Country Music in the 90’s: The Year is 1994

Bobby’s ’90s country countdown lands in 1994, a year packed with breakout stars, massive songs, and country music getting even bigger on TV. Tim McGraw goes from a stalled first album to the best-selling country album of the year with Not a Moment Too Soon, Faith Hill breaks through with Take Me As I Am, and Martina McBride takes a major career leap with “Independence Day.” Bobby also gets into Brooks & Dunn, John Michael Montgomery’s “I Swear,” Shania starting work on The Woman in Me, Kenny Chesney’s first album, Joe Diffie’s “Pickup Man,” Pam Tillis, and CMT becoming a bigger force in country. Plus, he mixes in his own 1994 memories  from the O.J. Bronco chase and Forrest Gump to Weezer, Nirvana, Beanie Babies, and more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome back to another episode of the 90s Country Podcast.
On this episode, we will rewind the clock to 1994,
a year when country music wasn't just riding the wave
of popularity, it's pretty much building an empire.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
We will dive into big names that.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Are cementing their legacy at this point, and also new
faces getting big breakthrough hits and songs we still love
and sing today. But without spoiling anymore, let's get right
to it. This is the top 10 events in country
music for.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
The year of 1994. Number 10.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
If we're going to start this 1994 journey anywhere, it
has to be with one of the boldest, most important,
and most unexpected hits of the entire decade. I'm talking
about Martina McBride and Independence Day. Now here's the thing
about Martina in the early 90s. She wasn't yet the
superstar we know her as today. She wasn't filling arenas

(01:11):
on her own. She wasn't a guaranteed CMA nominee every year.
She was still very much hustling and clawing her way
up the ladder in a Nashville scene that was very
much dominated by hat acts or balladeers. People that sang
slow songs. Her path into country music, very humble, very determined.

(01:34):
Martina grew up in Sharon, Kansas, and she grew up
on a farm, the kind of place where music was
less about glamour, more about tradition. She cut her teeth
singing in the family band, the Shifters, before making the
leap to Nashville. And like so many before her, she
had to take whatever work she could find whenever she
got to town, if that was a regular job or
if it was demo singing, which a lot of people did,

(01:57):
session work, selling t-shirts at Garth Brooks concerts, basically being
the merch person. Just so she could make ends meet.
Just so she could possibly record music. Just so she
could possibly be the very famous Martina McBride. And here's
a cool twist of fate. It was Garth who helped
give her that first big break. Yeah, her t-shirt boss.

(02:17):
He recognized her talent. Suddenly, Martina went from selling shirts
in the merch booth to standing under the lights for
the same guy in front of thousands of people. That
is a career upgrade. Her debut album, The Time Has Come,
came out in 1992. People liked it, but it did
not make a major splash. Her second album, The Way

(02:38):
I Am, 1993, was stronger.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
A little more grit. A little more confidence.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
And buried in that track list was a song written
by Gretchen Peters that would turn out to be a
career-defining anthem.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Yeah, duh.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Independence Day.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Now, let's be clear about something. This was not your
average 90s country single. It wasn't a love song. It
wasn't a drinking song. It wasn't a line dance anthem.
It was a story song. There weren't a lot of
those in the 90s. And a harrowing song at that.
It told the tale of domestic abuse through the eyes
of a young daughter watching her mother finally take control

(03:13):
of her life in the most extreme way possible by
burning down the house on the 4th of July. That
is not light listening. That is not summer radio jam.
That's not what radio people said they were looking for.
And yet, Martina sang it with such conviction, such power,

(03:33):
despite the song being a big hit with country music fans.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
It peaked at only number 12 on the chart.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
But the reason why it never hit number one was
a bit surprising. I talked with Martina about this a
few years ago. And I asked her why that song
that we know and love, that is a gigantic anthem,
never made it higher on the chart.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Here's what she said.

Speaker 5 (03:53):
You know, we had a lot of resistance at radio
with that song.

Speaker 6 (03:56):
And I think it was really because she burned the
house down you know, it was like, she was taking,
she took action that just didn't sit very well with
a lot of radio people. And so it's funny because
I was so passionate about that song. Like it literally
changed my life, not only career wise, but just my
awareness and my, you know, wanting to try to help
some way. And, all the letters that I got and

(04:17):
the people that I talked to and heard their stories.
And it was so big for me. And so my
Pro Bon Guy, once again, Mike Wilson came to me
and he said, I think we're losing the song.

Speaker 5 (04:26):
I don't think that it's going to make it. And
I was like, what? How is this possible?

Speaker 6 (04:31):
And he goes, well, there's maybe 20 stations that refuse
to play it.

Speaker 5 (04:35):
And I said, can I talk to them? Can you
give me their numbers? And I want to have a conversation.

Speaker 6 (04:39):
And he was like, sure, I guess, like, That's not
usually done, but I guess so. And so I got
on the phone with these guys and I was just like,
talk to me. Like, tell me, what is it? And
some of them would say, we just don't think it's
appropriate that it's on our station. Oddly enough, Independence Day
came out maybe seven weeks before Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered.

(05:00):
So all of a sudden it was on, that story
was everywhere. And so I was, I said, you know,
it's interesting because you're talking about domestic violence every day,
several times a day on your newscasts, right? yet you
don't feel like this song can be listened to or whatever.

Speaker 5 (05:15):
And I turned a few of them around. There were
10 stations that never did play it.

Speaker 6 (05:19):
One guy said to me, that video, like if I'm
sitting with my daughter and that video comes on, then
I have to talk to her and explain things.

Speaker 5 (05:26):
And I'm like, yeah, dude. That's maybe not a bad idea.
So it was interesting. It's just a different time.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Is it odd when people just think that song is
about 4th of July?

Speaker 7 (05:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Like on 4th of July, you hear the song and
you're like, no, it's not the same thing, guys. We're
not talking about literal Independence Day of America.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (05:42):
Because I think a lot of people don't know what
that song is about still, but then so many people do.
And that's, you know, that's the song that I've heard
and thought to myself, somebody needs to hear this song.

Speaker 5 (05:53):
This is going to be the song for somebody.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (05:55):
And, you know, then I get letters, people saying, I
got in the car and I heard that song on
the radio and that's, I decided I'm out of here.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
I've had enough.

Speaker 4 (06:02):
Right.

