John Conlee isn’t content to live in the past. At 68 years old, the burly entertainer is pursuing the future with the vigor of a youngster. He still loves to record and travels the country at a manageable pace, while tending to his 75-acre farm just outside of Nashville during his offstage time.
Even his latest album, Classics 2, contains a touch of the new. Most of the selections live up to the title, with past hits like “Domestic Life” and “Mama’s Rockin’ Chair,” but John also includes fresh material to round out the record, including a number co-written by Vince Gill. The album’s first single, “Walkin’ Behind the Star,” seems a logical enough starting point for catching up with the Grand Ole Opry member.
As he grabs a chair inside the office of his Nashville publicist, John explains that the rousing tune was written several years ago as a tribute to those who serve in law enforcement. “The two writers, Ronnie Scaife and Phil Thomas, wrote it about 16 years ago,” John says. “Phil actually got the idea because he had a grandfather and a great-grandfather who had served in the sheriff’s department in their towns years ago. That’s what made him think of the line, ‘Walkin’ Behind the Star,’ in relation to his family.”
That it’s now seeing the light of day appears serendipitous timing of the highest order, in light of the number of police departments in the national news. John admits to being unsure as to why the song, whose theme fits the country genre like a favorite glove, would sit for more than 15 years.
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“I guess nobody wanted to do it back in the time they wrote it,” he muses thoughtfully. “And how hard [the writers] pushed to get it recorded, I don’t really know. But at any rate,” John adds with a smile, “nobody else took hold of it and this is the perfect time for it. So many of our law enforcement people have been under attack in recent times. And we know that there are bad police officers who do people wrong, but I think 99 percent of them are good. We have been doing this song lately in our live shows to great response. Even if you don’t have a personal relationship with the song, you can understand the message.” Also new are the tracks “Pocket Full of Crosses” and one written by Vince Gill and hit songwriter Leslie Satcher, “Bread and Water.”
Classics 2, the logical follow-up to John’s 2000 Classics album, features many of John’s hits from the late 1980s and early 1990s, from his days with the Columbia and 16th Avenue Records companies. All selections were rerecorded for the album. You won’t find cuts like “Rose Colored Glasses,” “Lady Lay Down” and others that established John as one of the unique voices of the genre. Those do appear, however, on Classics, which is available through John’s website.
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“The ones on Classics 2 haven’t been available until now,” John explains. “Some of these were on Columbia, and once I left there they kind of buried them and they haven’t been available since.” In the case of 16th Avenue, the label ceased operations in 1990, a notion that still causes some consternation with John, even after 25 years.
“We were ready with a brand-new album and they decided to close down,” John recalls, managing a laugh at the memory. “It was amazing. We had [the single] ‘Doghouse’ out, and not long after, they shut the doors. But now, these songs are on my own label [RCR] and I’m thrilled to have that independence.”
The 16th Avenue experience notwithstanding, John has mostly warm remembrances of his more than 35 years in the music business. John made his chart debut in 1978 with the tender “Rose Colored Glasses,” which became his signature tune right out of the box. Before signing his record deal, the Kentucky native entertained listeners in a different way, working as a deejay on WLAC radio in Nashville. During that time, John made demo records and pitched them to various labels around town. His well-modulated speaking voice suited radio perfectly but, more important, the station gave him an education in the music business that would serve him down the ever-winding road.
“Radio did show me a lot of ways how to do it and how not to,” John says. “I used my voice for almost nine years for speaking. When you learn to communicate with no pictures, that influenced the way I phrased and how I projected. In radio, they tell you to speak to your audience and not at them, and that helped with the way I would communicate the idea of the song. If you listen to the tapes of me singing prior to my being on radio, there is a huge difference.”
But John also learned not to “chase” radio, as those in the industry like to put it. In short, don’t look for songs that mirror what’s currently on the radio, as that’s generally a failed strategy. Just because a certain theme or trend is popular today doesn’t mean the same will be true six months from now. “You’re just chasing fads and stuff when you do that, and that wears out fast,” John explains. “That’s a huge mistake. You’re taking the song out of the equation. It ends up being a formula-type thing, and I have never liked that.” With an eye on contemporary radio, John offers an opinion borne of experience. “That’s how we got to the sameness of where we are today,” he candidly offers. “You don’t have enough songs with meat on their bones that have a story to tell.”
Instead, John adopted the philosophy of going with a tune that touched him personally. “Whether something would be a hit or not, I never approached it that way,” John says. “I’ve always done the songs that hit my heart.”
One that made his heartstrings zing was his debut, “Rose Colored Glasses,” as fine a country tune as has ever been composed. The song peaked at No. 5, and it’s still the single that fans most closely associate with John. “It didn’t grow to become my signature song,” John says. “It almost started out that way, because it had such an impact right out of the gate. So many people tell me where they were the first time they heard it.”
The danger with a dazzling debut, of course, is that the artist often has difficulty topping it. In that sense, John can look back and be somewhat grateful that “Rose Colored Glasses” fell several positions shy of No. 1. “I’m actually glad that ‘Rose’ wasn’t that big,” John admits. “A lot of people think that it was a No. 1 record, but it wasn’t. Some things can be so gigantically big that you can never follow it.”
Luckily, John went on to amass a string of follow-up hits, including chart-toppers like “Lady Lay Down,” “Common Man” and others. He still sings them on the road, which these days means about 60 or 70 tour dates a year, as best as he can figure. “That is about all I want to do,” John says. “I never was gone months at a time like some artists. I never liked to be away from my family for that long. We fill in the blanks with the Grand Ole Opry, which I usually do when I’m in town. I especially like to do the Opry Country Classics shows at the Ryman, when they have those on Thursday nights,” adds John, who joined the Grand Ole Opry cast in 1981.
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It’s been a rewarding life for the tradition-minded singer, whose signature growl and inflection have influenced the likes of Craig Morgan, Joe Nichols and others. He plans to keep the Conlee train rolling as long as the machine wants to run. He’s planning on a third Classics album sometime soon. “After that, I’m hoping to do another gospel project,” he says. John’s previous gospel effort, 2004’s Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, has proven to be a popular item in his catalog over the years, and is still available through his website.
Flashing a smile, John concedes that he’s now starting to hear the familiar question, when is he going to retire? And he has the ready answer. “I’m not going to,” he simply declares. “If either I can’t do this anymore, and that is physically, or if people don’t want to hear me do it, then that’s another issue. But as long as I can, I will. Everything’s good.”
And that’s good enough for the Conlee contingent. CW
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