June. 1982 was also the year TWITTY-CITY opened up as a tourist complex. The other 8 songs on the album range from mid-tempo to up-tempo. There's not really too many ballads...unless you count "The Clown". Conway does a version of "It Turns Me Inside Out", which was a hit for Lee Greenwood. "Love and Only Love" is one of the few ballads on the album. The concept of a woman marrying for money is dealt with on "She Only Meant To Use Him" while "I Was the First" is straight to the point about a man who talks to himself about a woman who left him and to make himself feel better about the situation he goes through all the things that he did with her first. It includes the line "I know he won't admit it/but it's true and lord it hurts/to think that when he's lovin' you, I Was the First...".



"Something Strange Got Into Her Last Night" is a great mid-tempo song about a couple and the wife is acting peculiar...leading us to believe that the woman cheated on him. He tells us that he'd been waiting up for her and she finally walked in around 3am crying and in emotional disarray...the fact that she couldn't look him in the eye tells the story. "Southern Comfort" is a nice sing-a-long about southern women...from all points in the south. "The Boy Next Door" carries an old-fashioned arrangement...the piano intro makes me think of 1930's and 1940's Tin Pan Alley. The song itself is about a man who's been in love with a woman who doesn't notice he's around, except when she needs a friend. "When Love Was Something Else" is a song about an older couple and how the woman reflects back on their younger days when she felt their love was something more than what it's become.



This is a top notch CD!!"

Country's Best

Jayco | 05/04/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Slow Hand, Love and Only Love and many other great songs included here, is the reason Conway is and always will be the King of country."