Speaker 5 (06:02):
So it's like, that's the power. That's not me. That's
the power of music and the power of a song.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Today, this song is still her top streamed song. It's
crazy to think it got that kind of pushback. But
now I want to go back to what made Martina
so great and the song so popular.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
First, there was her voice. Man, she could sing. Still
can sing.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Soaring, powerful, crystal clear, capable of like that Whitney type force.
But also keeping country music tradition in her voice, if
that's a thing. You know, she delivered that chorus perfectly.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Let freedom ring. Just like that. You might've thought that
was a clip of her singing. It was me.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
It was fantastic. It almost felt like, you know, somebody
singing at church too. Like somebody's testifying. The music video
was crazy. Directed like a short film. And we started
to see a lot of this in the nineties where
artists would invest in music videos because there was now
a place for them, which was CMT. And this video
depicted the story in haunting detail. of a little girl

(07:01):
watching her mom after years of abuse, and she sets
the house ablaze.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Fireworks fill the sky. It's like a movie.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
I mean, it was cinematic.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Unforgettable if you watched it because I can still remember it,
and I haven't seen it in forever. In 1994, it
won CMA Video of the Year. Proof that while radio
was a little scaredy cat, oh, I'm so scared, the
industry recognized the brilliance of that video. The cultural impact
was enormous. You had advocacy groups against domestic violence embracing

(07:31):
the song. They were using it to raise awareness. They
were using it to spark conversations about an issue that
had long been swept under the rug because nobody wanted
to talk about it. For countless listeners, especially women, it
wasn't just a song.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
It was validation.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
It was empowerment.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
It was proof that country music could and would tackle
serious subjects and find the beauty in the telling of
those stories. And then in one of the strangest twists
of history, the song found new life after the 9-11 attacks.
Suddenly its chorus, I'll not sing it this time, Let
Freedom Ring, was reinterpreted as a patriotic cry. Divorced from

(08:10):
its original narrative, of course, but it became a staple
at rallies, especially the chorus, sometimes only the chorus because
it didn't make sense if you played the whole song,
but on TV specials, even at sporting events. I mean,
that's the mark of a truly great song when you
think about it. It lives multiple lives. carrying different meanings
for different audiences, long after its original release. For Martina,

(08:32):
1994 was the year she stopped being just one of
those promising young singers and really became a true artist.
Independence Day announced her to the world, not just as
a vocalist, but as a force, someone unafraid to use
her talent to sing about tough subjects, someone capable of
elevating country music beyond cliches into something deeper. And the

(08:52):
legacy is massive. I mean, to this day, Independence Day,
still Martina's signature song. It's the one fans demanded every show.
It's the one critics cite when they talk about the
best country singles of the 90s. It's the one nerdy
podcasters talk about when they talk about greatest songs of 1994.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
I got so high pitched there, but it's the one
that proved country music could be socially relevant without losing
its heart. So yeah, Independence Day. Only number 12 on
the charts. But in terms of impact, it was number
one in every way that mattered. In 1994, Martina McBride
went from opening act to one of the most powerful

(09:28):
voices of her generation. And she did it, well, by
not playing it safe, by taking a risk on a
song that demanded attention and then continued to demand attention
and then sparked conversation. And that is Martina McBride.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Number nine.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Let's go over and talk a little more about our
old buddies, Brooks and Dunn. They deserve to be talked
about again. If Martina McBride gave us the Goosebumps moment
of 1994, Brooks and Dunn gave us the party soundtrack.
Because let's be real, the mid-1990s, nobody, and I mean nobody,
could touch this duo when it came to keeping hockey
talks and arenas electric. By the time 1994 rolled around,

(10:13):
Brooks and Dunn were no longer the hot new act,
they were the act. Their debut album, Brand New Man, 1991,
Neon Moon, Boot Scootin' Boogie, Brand New Man, all those singles.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
I mean, that album was such a jam. Like, how
do you even compete with that?

Speaker 1 (10:31):
And Boot Scootin' Boogie, like, that's the one that started
all the line dancing. Like, that's the one that got
Billy Ray going. Then in 1993, they dropped their sophomore album,
Hard Workin' Man.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
They did it again.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Well, then the question was, okay, here comes 1994. We
know these guys are good, but is there any way
to catch Lightning in a Bottle three times?

Speaker 5 (10:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Waiting on Sundown. That was the record. Right out of
the gate.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
The album set the tone. She's not the cheating kind.
It was not flashy. It was not a novelty tune.
You did not go out and line dance to this song. Well,
eventually you did, but not at first anyway.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
It was classic. Ronnie Dunn.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Rich. Aching voice. Made you a little sad. The single
shot to number one and reminded everyone that, yeah, the
band could do the boot scootin', but man, they could
still deliver deep, emotional, storytelling songs as well. And by
the time it was all said and done, Waitin' on
Sundown sold over 3 million copies, making it one of

(11:33):
the best-selling country albums of the year. And look, 1994
was stacked. So you're like, yeah, of course. They sold
a bunch of records. They're super famous. There were probably
like five records that came out. Not true at all,
because 1994 had... George Strait, Alan Jackson, Reba, Tim McGraw.
The fact that Brooks and Dunn still managed to stay

(11:54):
the tallest in a crowded field showed you how unstoppable
and loved they were.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
And then awards, we'll go back to it.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
1994 CMA Awards, Brooks and Dunn Vocal Duo of the Year.
At this point, it was almost becoming comical. From 1992
to 2006, they won that award 14 times. Don't even
put other people in the category.

Speaker 4 (12:14):
You know?

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Fans just assumed that if you showed up to the CMAs,
the trophies already had Brooks and Dunn's name engraved on them.
Waiting on Sundown, massive hit, and continued to let people
know that Brooks and Dunn were not one-trick ponies or
two-trick ponies or eight-trick ponies.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Man, they were ponies that didn't need tricks. They were
just awesome.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
I was talking with Kix Brooks, and we were talking
about his journey after he made the move to Nashville,
and if he ever thought about giving up on his
dream as a country music singer.

Speaker 7 (12:43):
When I got to town, this was the first place
I'd ever been where I couldn't make a living playing
my guitar.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Because everybody was trying to do it? Yeah, it was
just there weren't any. And there's not enough places.

Speaker 7 (12:53):
Yeah, if there's a cover band or something, but everybody
played for free. Everybody's trying to get noticed. I mean,
I auditioned and played at the Bluebird all the time.
It's actually where, like in the movies, I got discovered.
Bob Dole, who wound up managing Garth Brooks, was working
at ASCAP, saw me playing at the Bluebird. Invited me
to his office the next day, introduced me to Don Gant.

(13:14):
Don got me my first couple of cuts and gave
me a publishing deal.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
I mean, that's the Nashville story. You're at the Bluebird.

Speaker 7 (13:21):
I know.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Somebody sees you.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Were you like a pitcher who was being scouted where
you knew the scouts were in the stands that night?

Speaker 8 (13:27):
No.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
I really didn't have anything going. And what I learned was.

Speaker 7 (13:31):
My songs weren't that good. I'd written a lot of songs,
and me and David Lee Murphy were sweeping floors for
Charlie Daniels. We got $ 30 a night for sweeping the
War Memorial where the Musicians Hall of Fame is right now.
I'm not kidding.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
And we worked security.

Speaker 7 (13:47):
We worked the barricade behind the barricade to keep people
from jumping on the stage. And then we'd work the
dressing room after the show was over, making sure nobody
got in there or anything.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
And then we'd sweep the floors. Did you ever almost
give up?

Speaker 1 (14:01):
No.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
I shouldn't say that.

Speaker 7 (14:04):
I mean, there were probably times, you know, if you're
a songwriter and I had, you know, like four number
ones and quite a few cuts and had some, you know,
good years, but it was 10 years before I met
Ronnie and there was valleys in there where I went,
I'm not making that much money. I got a couple
of kids now. You know, where does this go from here?

Speaker 9 (14:24):
You know, I'm not.

Speaker 7 (14:25):
Really hot right now. I've got a publishing deal, but,
you know, three or four hundred bucks a week, whatever
I was making enough to keep you in the game.
You know, it always I was fortunate that, you know,
people believed in me here or there. Even people that
were doing advertising jingles and that kind of stuff always
had some singing going on, too. And And I, you know,
had a couple of record deals. It was on Capitol,
you know, didn't pan out, but people were aware. And

(14:47):
I guess that's how eventually Tim Dubois felt like, you know,
as a good enough singer that me and Ronnie Dunn
might make some noise.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
So while Martina McBride gave 1994 its most powerful anthem,
Brooks and Dunn gave 1994, well, a big old sign
that said, I'm here to stay. They were the ones
soundtracking the Friday nights. They were the ones filling the
dance floors.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
They were the ones packing arenas.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
And in 1994... With Waiting on Sundown, they put another
tally mark in the We're Awesome category.

Speaker 10 (15:15):
Hang tight. The Bobbycast will be right back.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Number eight.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Okay, so if Brooks and Dunn gave us the party
soundtrack in 1994, then John Michael Montgomery gave us the
slow dance. And not just any slow dance, the wedding
song of the decade.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
You know what I'm talking about. I swear. Let's rewind
a bit.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
John Michael Montgomery comes onto the scene in 1992 with
his debut album, Life's a Dance. That record instantly put
him on the radar. The title track hits top five,
and then, I.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
Love the way you love me.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Goes all the way to number one. Suddenly, everybody in
country music is saying, okay, this guy, not a one-hit wonder.
He definitely had a unique style that blended a smooth
emotional delivery with with a little twang that kept it country,
but polished enough that it still felt fresh. So, okay,
let's fast forward to 1993. He records Iceware. By early 1994,

(16:20):
it's everywhere. Four weeks straight, number one, Billboard Hot Country
song chart. Now, keep in mind, this was during peak
competition in the mid-90s. You had Garth selling out stadiums,
George Strait cranking out number ones, Reba unstoppable, Alan Jackson
dominating radio, Brooks and Dunn tearing it up, and somehow...
John Michael Montgomery's ballad cuts through all of that. And

(16:44):
then this is where the story gets wild. All For
One releases their version just a few months later. Same song,
same structure, just with a smooth 90s R & B treatment.
Their version absolutely explodes. 11 weeks at number one on
the Billboard Hot 100.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
A Grammy win. Suddenly, you've got one song at the top.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Of both the pop and country worlds at the same time.
This was basically unheard of in the 90s. I asked
John Michael if.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
He knew the R & B group would be.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Cutting their own version of that song.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
This is what he said.

Speaker 10 (17:18):
I had Rick Blackburn.

Speaker 9 (17:19):
He wanted to meet with me one day. So I
met with him and he was like, look, he said,
what do you think about going pop?

Speaker 3 (17:27):
Interesting.

Speaker 9 (17:28):
And I just told him, I said, Rick, I don't
care anything about it. I don't want to be a
pop singer. I think the song is definitely good enough
to go pop. But I said, just to be honest
with you, I just I'm happy with where I'm at.
I want to be considered a country music singer, not
a crossover or any of that kind of stuff. He said,
I have to tell you, there's another group up in
Atlantic New York is going to put out on the
R & B section. that they want to put it out.

(17:52):
And I was like, let them do it. He said, well,
I just wanted to ask you, talk to you about
it first. I guess he just didn't want me to
be surprised.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Did you like it? Were you happy? Were you unhappy
that they were doing it?

Speaker 9 (18:03):
I really felt like the song was... was bigger than
me anyway. I thought it was just, the song exploded.
I was like, wow, this thing is huge. But I
kind of felt like, you know, the song deserves to
be heard by another genre, another, you know, I mean,
it's just that good. And when it came out, I
was like, I was actually kind of wanting to see

(18:23):
how they did it. You know, it's like, how are
they going to do this differently, you know, than I did?
They pulled it off nicely.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
John Michael Montgomery's album, Kicking It Up, dropped in January 94th.
and it debuted at number one on the country albums chart.
Even cracks the top five on the Billboard 200, which
is all formats. That album went triple platinum, over three
million sold. For context, that puts them shoulder to shoulder
with Garth and Alan in terms of sales for that year.

(18:50):
Except it wasn't just, I swear. Would you wanna, would
you be my baby tonight? That was a jam right there,
Be My Baby Tonight. Also, Rope the Moon, a softer ballad,
landed top five. If you've got love, keep the streak
alive another top 10 four big singles one album all
in one year that is a monster run and the
industry definitely took notice the song won single of the

(19:11):
year at the cmas it also won single record of
the year and song of the year at the acms
that's like hitting the cycle in baseball it is extremely
rare now critics back then said jmm was too soft
yeah he was definitely softer than the rowdier boot stomping
hat axe of the era the fans don't care The

(19:32):
numbers proved it. In 1994, he was one of the
only artists to have a country single at number one,
a multi-platinum album, and crossover recognition.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Again, all in the same year.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
And to this day, I swear, still one of the
most popular wedding songs in country music history.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
It's on every 90s country playlist.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
And honestly, it kind of paved the way for those
country pop crossover moments like Shania and Faith that they
would have a couple years later. So yeah, 1994, that
was the year of John Michael Montgomery. He went from
being the new guy to watch to headliner. And I
swear it wasn't just his biggest hit, It was one
of the defining ballads of the entire decade. Okay, let's

(20:18):
shift gears for a second. While a lot of artists
in 1994 were lighting up the charts, Shania Twain was
doing something a little different. She wasn't top in radio
that year. She wasn't winning awards. She wasn't even on
the charts that much. What was she doing? She was
in a studio, quietly putting together an album... that would
flip country music upside down. Now, her story to this

(20:40):
point is pretty interesting. Shania had released her self-titled debut
in 1993. It had a little traction. I mean, a
couple of songs got radio play, but nothing earth-shattering. Nashville
was not betting on her to be the next Reba
or the next Wynonna. I mean, to most in the industry,
she was just another talented singer that was trying to
find her lane.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Then she met Mutt Lang. And if you know rock...
you probably know Mutt.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
He was the mastermind behind Def Leppard's Hysteria, ACDC's Back
in Black, Foreigner's biggest records. Basically, the guy who knew
how to make songs sound huge. And he and Shania
hit it off, personally and professionally. They got married in 1993,
and almost immediately, they started working on her second record.
So in 1994, while everyone else was chasing hits on

(21:28):
country radio, Shania and Mutt were tucked away in the studio.
And what they were cooking up was, well, unlike anything
Nashville had really.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
Ever heard before.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
These weren't straight-ahead country songs. They had fiddles and steel guitars, yeah,
but they layered in big, giant hooks, like glossy harmonies,
production tricks that pulled right out of arena rock. Again,
see all those bands I talked about earlier? I mean,
think any man of mine. Whose bed have your boots
been under? Songs that would end up sounding as comfortable

(22:00):
on Top 40 as they did on country stations. And
it just wasn't that the sound was different. Shania herself
was rewriting the playbook for how a female country star
could look and carry herself. I mean, forget the girl
next door vibe. She was glamorous and stylish and bold.
Photo shoots look more like fashion spreads. Later in videos,
she'd have confidence. She'd have attitude. She wasn't waiting for

(22:23):
Nashville's permission. She's pretty much making her own rules. By
the end of 94, the album was finished.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
The woman in me was ready. But here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
At the moment, nobody knew what was about to happen
because it wouldn't hit shelves until early 95. Oh yeah,
by the way, it would sell over 12 million copies
in the U.S. alone, rack up Grammy wins, and basically
kick off the entire country pop crossover wave that would
define the second half of the 90s. But in 1994,
still under wraps. Just a secret revolution hiding in a

(22:57):
Nashville studio waiting to be unleashed. I have a feeling
we're going to dive more into that in the next episode.
I was talking with Shania and we got into talking
about her move from Canada to Nashville as a young artist.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
So I wanted to play that for you.

Speaker 11 (23:11):
I literally drove here from Timmins, put everything in the
back of my Jimmy. That was my vehicle at the
time and loaded that up with everything I could possibly
put in there. I had no money and I just
drove the three days to Nashville and Nashville. I got
a little bit of cash from the label, you know,
first and last month's rent on an apartment in Brentwood.

Speaker 5 (23:31):
And here I was.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Were you famous in Canada already before you came down?

Speaker 11 (23:36):
No, I was signed to Nashville, not Canada. I didn't
have a record deal in Canada. I had never released
a record in Canada. I was still a stage singer,
a club singer, singer, songwriter. So I went straight from
that to Nashville.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Now let's do my 1994 record. As I was digging
into this year, there were a lot of things that
I was really into. I think too, because I was
starting to be a little older, like I was a teenager.
I kind of got culture.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
I love music.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
And I'm going to put the OJ Simpson, the chase,
the arrest, the trial begins.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
Like all that, we're going to put here in 1994.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
That white Bronco chase becomes one of the biggest TV
moments ever. Here's what happened. I was playing men's league softball.
on my stepdad's team. And so I was probably a
little too young to be playing with grown men, but
they needed a player.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
And you know what?

Speaker 1 (24:34):
For a 14 year old, I was pretty salty. As
far as an outfielder, as far as a men's league
softball player, I was all right. So we were out
and it was a doubleheader night. So we played a game,
I'm going to say like 630. There was an hour off.
And then we had another game at like 845. in
the middle of those two things that OJ Simpson chase happened.

(24:56):
Now there, there weren't cell phones, but over the concession stand,
they had TVs hanging down and everybody kept slowly moving
towards the TVs and talking.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
And so there was no game. We were waiting for
our second game anyway.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
And we all walked over and watched the freaking OJ
Simpson Bronco chase at the men's league softball game.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
And I remember it's so vivid. Then I got home
and then It just was everywhere, right? It was everywhere.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
To me, that's really how I knew OJ Simpson first.
I mean, I knew he was a running back back
in the day, but it was before I even watched sports.
He was in, I guess, Naked Gun or Airplane or
one of those like slappy movies. But that was before
me too.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
He did commercials.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
That was before me. I really didn't know him except
for kind of a TV announcer. But man, he was
the most famous person in the whole world. And I
remember watching that Bronco chase. with a bunch of men's
league softball players. Also 1994, one of the best movies
of all time. And this is one of those massive
years too for movies. But 1994, Forrest Gump came out.

(26:02):
I went to the movies and saw it.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
I loved it then. I love it now.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
The story of that movie too, just being like a
script that somebody found and like the discarded pile and
they read it and then championed it.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Look into that. It is crazy.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
But if I'm, you know, the king of picking the
greatest American movies of all time. And they tell me
that's my job to preserve 15 movies for the next generation.
I'm putting Forrest Gump in there. So 1994 made one
of the best movies of all time. Now, I wasn't

(26:41):
a Pulp Fiction fan so much even now. I'm not
going to say it's overrated. It just wasn't for me.
But what was crazy was Pulp Fiction came out too,
right around the same time. 1994, I was really into grunge.
You know, we talked about it a couple of years back.
We talked about it because Nevermind, that Nirvana album came out.
I knew every song on it. Not only that, one

(27:03):
of my favorite albums still today is Nirvana Unplugged. And
it was pretty soon after they recorded Nirvana Unplugged that
Kurt Cobain died, committed suicide. And so that happened in 1994.
And that was pretty crazy. I didn't even really understand
suicide so much. It hadn't happened in my family and

(27:24):
there wasn't social media. So you really didn't stay connected
to artists anyway, other than their music, maybe an occasional
spot on their TV, maybe on a magazine. If you
looked at magazines when you're at the grocery store and
Kurt Cobain usually wasn't on the magazines in the checkout,
you had to go to the magazine section. I guess
you get a poster and But I was a big

(27:45):
Nirvana fan. I just remember it being crazy when Kurt
Cobain died. It wasn't like sad because again, it was
a different connection then. It was mostly a connection to
a body of work more than it was a person.
I think later as you learn the stories of people
and you realize all he was going through, all of
his struggles, that he was really never quite happy. He

(28:08):
made this wonderful art and his life ended way too soon.
But That is 1994. And as much as that was,
you know, I'm not going to say a season of
music ending for me, but a season of me loving Nirvana.
And I still love Nirvana, but that ended. But Weezer

(28:32):
began because Weezer released the blue album. And when I
say this is my 1994, if you know what I
look like, This is going to be much easier to
understand because I wear extremely thick, dark-rimmed glasses.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Do you know why? I think you know where this
is going. I know you do.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of Weezer. He was a nerd,
and I thought he was the coolest guy ever. Mix
in a little Buddy Holly. That was my inspiration for
my eyewear. Eyewear. slash love Weezer in 1994 was what

(29:19):
introduced us to Weezer with the Blue Album.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
All the hits. And Weezer had a couple generations, which
is pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
There have ever only been a couple bands to successfully
be massive, take a break, come back and be massive again.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Definitely Green Day is one of them. They had a couple,
they had.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
The Dookie version of Green Day and then they came
back and they did, you know, Wake Me Up Before
September Ends and all that. Green Day is one of them.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers, that's one of them. There's
like two versions and there's Weezer. I mean, heck, Weezer's
still putting out songs that ended up topping the charts.
But this blue album, allow me to nerd out for

(30:01):
a second. My name is Jonas. What a great first song.
Buddy Holly, obviously.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
The sweater song.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
If you want to destroy my sweater.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
Say it ain't so. Say it ain't so.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Only in dreams I could continue to go. This album,
as much as Nirvana... made me go, I'm angry. This
album made me go, you know what? I'm kind of
cool that I'm a nerd. Loved Weezer then. Some of
my most famous, I shouldn't, not even famous. Some of
my most fun concert experiences were at Weezer shows. A

(30:47):
couple of years ago, a company was hosting this client
event in Las Vegas. And there was a massive client
that were trying to get to come and advertise with
the company. Maybe not so much on my show, And
they said, hey, would you come out? It was kind
of last minute, going to Vegas, pretty far trip. I
did not think I was going to be able.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
To make it.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
And they said, you'll meet the client and it's going
to be at a private Weezer show.

Speaker 7 (31:10):
I'm in.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
I'm in.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
I'm there.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
And I went and there were probably 70 people. And
I met with the client. I think the client ended
up buying some time with the company.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Heck, I'm not even sure.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
And I stood four feet away. From Weezer as they played.
And I sang every song. It's on my Instagram. I
don't know how far back you go. But it's on
my Instagram. It was one of the coolest concert. And
that wasn't a real concert. But one of the coolest
musical experiences of my life.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
Doing that.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
That client meeting. At a private Weezer show. And I
did get to interview Rivers Cuomo. And when we were
doing American Idol.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
Now I was doing American. I guess we. I think
if you're listening to me. You're part of we. Just
so you know.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
That's mostly how I feel like if you're listening to this,
I feel like where are we? When I was doing
American Idol, one of the years during the celebrity sing
along where the celebrities come out and sing with the contestants,
a Weezer was one of the bands. And so I
went on their bus and that blue album, I got
all four of them to sign it. And it's in
my studio. Now it's in the Bobby cast studio, all
four of them signed the vinyl is pretty cool. So

(32:18):
I went a little hard on Weezer, but that's the
year that the blue album came out.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
That's what's up.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
We talked, Last year, 1993, about home improvement and how
big that was. I do want to mention this. Tim
Allen had the number one TV show, had the number
one book, and had the number one movie with the
Santa Claus, which is still top three all-time Christmas movies
to me. So there you have it.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
1994, big year.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
Like just looking at it as far as like not
my 1994, the OJ Bronco Chase, Friends' premiere of that show. Now,
I didn't watch it religiously for a couple more years,
so I couldn't really put that in.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Jim Carrey ended up having Ace Ventura. I was like,
what even is this? And it was awesome.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
But that year, Jim Carrey crushed because it was Ace Ventura,
The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber all come out. So 1994.
The one bad thing I will say about 1994 that
affected me was the MLB strike.

Speaker 3 (33:20):
I hated that. That sucked. Now I get it.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
As an adult, I get why they were striking. But yeah,
that sucked. So there you have it. That is my
Weezer-filled 1994. Number six, number six, number six. Okay, let's
lighten things up a little bit. Who better to do
that than Joe Diffie? Joe was out there making everybody
laugh and sing along with one of the most purely

(33:47):
fun songs of the decade, and that is Pick Up Man.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
By this point, Joe already had a reputation.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
He was the guy that could hit you with a
heartfelt ballad one minute, like If the Devil Danced in
Empty Pockets or Shifts That Don't Come In, and then
turn around and drop something completely goofy like John Deere Green.
He was not trying to be the most polished or
the flashiest. He was just this warm, approachable guy with
an Oklahoma draw and a heck of a haircut. Then

(34:13):
came his 1994 album, Third Rock from the Sun, and
the crown jewel of that record was Pick Up Man.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
The whole premise. Simple. Funny. Drive a truck. Suddenly, you're irresistible.
It's tongue-in-cheek. It's clever.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
It's delivered with that signature Joe Diffie grin. I mean,
you can set my truck on fire, roll it down
a hill, and I still wouldn't trade it for a
coupe de ville.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
That's classic Diffie.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Every truck-loving fan in America, in their truck, nodding along.
The song hit radio in the fall of 94. It
didn't just chart.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Prepare for the puns.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
It parked itself at number one for four straight weeks.
That four-week run made it Joe's longest-running chart topper, and
the video was fun, trucks everywhere, Joe playing it up,
CMT spinning it nonstop, and here's where it gets even better.
Pickup Man didn't just stay in country radio. It bled
into pop culture. The song popped up in commercials, sitcom references,
and years later, Jason Aldean even gave it a shout-out

(35:11):
in his 2013 tribute song, 1994, which did go, Joe, Joe,
Joe Diffie, You can still play those opening lines today
of that song and watch a crowd light up. Shortly
before Joe passed, him and I were talking about this
song reaching the commercial success it did years after it
was released.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
So I wanted to play that.

Speaker 12 (35:31):
They said that they were interested in using Pick Up
Man as a part of an Applebee's commercial. And so
they sent me a CD of it, just the music
and the lyrics changed that they had rewritten it, basically.
I just stuck it in the thing. read the lyrics,
sang it down, took me about an hour, and I
sent it back. I thought it was going to be
like a presentation or a demo for them, and they

(35:52):
used it. That's what they used, and they.

Speaker 9 (35:55):
Kept renewing it.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
It was like, this is great.

Speaker 12 (35:58):
I said, can I get some more of those commercials?

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Is that where it is, like in the sync stuff?

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Boy, yeah.

Speaker 12 (36:04):
If you can get in one of those deals, it's
a pretty good deal.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
The second those first chords hit during a live show,
people were on their feet.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
It wasn't about deep emotion or big drama. It was
about joy.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Friends elbowing each other, couples laughing, everybody yelling the choruses
at the top of their lungs. Critics would sometimes brush
him off as the novelty guy. But I think they
were missing the point. Joe Diffie was versatile. He could
break your heart with a ballad, or he could sing
and make you forget about your worries with a sing-along like.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Pick Up Man.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
I never knew it was Pick Up Man. Honestly, versatility
is why fans adored him. Pickup Man is still one
of the defining fun songs of 90s country. Also, Watermelon Crawl. Also, Chattahoochee.
We could keep going, but I'm going to hold. That
song captured the humor, the lifestyle, the energy of the moment,

(36:59):
you know, when country didn't take itself too seriously. In 1994,
Joe Diffie didn't reinvent the genre. He just reminded us
that sometimes country music is supposed to make you smile.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Number five.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
If Joe Diffie gave us laughs and pick-up truck sing-alongs
in 1994, Pam Tillis gave us something else entirely.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Elegance.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
Confidence.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
And proof that women were more than holding their own
in the middle of the country boom. Now here's the
thing about Pam. She could have coasted on her last name.
She was Mel Tillis' daughter. Some would try to use
that as a golden ticket into Nashville. But not Pam.
She didn't want to just be Mel's kid.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
She paid her dues.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Singing backup. Writing songs for other people. even dabbling in
pop for a while before planting her own flag in
country music. And in the early 90s, she had broken through.
Put Yourself in My Place gave us such songs like
Maybe It Was Memphis Jam and Don't Tell Me What
to Do. Fans could tell that she had her own voice,

(37:58):
her own style. And by 1994, she was ready to
make her big statement album, Sweetheart's Dance. Released that spring,
it showed off every side of Pam.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Spilled Perfume was the lead single.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
Kind of a smoky, regretful, mid-tempo track that climbed into
the top five. Her vocal control in that song was powerful,
but still restrained, if you can imagine. Like, go listen
to that song again. Both powerful and restrained. Like, she
knew exactly when to pull back and let the lyrics
do the work. Then she switched gears. When You Walk

(38:31):
in the Room, her cover of a Jackie DeShana pop classic.
Pam gave it a little country polish, a little steel guitar.
but kept the joy of the original. It's a great cover.
It hit the top five and it became a staple
at her shows. Then the real breakthrough, Mi Vida Loca,
My Crazy Life. Latin flavor, bold, playful, totally different from

(38:52):
what anyone else was putting on the radio. And it
worked because the song shot to number one. And that
song made her impossible to ignore. And then the others
just kept hitting.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
I was blown away.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
In between dances, by the end of the year, Sweetheart's
Dance had gone platinum. And here's the payoff. At the
1994 CMA Awards, Pam Tillis walked away with the trophy
for Female Vocalist of the Year.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
That was huge.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
In an era where Reba was dominating and new voices
like Faith Hill were emerging, Pam proved she belonged in
the top tier. What set her apart wasn't just the music.
It was definitely her presence. She had this mix of
sophistication and approachability. She could make you cry, let her
sing Spill Perfume, and then she could have you dancing
with Mi Vida Loca. Fans connected for many reasons. Her authenticity,

(39:40):
really the sense that she wasn't trying.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
To be anybody else.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
The legacy of Sweetheart's Dance, it was the album that
cemented Pam Tillis as more than just A name. It
put her in the spotlight as one of the women
leading the genre in the mid-90s. In 1994, Pam Tillis
showed the world that women weren't just keeping up with
the man of country music. They were also setting the
pace at times.

Speaker 10 (40:04):
Hang tight. The Bobbycast will be right back.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Number four.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Let's zoom out for a minute for this next one
because 1994 wasn't just about what you heard on the radio.
It was also about what you were seeing on your TV.
This was the year that CMT really broke through and
when CMT became a household name. Up until then, country
music had mostly been an audio world. You heard the
songs on the radio. Maybe you saw your favorite artist

(40:42):
on an award show or a TV special, but that's
pretty much it. In 1994, CMT expanded into tens of
millions of homes across the U.S., and suddenly, country fans
had a 24-hour channel devoted entirely to their music.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
The shift was huge.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
It meant country stars weren't just voices anymore.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
They were faces.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
They were personalities. They were brands that people could see
every day in their living rooms. The genre started leaning
into image in a way it really never had before. Clothes,
stage presence, attitude. It all mattered now because it was
on screen constantly. Here's the kicker, it didn't just boost
the established stars, it created a whole new pipeline for younger,

(41:25):
rising artists to get national exposure. Young stars like Tim McGraw, Shania.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Twain, Faith Hill.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
If radio was still the gatekeeper, CMT was the shortcut.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
A clever, memorable video.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Could make a name instantly recognizable, even if they didn't
have a stack of hits. It also changed the way
that fans interacted with music. Country wasn't just something you
listened to on a drive or on a hockey talk.
It became something you watched. Families would turn on CMT
and just leave it on for hours. So fans started
connecting with artists, not just through lyrics, but also through

(42:01):
their style, through their humor, through their stage presence. By
the end of 1994, it was clear that country music
had fully entered the visual age. CMT had given the
genre a new megaphone. The ripples were massive. Careers were launched.
fan bases grew, and the overall look of country music
started catching up with the MTV generation. When mentioning the

(42:21):
country boom of the 90s, it wasn't just bigger tours
and higher record sales. It was also the fact that,
for the first time, country music was on screen everywhere
you looked.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Let's take a quick pause from the countdown.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Outside of country music, 1994 was also the year of
a small stuffed animal turned into a national obsession.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yes, before the boo-boos, there were Beanie Babies.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Ty Ink, a small company at the time, had introduced
them the year before. They were simple, understuffed plastic pellets.
They could flop around instead of just sitting stiff like
most plush toys. I mean, nothing about that sounds revolutionary,
but the marketing strategy was. In 1994, Ty began retiring

(43:07):
certain designs, quietly pulling them from stores, making them unavailable.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
You know what that did?

Speaker 1 (43:13):
It built a sense of scarcity. Suddenly, parents weren't just
buying toys for their kids. They were hunting collectibles. Word
spread quickly. Secondary markets popped up where a $ 5 toy
in 1994 could sell for hundreds of dollars. Shops couldn't
keep them in stock. Lines would form when new shipments
came in. Some schools even banned them because kids wouldn't

(43:36):
stop trading them in the hallways. And it also wasn't
just for children. Adults were buying them.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Multiples.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
By the end of 1994, Beanie Babies had become one
of the most talked-about retail products in the country. They
were featured in news reports and newspapers and being tracked
in collector's price guides. Sales were climbing into the hundreds
of millions, and Ty Inc. was quickly becoming one of
the most profitable toy companies in America. Of course, the
bubble burst, as they often do.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
But 1994? Big year.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Turning point. The year Beanie Babies went from novelty toy...
to full-blown cultural phenomenon. And now, let's get back to
the countdown.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Number three.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Here's something easy to forget about 1994. One of the
biggest country stars of the next 30 years was just
getting started and hardly anyone noticed.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
His name was Kenny Chesney.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
In April of 1994, Kenny released his first album, In
My Wildest Dreams.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
It was not a blockbuster release.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
The record came out on the independent label called Capricorn Records.
which is a label better known at the time for
Southern rock than country. Distribution was limited, radio promotion was minimal,
and the album sold around 10,000 copies. Those numbers barely
registered in the 90s. Now, here's why it matters. This

(44:57):
was Kenny's entry point. He had grown up in a
small town in East Tennessee, gone to East Tennessee State University,
and only picked up the guitar seriously in college. After
moving to Nashville, he worked the local circuit, he played bars,
He did some songwriter rounds.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
He hustled to get noticed.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
And that Capricorn deal was his first shot at making records,
even if it wasn't with one of the industry heavyweights. Musically,
In My Wildest Dreams leaned traditional. The songs had honky-tonk
and small-town themes, and they were delivered in a very
straightforward everyman style that Kenny would be later known for.

(45:35):
The production was not flashy, and none of the singles
made much impact on the radio, but the album gave
him the experience of recording and the beginnings of an
identity as an artist. The real turning point came after
the record's release, when bigger players in Nashville took notice.
In 1995, he signed with B & A Records, a
label with the resources and connections to push his career forward.

(45:56):
From there, he very slowly started to gain momentum, first
with smaller hits, then with platinum albums, and eventually the
stadium tours that you know now, and the chart dominance
that defined later the 2000s. Looking back, in my wildest dreams,
it did not move the needle in 1994, but it

(46:16):
did actually create what would be Kenny Chesney's career. It
was a modest beginning, but without that beginning, there wouldn't
have been the great, well, what he is now. That
foundation was It's what created everything else that followed. I
asked Kenny who his mentors were, and then we talked
about when he first.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Moved to Nashville.

Speaker 8 (46:33):
Well, I was always drawn to the people that wrote
their songs and went out and performed them, like Bruce Springsteen,
like Jimmy Buffett. You know, what's crazy, though, as a
kid growing up in East Tennessee, I didn't know the
genius of that. You know, I was playing sports, and
I heard Alabama on the radio, and I heard, you know,
everything they played on WIVK in Knoxville, Tennessee. And that's

(46:55):
what That's the music I grew up on because that's
the music my mom listened to all the time. But
once I started writing songs and I discovered the genius
of all these people that I now call my heroes
slash a little bit of friends, it opened up a
whole new world to me. Because once you started doing it,
you started to see how really hard it was.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
And until you get in the mix, it's hard to
actually see how it's being made.

Speaker 10 (47:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (47:20):
When I first started this, I moved to town several
years ago. and was signed by Acuff Rose, which is
now Sony. Sony bought Acuff Rose years ago. That's all
I thought I was going to do. I had no
idea that I was going to go out on the road.
And I mean, I hoped I would, but I was
so in love with the thought of creating and giving
the world something that didn't exist yesterday.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Right.

Speaker 8 (47:43):
And so that's, that, that's what really got me excited
to get up every day. And so then it turned
into this, which is, it's, it's the audience we've built
out there is really beautiful, but, But when I first
came to town, I didn't know this existed.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Number two. 1994 wasn't just about established stars. It was
also a year when new voices broke through. One of
the new voices was Faith Hill. Her debut album, Take
Me As I Am, had come out at the tail
end of 93, but it really hit in 94. The
lead single, Wild One, spent four weeks at number one
on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, which may not

(48:19):
sound unusual today, but here's the context. No female country
artist had ever taken her debut single to number one
for that long. It was a record-setting start and instantly
put Faith in a different category than the rest of
the newcomers. Her second single proved she wasn't a fluke.
She covered Peace of My Heart, a song that had
already been a soul classic from Janis Joplin, but she

(48:41):
covered it in a country style. And that was a
bold risk, but it paid off. The song climbed into
the top ten and introduced Faith to listeners everywhere. who
may not have normally tuned into country radio. The title track,
Take Me As I Am, followed, gave her another top
ten hit, showing she could balance power ballads.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
With strong mid-tempo songs.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
By the end of 94, the whole album had gone platinum,
and Faith Hill had established herself as one of Nashville's
brightest new stars. You know, part of her appeal was
that she connected with fans. Now, Faith had a polished,
glamorous side that played well on the platform of country
music television, CMT. But y'all.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
Had that warm, approachable personality.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
She carried herself with confidence, but without the flash or
drama that could sometimes overshadow an artist's music. That balance
made her feel both relatable and star-ready. And in hindsight,
1994 was the foundation for everything that followed. This was
the year she went from working behind the scenes in Nashville,
I mean, she had once sold t-shirts at Reba concerts,

(49:45):
to standing center stage in her own right. Without Take
Me As I Am, there is no This Kiss, there
is no Breathe, and no eventual rise to global superstardom.
Faith's debut wasn't just the start of a career, it
was one of the clearest signs in 1994 that a
new generation of female artists was ready to take country
music into the next decade.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Number one, one, one, one, one, one, one. That's not
an effect. That's my voice. Number one.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
If Faith Hill's 1994 was about a star being born,
Tim McGraw's was about a star being rescued from the brink.
Because here's the thing. His first album, released in 1993,
was a flop. None of the singles cracked the top 40.
In a town like Nashville, where the next hungry singer
is lined up, ready to go, that usually means you

(50:34):
get one shot and you're done. Now, I've become friends
with Tim over the years and once asked him if
he thought about quitting after his first album was a flop.
This is what he said.

Speaker 4 (50:44):
When I decided to move to Nashville, I knew that
this was what I was going to do and where
I was going to be, whether I was going to
be carrying somebody's guitar case or I thought maybe I
might be working at a publishing company. you know, pitching
songs to artists or something like that. I knew I
was going to be in this business, and I knew
I was going to be here.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
So after the record doesn't do well, you're like, all right,
load it up.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
Let's do it again.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Let's give it another run.

Speaker 4 (51:03):
Well, I kind of fell off the radar with my
record label at the time because it didn't work. We
didn't have any hits. And I was playing clubs all
over the place. I mean, we were playing hundreds of
clubs every year. And so I sort of just on
my own went back and started collecting these songs. And
just went back in the studio and just didn't really
tell anybody I was going back in the studio. And
I think that I was off their radar so much

(51:25):
that they didn't really realize it until I'd finished a
record and turned a record in. And that was the
night I went to Sooner.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
It's so funny because you're as relevant today as you
ever were.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
And I was looking at the top 90s country artists.
And in terms of artists at number one, total weeks,
you're number two only behind George Strait. He was at
49 weeks. You're at 40 after you as Garth, Alan Jackson,
and Brooks and Dunn. So you put out a record
that doesn't do well, but that doesn't mean you can't
do humongous great things if the first shot you get
at something in life doesn't go right.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Well, if you learn from it, I think. What did
you learn?

Speaker 4 (51:54):
I learned, you know, it was really the first time
I'd really been in a real studio. I'd done a
few things in some small studios. It was the first
time I really went in and saw how it worked.
And I just started soaking it up instantly. And I think...
I had two great mentors and teachers in the studio.
Byron Gallimore, who's still with me and James Stroud early on.
Those guys taught me so much and I learned so

(52:14):
much right at the beginning about how a record's made,
what it takes to make a record, how deep you
have to think about the.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
Songs, how important the songs are.

Speaker 4 (52:20):
And I think that's the biggest thing that I learned
and still know and learn and understand. It's not about
me singing the song so much as finding great songs.
The song is the most important thing in any music,
particularly in country music. I think that If you don't
put the song first, then you're going to do your
career a disservice.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
In March of 1994, he released his second album, Not
a Moment Too Soon. This time, everything clicked. The breakout
moment came with Indian Outlaw. It was catchy, controversial, impossible
to ignore. Believe it or not, that song cracked the
top ten, but never reached number one. Once, I asked

(52:58):
Tim the origin story behind this song and why he
thinks it never went number one.

Speaker 4 (53:03):
There were a lot of stations I think that wouldn't
play it because it was so different at the time.
And I guess it had a little controversy with what
it did at the time, but not that big. But yeah,
there were some stations that wouldn't play it.

Speaker 9 (53:13):
So I get that.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
But I think fortunate for me is after having that song,
because I thought the same, I loved that song. I
heard that song the first night I moved to Nashville.
When I moved to Nashville, I stayed at the Hall
of Fame Lounge. I don't know if you guys remember.
It used to be the Hall of Fame Lounge. And
I stayed there when I first got to town. And
the first night in town, I met Tommy Barnes, who
wrote Indian Outlaw. And so he and Matt Vickery, who

(53:38):
wrote The Fireman, met him the first night in town.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
And Wild Bill.

Speaker 4 (53:42):
Emerson, who wrote some Hank Williams Jr.

Speaker 10 (53:44):
Songs.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
I met those guys in the bar. And later that night,
we all went up to the room I had rented
there with the last money that I had when I
moved to town. And we all sat around playing guitars
and playing songs. And two songs that I would eventually
cut ended up being heard that night was I don't
want to be there in the morning when she wakes
up and finds me gone. And Indian Outlaw, both of
those songs, Tommy played for me that night. And when

(54:07):
I put a band together and started playing clubs, I
was playing Indian Outlaw for three or four years before,
two or three years before I cut it. And I
tried to cut it on my very first album, but
I couldn't talk anybody into letting me cut it. And
then we cut it for the second album.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
After Indian Outlaw came out, the ballad that changed it
all was Don't Take the Girl. That song turned him
from a curiosity into a household name. It was emotional, cinematic, relatable,
It followed a couple throughout childhood, young love, and tragedy.
The single shot to number one, Tim's first chart topper,
and fans immediately connected with him on a deeper level.

(54:40):
The moment did not stop there. Down on the farm,
hit top five. Not a moment too soon, crushed as well.
By December, that record had gone six times platinum, making
it the best-selling country album of 1994. I mean, think
about that. In the same year, all the legendary names
were at their prime. It was the guy that everybody
had written off because of that big old flop he

(55:01):
had in 93. At the 1994 ACM Awards, Tim won
top new male vocalist. What set Tim apart was really
no gimmicks, but he had a bunch of charisma. Boy
next door type thing.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
Women swooned.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
But guys also liked him too because they were like,
that could be my friend or he's kind of like me.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Kids sang along.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
He was accessible without being ordinary. And here's a little hindsight.
While 1994 was the year that Tim proved he belonged,
it was also the year the stage was set for
Tim and Faith. They weren't a couple yet, but history
was already putting them on parallel tracks. The legacy of
Not A Moment Too Soon, it's one of the greatest

(55:43):
comeback stories in country music. It's like the Patriots' 28-3
comeback on the Falcons in the Super Bowl. It's like
the Cavs being down 3-1 in the finals to the Warriors.
Tim McGraw went from almost being forgotten after a big ol'
flop of a record... to having the best-selling country album
of the year. All that happened in 12 months. And
there was no TikTok back then. In 1994, Tim McGraw

(56:04):
let everybody know he was here, he planned to stay,
and three decades later, he's as relevant as ever. So
here's to 1994. The anthems, the ballads, the party songs,
the tearjerkers, the risks, the rewards, and of course, the O.J.
Simpson police chase. And big shout-out Beanie Babies, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Thanks for checking out this episode. Come back.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
We'll get into 1995 next. And follow us on socials,
at BobbyCast.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
All right, cool.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
We'll see you next week.

Speaker 10 (56:35):
Love this episode of the BobbyCast? Subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts.