September 14, 2026 • 54 mins
Bobby continues his year-by-year countdown through country music in the ’90s with 1996. In this episode, he looks back at Brooks & Dunn making history, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill getting married, Shania Twain’s rise, Martina McBride landing her first No. 1, Deana Carter breaking through with “Strawberry Wine,” LeAnn Rimes arriving with “Blue,” The Chicks setting the stage for what was coming next, and more. Bobby also shares conversations with several of the artists about the songs, careers, and moments that shaped the year, while mixing in the movies, TV, sports, and pop culture that made 1996 unforgettable.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hey, welcome back to the 90s Country Podcast. On this episode,
we're rolling back to 1996. CD towers in the living room. Man,
CD towers were awesome when you could, like, fill it up.
Weekend festivals and a country scene that was everywhere. Now,
I'm counting down the 10 moments that defined the year.
We'll keep it simple. We'll keep it honest. We'll drop
in a few pop culture moments as well that were unforgettable. So,
(00:36):
as we've done with every other year, let's get into 1996.
Number 10. We're going to start with Country Stampede. Now,
that launched in 1996. Big festival. Instantly felt like a
weekend people planned around, not just another tour stop. And
if you lived within a day's drive, you either went
or you tried to go or you knew somebody who
(00:56):
did go. It wasn't hype. It was a massive turnout. Now,
think about festivals. First-year festivals usually mean really long lines,
parking headaches. Empty seats for the early acts because the
people that paid all the money want to get up front.
They don't get there for the early acts. So they're
playing a bunch of empty white seats. Stampede had some
of that, but the takeaway was really the music. Like
this is the one that launched the real festival culture
(01:19):
that is now. I mean, you could roll in at
noon and then leave at night and have all kinds
of music. It was a lot of discovery as well.
Here in the afternoon, sing in the evening, you go
with a casual, then you become a massive fan of somebody.
And that year, at Country Stampede, the first year, it
was a mix of stars. It was Tim McGraw, Jeff Foxworthy,
(01:40):
Little Texas, Tanya Tucker, Faith Hill, Tracy Lawrence, Rick Trevino,
Ty Herndon, Lone Star, Jody Messina, and many more. It
was like a country radio poster. All the big hits,
and then, like, you might be a redneck guy. It
was a reason to go. Now, the setting did the work, too,
because outdoor stages were a little raw, a little unfiltered.
And it was a little tougher for artists that played earlier,
(02:00):
like a 2.30 p.m.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Slot.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
That's a test. And if people love you at 230,
they're probably going to love you for the rest of
your career. So it was a struggle, but it's also
where a lot of those artists we talked about started.
And you get a lot of feedback in those early slots.
They also had campgrounds. Now this is normal to us
because a lot of festivals have campgrounds. But again, this
is revolutionary for the time. Overnight, little neighborhoods formed. Tents
(02:23):
and lawn chairs and coolers. People cooking. Kind of feels
like Woodstock, you know, a bunch of years later, but
without all the free love. walk over to a stage
in the afternoon. If there's an artist you might like,
go back to your campsite. It was really a culture
changer for country music, even production-wise. You know, year one,
it had good infrastructure, which ended up being great. You know,
(02:45):
not perfect, but organized enough that people trusted coming back
with bigger rigs for their sets, and also more people
trusted it to stay. They would bring their campers. And
then also bringing in college kids and families. It was
one of the first to do and mix everybody long
time country music fans people coming to dance people coming
to party and that was the mix that made the
(03:07):
country music festival what it is today now why it
belongs in the 1996 top 10 is after that weekend
well it all changed artists had a live lab where
thousands could well road test new material fans waited all
year to go back and make it a full weekend
local businesses learned well we got to staff up because
(03:28):
we got a lot of people coming to our town
Stations built annual coverage plans, and word of mouth did
the rest, and now we have festivals practically every weekend,
all summer, multiple ones. So that's why we put that
at number 10. Number 9. The Farewell to Minnie Pearl,
March 4th, 1996. While 1996 was a great year in
(03:48):
country music, it was also the year a legend in
the industry was lost. March 4th, 1996, Minnie Pearl passed
away at the age of 83. Minnie Pearl was Sarah
Ophelia Colley, born 1912, Centerville, Tennessee. Her family, comfortable. She
had access to arts and education early. She studied theater
(04:09):
and dance at Ward Belmont in Nashville, a finishing school
that also turned out some very serious performers like she
was in. The important part was she was formally trained.
Voice and movement and timing. She worked on that craft
long before she ever got to the Opry stage. Right
out of school, she took a job with the Wayne P.
Sewell Producing Company, which sent young producers across the South
(04:31):
to stage community shows. I think gems in courthouse rooms,
school auditoriums. And so she was performing and she wasn't
just telling jokes, though. She was organizing casts. I mean,
she was a producer. She was coaching lines. She was
fixing queues. She was learning what different rooms laugh at
because she was in different rooms. On those trips, she
met a thousand versions of small town characters since she
(04:54):
basically was in small towns all day, every day. And
she started to take notes and stitch the details together.
And that's where the character, Minnie Pearl, came from. You know,
Minnie Pearl with the cadence, the gentle bragging, the I
know everybody in town rhythm. The famous tag still on
the hat was a clean visual gag. But the core
(05:15):
of the character was observation and timing, and she did
a lot of that. She debuted on the Grand Ole
Opry stage in 1940. It wasn't luck. She showed up
with a tight entrance line, a short story, and a
clean exit.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Boom.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Tight set. She watched the clock. She also understood the
Opry rulebook. Make the audience feel welcome. Hit them with
one or two good jokes, get a good laugh, and
set up the next artist to win. I mean, that's
why management trusted her for decades. She wasn't there to
hog the night or to be the star. She was
there to make the night better. When you talk about
(05:52):
Hee Haw, Hee Haw launched in 1969. Minnie Pearl didn't
overhaul the act. I mean, she basically compressed it. TV
needs quicker beats. She already had them. She became a
national reference point for what country funny meant. And she
also didn't step on the music. Millions who had never
been to Nashville now recognized her rhythm. Clean setup, a turn,
(06:13):
and a smile that let the audience in on the bit.
In 1947, she married Henry Cannon, a pilot and businessman
who later ran a charter service and helped manage her schedule.
So she could work the road hard without getting trapped
by it and all the details. I mean, people backstage
talk about her like a steady colleague who knew everybody's names,
(06:34):
who calmed everybody's nerves, and could give one sentence of
feedback that would actually help a young performer. She was
diagnosed with breast cancer in the 1980s. She spoke about
it publicly way before that was common to do. And
she used her platform for screenings and support in the South. Later,
HCA and Tennessee Oncology named a research network after her
given name, the Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute. If you're in
(06:58):
the Nashville airport, sometimes you'll see a big sign that
says Sarah Cannon and the Sarah Cannon Institute. That's her.
That's Minnie Pearl. Separately, a nonprofit support group launched as
the Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation. Now it's called Pearl Point.
In other words, her name just isn't in the Hall
of Fame. It's actually on doors where people get help.
(07:18):
A major stroke in the early 90s ended her regular
appearances at the Opry. She died March 4th, 1996 in Nashville.
By then, she'd been an Opry mainstay for more than
a half a century, and she was inducted into the
Country Music Hall of Fame in 1975. Take away the catchphrase,
and you're left with technique, theater training, Ruthless Economy, meaning
(07:41):
short bits, clean exits, and a character based on real
people that she met on the road. The jokes travel
because they're about behavior, not trends. And the role she
played on the Opry, keeper of the pace, keeper of
the mood, came from respect for that show as a
living thing, not as a backdrop. She bridged tent show
stagecraft and radio and network television and modern arena pacing
(08:06):
without really changing anything about herself or her core values.
She welcomed the crowd. She read the room. She protected
the music. That's the through line from a depression area
theater kid to a 90s icon whose name now still
sits on cancer centers. If you host anything today, a
segment at the Opry, a radio hour, a podcast, you're
(08:28):
probably borrowing from a toolkit that she built way back
on gym floors across the South long before anyone saw
the price tag hanging off the hat. Number eight. Martina
McBride has Wild Angels. It goes number one, March 2nd, 1996.
Let's put Wild Angels in context instead of treating it
like it just fell out of the sky. Martina, before 1996,
(08:50):
grows up in Kansas, moves to Nashville with John McBride,
who's running sound. Does the grind, the merch tables, the
opening slots, any mic available, that thing. And the first record,
The Time Has Come in 1992 introduced her voice, but
didn't exactly knock the door down. But The Way That
I Am, released in 1993, did that and more. My
(09:12):
Baby Loves Me is everywhere. Life No. 9 keeps it moving.
And Independence Day becomes the song everybody talks about, even
if the chart peak, because it wasn't a No. 1,
doesn't match the impact. By 1995, she's got Wild Angels,
the album, out. And the title track is quietly doing
its work. Stations are testing it. Crowds hear it live.
(09:35):
Word spreads that this one is it. Now, the moment
in 1996, March 2nd, as I mentioned, Wild Angels hits
number one. Now, it's not a reinvention. It's more of
a confirmation. The track breathes. Like, there's air. There's a
chorus that opens up. What changes, though, is everybody else's behavior.
More than her music completely changing, it's how people are
(09:57):
reacting to her music. Writers start moving their best ideas.
her way because they know that that vocal, her vocal,
will carry it. Producers frame the voice instead of just
piling on instruments. In the set, the song becomes the
one people are waiting for, the steady hand. Drop It
Late in the room focuses on without the front person
(10:17):
having to really explain anything. Just play the freaking song.
People love it. Now, why it matters is, well, because
it's the first number one for an artist. It doesn't
create the work. It focuses the work. For Martina, it
settles the, hey, can we trust her as an anchor?
Because remember, the other song didn't go number one, even
though it was massive, because program directors were all weird
about it. But when you have a song that goes
number one, labels can then plan things around you, invest
(10:40):
money in you. Labels can plan release timing with more confidence.
Booker's who pay for artists to come, can assume that
you're going to show up and people are going to
pay and they're not going to lose money. Fans who
liked a couple of singles start following the artist, not
just a couple of songs they love. And because the
song isn't tied to a fad, it ages well. There
are absolutely country fundamentals in this song. Clear lyrics, steady tempo,
(11:02):
vocal on top. It's done clean and it still lasts.
And what it sets up is, well, a lot. A
broken wing in 1997, wrong again in 1999. They kill,
they go to the top. The big voice, clean arrangement
lane becomes hers because she does have that big, strong,
real voice. By the end of the decade, she's collecting
(11:23):
the trophies. Female vocalist trophies, left and right. She's headlining
spaces that used to be, I don't know. None of
that happens without the 1996 moment where the chart finally
gave her a number one and matched what, well, a
lot of people already knew. Wild Angels isn't the start
of Martina. It's the point where the industry stops acting surprised.
(11:44):
or stops wondering if she really can do it. From
March 96 forward, she's not just a great singer that
maybe she'll make it, but she's the one they know
is making it. I was talking to Martina, and I
asked her if she always wanted to be a country
music artist growing up. This is what she said.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
No, I always dreamed of making records and doing, you know,
doing the big thing, but I couldn't at that point
in my life, 18, 19, 20, really settle on country music.
I was kind of like singing all kinds of music.
So I was singing with this cover band. I was
singing everything from Aretha Franklin, to Whitney Houston to Madonna,
you know, just whatever was on the radio at the time,
(12:20):
plus some classics like that.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
And I loved that too.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
So I was like, I don't know if I'm really
ready to go and do country music full time. And
I had an aha moment. I had to quit singing
for a while because I was like waiting tables and
singing in clubs five nights a week. And I started
to get like some vocal fatigue and they did a
scope and said, you know, you don't have nodules, but
it's not looking good. You should probably take some time
off from singing.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
So I did.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
And in the meantime, I So I started singing harmony
vocals in this country band, these two brothers called the
Fowler Brothers. I'd go and sit in and sing harmony.
And then I started singing with my dad's band a
little bit again. And we did a battle of the bands,
which is so weird. We never did that the entire
time I was growing up.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Who's with your dad?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Me and my dad in that band.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
And it was at a club and it was in
Wichita and we did this battle of the bands.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
And something clicked for me.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
One of the DJs that was judging the contest actually
said to me, I don't know what you're going to
do with your singing because I know you sing a
lot of other stuff, but I hope you decide to
sing country music because that would be really great. That
comment coupled with the experience of singing that music again
and realizing how important the lyrics were, how important the
singer is, it just felt like home to me. I
(13:27):
said to my mom, she was there. She ran the
soundboard actually for the band. And I said, I think
I've made a decision. I'm going to move to Nashville
and pursue a career in country music. I didn't tell
my husband. Maybe I kind of did. I think I said,
I want to move to Nashville. And he had a
local sound company. And he was like, all right, let's go.
But we really didn't know anybody. Talk about naive. I
(13:48):
knew I had to find songs. So I'd go to
these publishing companies and walk up and down Music Row
and knock on the door and say, I'm a singer
and I want to get a record deal. Can you
play me some songs that I can record for demos?
And they're like, um, sure.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Come on in. It was so odd that they were
probably slightly welcoming, but confused. Yeah. Like, this is really
not how it works, but okay.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
You know, right?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Okay. Bonus event from 1996. It's weird to say bonus
because it was tragic, but Tupac shot and killed September 7th, 1996. Culturally,
he was everywhere, even if hip hop wasn't your thing.
you at least knew the face and you knew some
of the songs. But if we go back to September 7th, 1996,
we go to Las Vegas, the Mike Tyson fight. The
strip is packed. This is the biggest sporting event of
(14:31):
the year other than the Super Bowl. And any of
the Tyson fights at the time were massive. So the
fight happens and everybody's heading to whatever party is next.
Tupac is riding with Suge Knight. They pull up to
a light and shots are fired, sirens, hospital. And it
wasn't social media. So you really didn't know what was
happening as it was happening. Like the news would report
(14:51):
it a little bit, but it was also a rapper.
And a lot of times music news didn't always make
the real news. So you kind of just heard a
little here and there. And it was mostly what you
could hear and how long you'd have to wait. And
people waited forever. It was six days. And every channel
basically had the same updates. And it was, he's in
critical condition. We'll go to the next story. Or there
(15:11):
was a surgery. No big change. You call everybody and
be like, have you heard anything? No, have you heard anything? Again,
if it didn't come out in a magazine or if
you didn't see it on the news... You didn't know
anything about it. So people just waited. And then the
news lands. September 7th, Tupac dies. 25 years old. And
you didn't need to know every song for that to
affect you. Because again, Tupac was a cultural icon. So
(15:34):
when I think back to 1996, where I was a teenager,
I can remember it pretty vividly when they said that
Tupac had died. And so it was a fight. It
was a red light. It was a hospital. It was
a week of waiting. And it was a headline that
pretty much everybody heard around the same time. And 30
years later, Tupac's legacy and his impact is still felt today.
(15:54):
Hang tight. The Bobbycast will be right back. Number seven.
Shania Twain, The Woman in Me and the ACMs, April 1996.
We'll skip the mythology and let's just do a little
(16:14):
timeline here. Because again, with Shania, before 96, we can
talk about 1993. That debut introduces the name Shania. And
you know what? It's kind of, it's a different name.
You hear the name Shania, you're like, I wonder what
that's all about. And that's what 93 did. Then she
links up with Mutt Lang. The Woman in Me hits
in early 95 and the singles arrive in waves. Songs
(16:38):
like Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under, Any Man
of Mine, The Woman in Me, If you're not in
it for love, I'm out of here. All these songs
that we know. You didn't need a chart to know
what was happening. You just needed to be somewhere where
a radio was or a TV was. Cars, kitchens, office radios.
You could just tell. I was talking with Shania and
I asked her what she thinks about when she hears
(16:58):
her song Any Man of Mine these days. I think
of line dancing. You know, this is the one format
where in some places you go and people will still
dance to live music. Like actual dance to music. This
is like the rock kick. You know, that's what it is.
It's like, you know, kick and rock and boots or something.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Sometimes it's easy to forget just how big line dancing
was in the 90s, but hearing that Shania clip is
such a good reminder of how much it shaped country
music back then and how that influence still sticks around today. Now,
getting back to the spring of 1996, ACM Night didn't
change everything for Shania, but it did change how people
talked about her. After the trophies... The meetings got specific and, hey,
(17:42):
are we sure this is country? Because it was country.
The people had spoken. Budget started shifting toward, you know,
her type of music because it was clean. The tracks
were clean. The choruses were earlier, which was a little
unheard of at country music. Sometimes you just start with
a chorus. Radio stopped hedging and like going, maybe, maybe
(18:03):
we'll just play her late at night. Maybe we won't
play her early in the day. And they just started
to put her everywhere. And they put her in the
morning drive and they put her in afternoon. In short,
the debate moved from, what do we do with her?
Let's be safe with her to let's just make her
the main thing. Cause she had earned it. Obviously the
songs earned it. And then when she wins the awards
at the ACMs, I mean, that's what did it. She crushes,
(18:25):
she wins album of the year. Obviously it was the
album of the year and top new female vocalist. I mean,
she probably should have won more than that, but that's
not a bad night. The ACMs, April 1996, allowed people
to start going, I don't know, it's risky too. Man,
it's risky not to. And then that was so strong
(18:46):
for her that it cleared the lane for Come On
Over the next year. And then nobody guessed about anything
with Come On Over. And then radio was like, yeah,
give it to us. That's another thing. The awards didn't
create demand. They actually removed the friction. Even though she
had the success, the awards within the industry that she
won remove people in the industry from saying, I don't know.
(19:07):
The model was simple, strong song, clear arrangement, clean mix,
and then no apologies. This is what she is. Country
didn't change its core. It made it easier to program
and stage and sell to more people. Shania opened up
doors for everybody because Shania had all the elements. She
was country, but people that weren't country were coming in
to check it out and hopefully checking out other things
as well. That's what Shania did. Well, that's what she
(19:30):
was already doing. It just took that night at the
ACM's to make some of the gatekeepers realize it and
not stop her from doing it. Number six, number six,
number six. Lone Star lands their first number one with
No News. When the song No News hit number one
in early 96, Lone Star stopped being that new band
(19:52):
that was such a fun story and started being a
real factor. That first hit kind of changes the temperature
in every room, as far as even in rooms in Nashville.
But when the radio starts playing, you get bigger meetings,
you get label calls, you get festivals happening. saying, hey, play,
or here's more money. Even the vibe around the band,
everywhere you go, you just celebrate it. I mean, you
(20:14):
go from basically explaining yourself and what you're going to
do to planning the next move. And why this record
worked with Lone Star is simple. The idea is clean.
The lines are tight. The groove sits right where radio lives.
You can put it anywhere in the hour and it
lifts the mood. You know, in radio, there's a weird
thing where they want to schedule songs that No two
(20:35):
slow songs back-to-back. You don't want to do three songs
that do this back-to-back. Well, the great thing about this song,
No News, was it kind of worked everywhere. It wasn't
trying to be overly clever. It was just a fun,
good song. And the song also says something about what
90s country did, and did well. It mixed hard, it
mixed humor, and it really wasn't a gimmick. I mean,
(20:57):
No News is witty, but it's not like, hey, get
the joke, wink at you kind of stuff. You can
laugh at the premise... but also still feel like you're
listening to a real song. And that balance keeps casual
listeners from bailing out because it's so corny. And then
also keeps hardcore listeners from, well, bailing out because it's
so corny. It's why programmers could play it at 9am
(21:18):
or 2pm or 530 and it still works. Momentum shows
up fast after a first number one as well. I mean,
the festival holds get better later slots, more money, you know,
then you get headlining spots and markets where you kind
of couldn't sell tickets. And when you get a number one,
those markets, those cities, they kind of sell. The next
single then is welcomed. You just had a number one.
(21:41):
So you're going to put out another song where everybody's
anxious to hear it. You kind of get the benefit
of the doubt, which you never got before. Radio program
directors trust you and trust is everything because once you
have it, the, Hey, can we get our song added?
Conversations become a lot shorter. There's a personal memory thread too,
because fans attach, to a band's first hit, to their
(22:02):
own timeline, like where they were or what they were
doing or what they had. It could be a job,
a truck, a summer, a friend group. I know I
do that with a lot of music. Like I can
hear a song from back in the day and know
exactly where I was in my life. And I do
that with people like Tracy Lawrence or Garth Brooks, even
Faith Hill from way back in the day. But that's
how songs become anchors. Years later, if you mention No News,
(22:24):
someone could tell you a story about that is so
oddly personal and so specific, you'd be like, that's crazy,
but I understand. I mean, that's catalog glue for an artist.
It's what keeps people showing up when you're on your
third album and you're touring through heat and dust. As
far as songwriting goes, you know, this was the kind
of song that you only write after you've written so, so,
(22:45):
so many songs. Because the song was written pretty perfectly
as far as how much space to leave before the hook.
Let's talk about harmonies. When we sing this live, how
is this going to be sang live? Like there was
obviously a lot of work with Lone Star, even within
each other before this song hit. Those small decisions from
that song all rolled forward into the singles, into the tours.
(23:07):
And the next thing you know, they're monsters, right? Everybody
knows Lone Star. Context matters too about this song, 1996.
It was a very crowded year because you had a
bunch of people like giants and country music dropping albums.
You also had a lot of rookies catching fire and,
which meant there wasn't a lot of room on playlists
of radio. And that was really the only way you
were getting music then, or at least learning about new music.
(23:29):
Lone Star moved from, I don't know, maybe to Dependable.
And that's a big swing in that environment because Dependable
sells Saturdays. That's how you get people to come to
a show because they know you're going to be good.
You're going to play songs they like. Dependable lets you
then take smarter risks on the follow-up or the follow-up
to the follow-up without totally losing the room. One song
(23:51):
does not promise a long run, but it does give
you the leverage to have a shot at it. And
no news, that song, go back and listen to it,
handed them that leverage right when they needed it. I
once asked Richie McDonald how he ended up as Lone
Star's lead singer. Here's that story.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Dean was working at Opryland and I had moved from
Texas to Tennessee and I had tried out for Opryland
a year before. We met briefly in Texas. Anyway, I
saw him out at Opryland one day and he goes, man,
he goes, I'm thinking about putting a band together. So
long story short, he kind of ran the, you know,
his time at Opryland and he was ready to do
something else. So he was actually really responsible for putting
(24:30):
Lone Star together and John Rich was out there. We
had two lead singers at the time. You know, John
and I were sharing responsibilities. We were kind of like
a Brooks and Dunn, but a group. But the label
kind of wanted us to go, you know, have a direction.
And they wanted me to have the responsibilities of lead vocal.
So John was, you know, we shared that responsibility at
one point. And then I kind of took it over
(24:50):
and he went on to own half of Nashville.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Let's take a quick pause from the countdown. If you're
building a 1996 highlight reel, Tom Cruise gets his own slot.
He bookends the year, summer with Mission Impossible, winter with
Jerry Maguire. Two totally different lanes, both massive movies. One
launched a franchise, Mission Impossible, heck, they're still making them.
And one, well, that movie's still being quoted all the
time years later. We'll start with Mission Impossible, the summer
(25:15):
of 1996. That wire drop scene in Mission Impossible where
he's in the roof and he falls and the wire
holds him up right before he hits the floor, that's
been everywhere. That theme song, everywhere. It made $ 180 million
in the United States, almost half a billion worldwide. And
in 1996, half a billion was way more than half
a billion now. For a non-superhero revival in the mid-90s,
(25:39):
it was a monster. And it also cemented, I guess
he needed cemented, Tom Cruise as a franchise lead. There
have been seven movies since, the latest being in 2025. Now,
if we move to winter and we talk about Jerry Maguire,
you have to go show me the money or help
me help you or you complete me. It made $ 150
million in America and $ 270 million plus worldwide. Heck, he
(26:04):
almost made a billion dollars that year in movies. That's
a big number for a character first film, which is
what Jerry Maguire was. It became the word of mouth
holiday pick. And it was also good for date nights,
family nights, repeat viewings. Guys liked it because it was sports.
Women liked it because it was romantic. But it was
the year that everybody liked Tom Cruise. Between June and December,
Tom Cruise owned the movies. He owned two different corners
(26:26):
of the culture. The summer stunt image that everybody copied
and the winter catchphrases that everybody quoted. And the net
effect was, well, he was the biggest celebrity in the
whole world. And now, back to the countdown. Number five.
Tim McGraw and Faith Elmery. October 6th, 1996. Here's the
short version. People already liked him. People already liked Faith. Then,
(26:47):
on October 6th, 1996, they got married. It was a
quick headline. But from that day on, you didn't need
a backstory when you heard them. Solo or together, it
just kind of made sense. And a key thing to
remember when talking about their marriage is that a lot
of celebrities will date for PR stunts to gain more
fame or followers or record spins. But with Tim and Faith,
that wasn't the case. Tim's thing was always an easy,
(27:11):
lived-in delivery. Faith's was a clear, steady lead. By 1996,
both were solid on their own. The marriage didn't change
who they were. It just gave listeners a new lens
with how to consume their music. They married in Rayville, Louisiana.
No TV special, no countdown, no TikTok clips. After that,
radio didn't have to explain a pairing. You could just
(27:32):
say the names, hit play, and let the music explain it.
They never felt like a gimmick because the voices also
just matched. But something that doesn't often get talked about
enough is what the marriage didn't do. It didn't force
a rebrand, and it didn't push either artist into a
lane that didn't make a lot of sense. Their solo
records kept the same tone and individuality. The collaboration appeared
(27:54):
where it belonged. It wasn't forced. With select duets during
moments in their shows, and occasionally doing joint interviews. The
takeaway for Country was simple. Couples have always been part
of the story, but not every duo works together. Today
on social media or on radio or in big rooms,
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill showed a workable approach. They
protected their solo careers. They picked shared songs with care.
(28:18):
They were really precious about it. And they let the
blend of all that do the talking. It's number five
because it changed how people heard their music. After October 6th,
you didn't need context to hear them solo or together.
The duets that followed felt like a natural step for
a lot of fans. 90s country love song basically meant
Tim and Faith. I played a game with them. It
was a relationship knowledge test. Tim and Faith were in studio.
(28:41):
Here's that. Question one. Write your answer down. Where did
you first meet? As specific as possible. Tim and Faith.
Where did you meet? They have their pens. They're writing
it in. Tim is in.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I'm in.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
I'm in.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Faith is in. All right, Tim, what do you have there?
A radio seminar. A radio seminar. Yeah, the radio convention thing. Oh, CRS. CRS, yeah. Faith,
what do you have?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
CRS.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
CRS, okay. That was softball.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
What year?
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Oh, gosh.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
93?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
No, no, no. It was probably 94.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
How does that work? Oh, she wrote the year. 93, 94.
How does that work, then? Who comes up to who?
You're both artists. One of you thinks another one's pretty. Like,
what happened? Yeah, she thought I was pretty.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
It was the New Faces show, and we were both
doing the New Faces show. And Clay Walker was there,
who's still a good friend.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Great guy. And we were backstage.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
And we did like this big group picture. And I
was dating somebody at the time and I met Faith.
And when I left, the person I was dating says,
I don't know if I want you to say hi
to her anymore.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Oh, she saw it immediately. Yeah. And so how do
you ask Faith out the first time? How did I
ask her out the first time? How do you ask
her out?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Well, it took a bunch of times, actually.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Do you remember that? Well, of course I remember that.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
But do you remember how you asked me out the
first time? Like, legit asked me out?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
No, you tell.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
Of course you remember.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, but I want you to tell. I think I do.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
Uh-huh. This would go all set up. You brought me
chicken and dumplings. You came to my house. You didn't
announce that you were coming.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
But that was good. That was fine.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
Knocked on my door, opened my door, and he had
a bowl of homemade chicken and dumplings.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
And he said, I— And cornbread.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (30:33):
He said, I made these myself. They're homemade from scratch.
He had the bowl covered in aluminum foil, and he
had a spoon and a fork on top of the bowl.
He says, I didn't know if you like to eat
your dumplings with a spoon or a fork.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Oh, dude. That's money, dude.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Hey, look, you make up for your inadequacy.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
That was like, bam. Okay, here we go. Number two,
where was your first date? Oh, boy. Your first date.
Tim and Faith in studio writing their answers down. Didn't
we have a first date?
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Well, I got.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
The first time you went out somewhere together, your first date.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
Oh, Lord.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
It's not exactly that. That means Tim doesn't really know. No,
I know.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
I'm just putting, like, moment down there.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
All right. I've got mine. First date. Faith is struggling here.
I am. I wouldn't call it a date, but it's
the first date. If you have no answer, you have
no answer.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I have an answer.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
I have an answer, but it's top secret.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Okay. It's a top secret first date.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
I plead the fifth.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
What do you have, Tim? Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Okay. That's it. Okay. Fair enough. I'm going to ask you.
I'll ask you one more. What's Faith's biggest pet peeve?
Write it down. No, write it down.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
Period.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
What's Faith's biggest pet peeve? Write it down. What's Faith's
biggest pet peeve?
Speaker 7 (31:59):
Period.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Oh, boy.
Speaker 6 (32:00):
That could be many things.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
You can't miss this one, Faith. He can. This is
on him. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
And my turn?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Cleanliness. What do you have?
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Oh, I'm supposed to write that, too?
Speaker 1 (32:11):
You can say whatever you want. Yeah, what is yours?
Speaker 5 (32:13):
Yeah, cleanliness. Oh, sorry, sorry. Yeah, cleanliness. She's a neat
freak when.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
It comes to cleaning.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I am.
Speaker 5 (32:23):
I hate clutter.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
She'll clean the house for six hours at a time.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
You clean your own house? Well, no.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
Yes, I do, but we have a lot of help.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I mean, we don't have a butler and stuff like that.
Somebody else can clean everything. We need a butler.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
We do.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
No, we have great. How about Mr. French? Remember Mr. French?
Speaker 5 (32:45):
No, I do.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I love to clean. I love to clean. I know Mr.
Speaker 7 (32:50):
Belvedere.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
That's as early as I go. Hang tight. The Bobbycast
will be right back. Number four. Dina Carter, born January 1966,
the daughter of renowned session guitarist and songwriter Fred Carter Jr.
(33:14):
Growing up around working players and studio days shaped how
she looked at the job. Song first. Show up prepared.
30 years later, Dina would put out her first major hit,
Strawberry Wine. That's 30 years from the day she was born.
And Dina Carter's name would be known well in country
music for a long time to come. But before that
moment with Strawberry Wine, she took a different route. She
(33:37):
went to the University of Tennessee, she studied rehab therapy,
and she worked with patients, an interest sparked by her grandmother.
Music never really left, but the degree that she had
taught habits that later mattered. Listen closely, don't rush, keep
it honest. After she graduated, Dina came back to Nashville
and started the slow climb. Cutting demos, playing writer's rounds,
(33:57):
working in small rooms where you earn attention one song
at a time. She knew how sessions ran and what
a clean chart looks like when you're in a session.
But things changed for her real quick. A work tape
reached Willie Nelson, who invited her to Farm Aid in 1994.
By the way, she was the only female solo performer
that year. That same tape kept circulating, and within months,
(34:19):
she signed with Capitol Records. Her debut album, Did I
Shave My Legs for This? Man, it was massive. It
was awesome. It reflected who she was. Straightforward, a little dry,
grown without extra gloss. When Strawberry Wine came around, some
thought it was too slow for an artist's debut song. Oh,
we only like fast songs. Oh, we only like upbeats. Yeah,
(34:41):
as you know, that really didn't matter. The song was
too good. Dina heard a real place in a specific
summer and then recorded it simply, just letting the story lead.
It lined up with everything she'd learned. Don't crowd the vocal.
Give the lyric room. Trust the listener. 1996 did the rest.
Strawberry Wine hit number one on Billboard's Hot Country Songs
and won CMA Song of the Year. In that same stretch,
(35:02):
she was nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year, Album
of the Year, Music Video of the Year, the Horizon Award,
which now is Best New Artist. But she had arrived.
The album climbed number two on the Top Country Album chart.
The headlines mattered, but the bigger shift was practical. She
got better co-writes. She got real studio time. And she
got a touring plan that didn't rely on tricks to
(35:24):
hold a room. So when you think about 1996, Dina
Carter and Strawberry Wine... Remember that the road to it
all started three decades earlier. A Nashville upbringing, years of
steady work, a cosigner that believed in her, and finally,
the right song at the right time. Even today, this
song is still everywhere. I asked Dina if she ever
(35:46):
hears it. And then she just wants everybody to know
that that's her song. This is what she said.
Speaker 8 (35:50):
I posted something on socials a couple of years ago
because we were driving down Broadway, which is rare. We're
just on this side road over by the Palm at
a red light. And I heard this girl upstairs in
the open air sports bar up there singing it. And
I'm like, stop the car. And I get out of
the car and I run up there and I'm standing there.
(36:12):
Watching her, she freaks out. And I went up and
hugged her. And it was just like a super moment
for both of us. That was really cool on Broadway
to hear someone covering it upstairs.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
That's pretty cool that you heard it.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
Very cool.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
But cool for her, too, that you happened to be
driving by and then you ran up the stairs to
kind of acknowledge her.
Speaker 7 (36:29):
So crazy.
Speaker 8 (36:30):
And the thing that I am just in love with
right now is TikTok and being able to do duets
and thumbs up people and seeing all the love.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
I bet there's a lot of TikTok people singing Strawberry Wine, huh?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
It's millions.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Millions.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Like, I'm going, there's where all my people are. Number three.
Leigh-Anne Rimes, The Road to Blue. Leigh-Anne Rimes was born
in Mississippi but grew up in Texas. She gravitated to
microphones early. She did talent shows and pageants and national anthems. Really,
any gig that would have her. By grade school, she
had banked more stage reps than most adults. And the
(37:05):
voice people heard in 1996 was not a stunt. It
was a skill set that she'd been building for years.
Before the major label moment, there were small records and
local radio stops. It was that kind of groundwork, even
when she was so young, that would get her noticed eventually.
And legendary songwriter Bill Mack took notice of her. He
had a song, Blue, that needed the right singer. Somebody
(37:26):
who could carry a classic song without turning it into
nostalgia theater. For Leanne, at the age of 12, which
is crazy, Curb Records came calling, and a year later,
In 1996, her debut album, Blue, arrived. The title track
introduced her. The rest of the record kept the promise.
What listeners heard was a teenager who was moving from
(37:48):
a regional talent now to a national act. Signing that
early reshaped her career overnight. Leigh-Anne began booking national TV shows.
She got award show invites. She recorded in bigger studios.
Better songs started coming in. The challenge was growth under
a spotlight. The team around her had to pace touring
and recording so her voice could stay healthy. And again,
she's still barely a teenager. Inside Nashville, the impact of
(38:11):
that curb deal was broader than just one artist. After 1996,
more young vocalists were given room to sing clean, spacious
songs without being packaged as group acts. She kind of
paved that road for a lot of young singers after this.
And to most listeners, it felt like an overnight arrival.
That single was massive. It stuck. The album traveled. But
(38:33):
her on stage is what sealed the deal because she
could actually sing even though she was a kid. You know,
when that happens and you can't sing and you can't perform,
fans stick around for the next release, which they did
for years to come, which they're still doing now. So
when you think about 1996, Leigh-Anne Rimes and Blue put
the contract at the center of the story. A major
(38:53):
label took an early public bet. A young singer met
the moment and together they showed that traditional doesn't have
to mean old. It didn't in her case. Again, she
was barely a teenager. That song introduced her. It was massive.
That album showed she could stay. And the hard part
from there was growing up without losing that thing that
made everyone listen in the first place. Okay, let's do
my 1996 non-country. So when I think of 1996, I
(39:17):
think about Atlanta and the Olympics. And it was cool
that the Olympics were in America. About to do that again.
But 1996, the Olympics were in Atlanta. And there was
a guy named Richard jewel and the whole story was
he saw a backpack that looked like i shouldn't be
there and so it was under a bench in the
centennial olympic park so he calls the cops like he
calls authorities and so he then starts to clear people
(39:40):
out of the area minutes later that backpack he thought
was possibly something up to no good was up to
no good it exploded Two people died, more than a
hundred people were injured. And so they started blaming him
at first. And it was weird because it was all
over the news. Investigators started to be interested in Richard
(40:01):
Jewell because of a theory that they called hero bomber.
The idea was that a lonely, frustrated person might plant
a bomb and then, oh my God, discover it in
order to become famous and receive praise. And Richard Jewell
was a former police officer. And he was a security
guard who desperately wanted a law enforcement career. So some
(40:23):
investigators said that what he was doing and what he
did exactly fit that profile. The problem was they were
basing all this just on a profile. They did not
have the evidence. And so again, it started to get
on the news with his name. He became famous for
being the person they were accusing of bombing the park
because there was a leak inside the investigation. So within
(40:47):
days of this, News organizations flashed in his face were
saying the FBI considers Richard Jewell their prime suspect. It exploded.
I remember it. Cameras were camped outside of his house.
Reporters were following him everywhere. So we're being fed this.
And there were like four channels at the time. So
(41:07):
of course, everybody assumed he was guilty. And this all
happened before social media. He was never charged. Not one time.
The FBI searched his home. They interviewed everyone around him.
They surveilled him constantly. They spent months investigating him, but
they never found evidence linking him to the bombing. Eventually,
the government said, hey, you're no longer a target of
(41:28):
the investigation. And later on, the attorney general was Janet Reno.
She expressed regret and then apologized to Richard Jewell, the
guy who was a security guard that saved so many lives.
that all of a sudden was the bad guy. Imagine
you're him. Oh my God. Literally, he was saving people's lives.
(41:55):
What he was doing, it reduced the death toll. He
was a national hero, but Richard Jewell didn't get to
feel that. There's a movie about it as well. And
that movie starts off a little dopey, but it ends
up being really good. It still makes me mad thinking
(42:15):
about it. Later, they did identify Eric Rudolph as the
real bomber. He was an anti-abortion extremist. He was a
domestic terrorist. He wasn't just responsible for the Olympic Park bombing.
He also carried out bombings at abortion clinics and at
a lesbian nightclub. After years on the run, they caught
him in 2003, according to the story that I read.
He pled guilty. So, that story sucks. That story sucks.
(42:43):
For about.
Three months, America thought Richard Jewell was a bad guy
that killed people. I mean, that is an example of
like one of the first that were canceling somebody sort
of before canceling was a thing because he was all
over magazine covers and I don't know, it sucks. That's all.
(43:04):
That's the first thing that comes to mind whenever I
think about my 1996 is the Olympics and the Atlanta
Olympic Park bombing. But I don't just want to do
that because that story really pisses me off. I'll give
you a couple other good things that I remember from 1996.
It was the premiere season of Everybody Loves Raymond, and
(43:25):
it wasn't even that I super got into Raymond in 1996,
but because it started in 1996, it ended up going
a long time, and I ended up really loving Everybody
Loves Raymond. And then later played golf with Ray Romano,
which I thought was pretty cool. He was super funny,
super nice. But I love that show. It was wildly successful.
And overall, my podcast, The Bobbycast, I actually did an
(43:50):
episode with a guy who created the series. And it's
mostly about him and Ray's life kind of mixed together.
So yeah, that's a good one. And then also Tickle
Me Elmo. And you might know what that is now.
But it was like whenever you see people fighting for
like Pokemon cards right now. Or flat screen TVs on
Black Friday. That's what Tickle Me Elmo was all about.
(44:12):
People were buying them like crazy. And it wasn't even
that you could resell them so fast on the internet.
I mean, it was 1996. That really wasn't a thing.
But everybody wanted a Tickle Me Elmo. News stories were
basically Richard Jewell and Tickle Me Elmo. Man, the Richard
Jewell thing still fires me up. That sucked for that dude.
But that is my non-country story. 1996. Number two. The
(44:39):
Dixie Chicks, the 1996 hinge before Wide Open Spaces. The
group that would dominate the late 90s started as a
very different act. In the early 90s, the Dixie Chicks
were a Texas group, and they did a lot of busking,
a lot of bluegrass, a lot of regional gigs... Sisters
Marty and Emily on the fiddle, banjo and mandolin. They
had the tight harmonies and it was a Roots first
(45:02):
set list. They had good crowds, good merch, a lot
of miles, but they were still very regional. The real
turn came when Natalie Mains joined the group. Same Dixie
Chicks name, but the band itself changed. Natalie brought a bigger,
more modern lead, a little punchier, a little more grit.
Suddenly the harmony snapped into a different shape. They just
(45:23):
sounded like a different band. A year after Natalie Mains
joined in 1996, Monument Records stepped in with a deal
that moved the Dixie Chicks from small town Texas to
Nashville and the stage that comes with Nashville. A label
contract provided producers and studio time and a song flow
that didn't really dry up or didn't sound the same,
(45:44):
sounded a little younger. The team around them started pairing
the band's identity of heavy acoustics, the sisters, and Natalie
Mains taking the lead and sounding very, very modern. The
goal wasn't to sand off the edge, it was to
frame it so the rest of the country could hear, well,
what they had already built with their version of the
Dixie Chicks in Texas. You can hear the plan and
(46:04):
what followed. Producers kept the arrangements very lean, so much
so that radio could understand it, but the fiddle and
the banjo stayed in the picture, and the fiddle and
the banjo were still very prominent. Natalie sang high in
the mix, so you heard her voice very distinctly, and
Marty and Emily, they supported singing the harmonies and playing
the instruments, and it really was them playing and singing.
(46:25):
It's the same toolkit you'll hear later on with wide
open spaces. If you're writing the countdown for 1996, this
moment's easy to place. It's the setup in 96 that
made the Dixie Chicks explosion possible. Without the monument contract
and people just starting to be a little more interested
in the Dixie Chicks, songs like There's Your Trouble, Wide
(46:46):
Open Spaces, You Are Mine, they would have never made
it up the charts. Heck, they'd have never had a
shot at the chart. So the headline here is not
a trophy. It's not a chart week. It's not a
number one. It's not a massive tour. It's a hinge.
1996 is when a skilled regional band became a national plan.
Same Sisters, new lead, a label that knew how to
(47:08):
frame it, and a sound that could live on radio
without losing its roots. Now, two years later, the results
are everywhere, but we'll get into that. But the year
that makes it possible, the year that sets the table,
is 1996. That's why it belongs near the top of
the list. Number one, one, one, one, one, one, one.
That's not an effect. That's my voice. Number one. In
(47:29):
country music, the top trophy almost always lands with a
solo name. One face on the poster, one voice at
the mic, one headline. Generally still the case. But in 1996,
Brooks and Dunn broke that pattern. A duo winning entertainer
of the year was an outlier because it's even listed
as entertainer of the year, not entertainers. but let's talk
(47:50):
about the way that they got there to understand it better.
When you look back at their run as a duo,
by the time 1996 came around, Kix Brooks and Ronnie
Dunn had a five-year stack of hits. I'm talking about
Brand New Man, Hard Workin' Man, Waitin' on Sundown, many,
many more. Their roles... in the duo were clear and
also perfectly complimentary. Ronnie was the guy that sang most
(48:12):
of the songs. Big voice, big lead singer. Kicks live
really drove the show's pace. He also sang some of
the songs. In 1996, the Machine kept moving when they
released their cover of the original B.W. Stevenson song, My Maria.
Maybe you didn't know that My Maria was a cover,
but it is. In their version... Brooks and Duns is
(48:32):
still a hit 30 years later. It's so big that
people don't even know sometimes that My Maria was a cover.
But when it comes to Entertainer of the Year, it
wasn't really about My Maria or one song. It was
the band's ability to operate on a different level, not
just in the shows themselves, but the industry, like the
business layer of it. Entertainer of the Year is partly logistics.
Everything they put out that year made sense without needing
(48:55):
to be pitched to the public. New track fits on
the radio perfect. New tour dates makes perfect sense where
they're going. their winning of Entertainer of the Year changed
conversations inside the Nashville machine as well. Because a duo
taking Entertainer of the Year told labels and managers that
big doesn't have to mean just one person. After 1996,
it all changed from who's the star into, hey, does
(49:17):
this work more so than just finding one person? Now,
why is this the number one of 1996? Because really,
it's the clearest you had to be their achievement of 1996.
And while Brooks and Dunn paved the way for other duos,
they remain the only ones, the only duo ever to
win CMA Entertainer of the Year. 1996 is not just
a Brooks and Dunn had a big song year. It's
the year they proved that a Everything from radio, tickets,
(49:39):
and brand. In a decade full of massive solo personalities,
the loudest statement, at least in 1996, was two voices
sharing one spotlight and making it feel like it was
just really one big complimentary voice. Now, long before they
took home Entertainer of the Year, Ronnie and Kix both
went to college. Well, separately. And they eventually realized that
(50:00):
what they studied wasn't really what they wanted to do.
Here's Ronnie Dunn talking about going to school to be
a preacher and and realizing that that wasn't for him.
Speaker 7 (50:08):
My grandfather was a big main deacon in the Emanuel
Baptist Church in Elredo, Arkansas. His big thing was, I
was the oldest of 16 grandkids. He just goes, I
want one of my grandsons' place to be a minister.
And I think that's where I picked that up. You're young,
and your impression, you're absorbed. you know, that stuff. Next
thing you know, lo and behold, I go off to Abilene,
(50:28):
Texas to study Bible and the ministry. And I learned
real quick that the second that I had to step
up and speak in front of a crowd, that that
wasn't for me.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
So you didn't even have the performance, like bug whenever
it was time to speak what you think you're going
to do with the rest of your life.
Speaker 7 (50:46):
No, you had to do it to get licensed. This
is so weird. I didn't know this. I was too
young to know this. To get licensed as a minister,
you get licensed and then you get ordained. If you're licensed,
you have to go up and preach a sermon. So
this pastor we had in South Texas, Port Isabel, had
me go up and do a sermon, which was the
biggest nightmare of my life.
Speaker 6 (51:05):
Yeah, how'd it go?
Speaker 1 (51:05):
What do you remember about it? Horrible, horrible. I remember.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
No.
Speaker 7 (51:10):
I mean, it was awful.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
You know how it is.
Speaker 7 (51:13):
You know how it is standing up as a comedian
in front of people, period, and trying to hold that crowd.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
What you have to do.
Speaker 7 (51:19):
It's the same concept, you know.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Do you remember what it was on? No.
Speaker 5 (51:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
I was random.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Now here's Kix talking with me about growing up in Louisiana,
what inspired him to pursue music as a kid and
his family's love for music.
Speaker 6 (51:34):
I went to Riverside Elementary, two blocks away over on Audubon,
where Billie Jean Horton lived. She was the last wife
of Hank Williams. They got married in Shreveport and they
got married down in Baton Rouge. I think they got
married twice and one day was kind of unheard of
at the time after Hank got divorced from Audrey. So
he died and then she married Johnny Horton. And their daughter,
Nina Horton, was my age. And we were in grade
(51:57):
schools together at Riverside. We still stay in touch. And
there are little white houses just like we had. I mean,
to think Johnny Horton and Hank Williams. I mean, this
is a little white house. You know, it's probably a
three bedroom. on just a plain old, you know, suburban
Shreveport Street, just like us. It seems so average, you know,
(52:17):
but going inside and seeing those gold records and those
guitars and portraits of Johnny Horton and over the fireplace
and all that stuff, it was real special and real cool.
And it really It really, it set something inside of
me going, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
You being able to see those, did it actually let
you know that it was possible to do that?
Speaker 6 (52:35):
That's what I mean. It seemed like something that it
wasn't just some pie in the sky, star in the sky.
It was something that people did, you know, regular people
like my dad, you know, they just live down the street, but.
They were playing music. And I mean, from the time
I can remember, our family sang as much as we talked.
You know, you get in the car, you start singing songs.
It was just a thing. And we always had bands,
(52:55):
you know, and from grade school on up.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
Who bought you your first guitar? My dad did.
Speaker 6 (53:00):
But my grandmother bought me a ukulele when I was
like six years old because my mom died when I
was like four. So I spent a lot of time
with her. She was real musical and my cousins were too.
And I remember that came from Sears and Roebuck. It
was $ 9.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
95.
Speaker 6 (53:12):
I'll never forget it. white and had red stripes on it.
Really cool. And I had a songbook and I just
learned to play chords and sing songs with that ukulele.
I learned how that worked, but I really wasn't strong
enough to play a guitar. My dad got me a
steel string guitar when I was 10 or 11.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
So there you have it, the top 10 moments in
country music from the year of 1996. Thank you for listening. Obviously,
97's coming. Make sure you follow us on socials, at
The Bobbycast. It'd be cool if you followed and if
you like stuff, you put a comment, all that engagement helps.
And we appreciate you listening. And again, coming up next, 1997.
(53:57):
Love this episode of The Bobbycast? Subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Hey, welcome back to the 90s Country Podcast. On this episode,
we're rolling back to 1996. CD towers in the living room. Man,
CD towers were awesome when you could, like, fill it up.
Weekend festivals and a country scene that was everywhere. Now,
I'm counting down the 10 moments that defined the year.
We'll keep it simple. We'll keep it honest. We'll drop
in a few pop culture moments as well that were unforgettable. So,
(00:36):
as we've done with every other year, let's get into 1996.
Number 10. We're going to start with Country Stampede. Now,
that launched in 1996. Big festival. Instantly felt like a
weekend people planned around, not just another tour stop. And
if you lived within a day's drive, you either went
or you tried to go or you knew somebody who
(00:56):
did go. It wasn't hype. It was a massive turnout. Now,
think about festivals. First-year festivals usually mean really long lines,
parking headaches. Empty seats for the early acts because the
people that paid all the money want to get up front.
They don't get there for the early acts. So they're
playing a bunch of empty white seats. Stampede had some
of that, but the takeaway was really the music. Like
this is the one that launched the real festival culture
(01:19):
that is now. I mean, you could roll in at
noon and then leave at night and have all kinds
of music. It was a lot of discovery as well.
Here in the afternoon, sing in the evening, you go
with a casual, then you become a massive fan of somebody.
And that year, at Country Stampede, the first year, it
was a mix of stars. It was Tim McGraw, Jeff Foxworthy,
(01:40):
Little Texas, Tanya Tucker, Faith Hill, Tracy Lawrence, Rick Trevino,
Ty Herndon, Lone Star, Jody Messina, and many more. It
was like a country radio poster. All the big hits,
and then, like, you might be a redneck guy. It
was a reason to go. Now, the setting did the work, too,
because outdoor stages were a little raw, a little unfiltered.
And it was a little tougher for artists that played earlier,
(02:00):
like a 2.30 p.m.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Slot.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
That's a test. And if people love you at 230,
they're probably going to love you for the rest of
your career. So it was a struggle, but it's also
where a lot of those artists we talked about started.
And you get a lot of feedback in those early slots.
They also had campgrounds. Now this is normal to us
because a lot of festivals have campgrounds. But again, this
is revolutionary for the time. Overnight, little neighborhoods formed. Tents
(02:23):
and lawn chairs and coolers. People cooking. Kind of feels
like Woodstock, you know, a bunch of years later, but
without all the free love. walk over to a stage
in the afternoon. If there's an artist you might like,
go back to your campsite. It was really a culture
changer for country music, even production-wise. You know, year one,
it had good infrastructure, which ended up being great. You know,
(02:45):
not perfect, but organized enough that people trusted coming back
with bigger rigs for their sets, and also more people
trusted it to stay. They would bring their campers. And
then also bringing in college kids and families. It was
one of the first to do and mix everybody long
time country music fans people coming to dance people coming
to party and that was the mix that made the
(03:07):
country music festival what it is today now why it
belongs in the 1996 top 10 is after that weekend
well it all changed artists had a live lab where
thousands could well road test new material fans waited all
year to go back and make it a full weekend
local businesses learned well we got to staff up because
(03:28):
we got a lot of people coming to our town
Stations built annual coverage plans, and word of mouth did
the rest, and now we have festivals practically every weekend,
all summer, multiple ones. So that's why we put that
at number 10. Number 9. The Farewell to Minnie Pearl,
March 4th, 1996. While 1996 was a great year in
(03:48):
country music, it was also the year a legend in
the industry was lost. March 4th, 1996, Minnie Pearl passed
away at the age of 83. Minnie Pearl was Sarah
Ophelia Colley, born 1912, Centerville, Tennessee. Her family, comfortable. She
had access to arts and education early. She studied theater
(04:09):
and dance at Ward Belmont in Nashville, a finishing school
that also turned out some very serious performers like she
was in. The important part was she was formally trained.
Voice and movement and timing. She worked on that craft
long before she ever got to the Opry stage. Right
out of school, she took a job with the Wayne P.
Sewell Producing Company, which sent young producers across the South
(04:31):
to stage community shows. I think gems in courthouse rooms,
school auditoriums. And so she was performing and she wasn't
just telling jokes, though. She was organizing casts. I mean,
she was a producer. She was coaching lines. She was
fixing queues. She was learning what different rooms laugh at
because she was in different rooms. On those trips, she
met a thousand versions of small town characters since she
(04:54):
basically was in small towns all day, every day. And
she started to take notes and stitch the details together.
And that's where the character, Minnie Pearl, came from. You know,
Minnie Pearl with the cadence, the gentle bragging, the I
know everybody in town rhythm. The famous tag still on
the hat was a clean visual gag. But the core
(05:15):
of the character was observation and timing, and she did
a lot of that. She debuted on the Grand Ole
Opry stage in 1940. It wasn't luck. She showed up
with a tight entrance line, a short story, and a
clean exit.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Boom.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Tight set. She watched the clock. She also understood the
Opry rulebook. Make the audience feel welcome. Hit them with
one or two good jokes, get a good laugh, and
set up the next artist to win. I mean, that's
why management trusted her for decades. She wasn't there to
hog the night or to be the star. She was
there to make the night better. When you talk about
(05:52):
Hee Haw, Hee Haw launched in 1969. Minnie Pearl didn't
overhaul the act. I mean, she basically compressed it. TV
needs quicker beats. She already had them. She became a
national reference point for what country funny meant. And she
also didn't step on the music. Millions who had never
been to Nashville now recognized her rhythm. Clean setup, a turn,
(06:13):
and a smile that let the audience in on the bit.
In 1947, she married Henry Cannon, a pilot and businessman
who later ran a charter service and helped manage her schedule.
So she could work the road hard without getting trapped
by it and all the details. I mean, people backstage
talk about her like a steady colleague who knew everybody's names,
(06:34):
who calmed everybody's nerves, and could give one sentence of
feedback that would actually help a young performer. She was
diagnosed with breast cancer in the 1980s. She spoke about
it publicly way before that was common to do. And
she used her platform for screenings and support in the South. Later,
HCA and Tennessee Oncology named a research network after her
given name, the Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute. If you're in
(06:58):
the Nashville airport, sometimes you'll see a big sign that
says Sarah Cannon and the Sarah Cannon Institute. That's her.
That's Minnie Pearl. Separately, a nonprofit support group launched as
the Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation. Now it's called Pearl Point.
In other words, her name just isn't in the Hall
of Fame. It's actually on doors where people get help.
(07:18):
A major stroke in the early 90s ended her regular
appearances at the Opry. She died March 4th, 1996 in Nashville.
By then, she'd been an Opry mainstay for more than
a half a century, and she was inducted into the
Country Music Hall of Fame in 1975. Take away the catchphrase,
and you're left with technique, theater training, Ruthless Economy, meaning
(07:41):
short bits, clean exits, and a character based on real
people that she met on the road. The jokes travel
because they're about behavior, not trends. And the role she
played on the Opry, keeper of the pace, keeper of
the mood, came from respect for that show as a
living thing, not as a backdrop. She bridged tent show
stagecraft and radio and network television and modern arena pacing
(08:06):
without really changing anything about herself or her core values.
She welcomed the crowd. She read the room. She protected
the music. That's the through line from a depression area
theater kid to a 90s icon whose name now still
sits on cancer centers. If you host anything today, a
segment at the Opry, a radio hour, a podcast, you're
(08:28):
probably borrowing from a toolkit that she built way back
on gym floors across the South long before anyone saw
the price tag hanging off the hat. Number eight. Martina
McBride has Wild Angels. It goes number one, March 2nd, 1996.
Let's put Wild Angels in context instead of treating it
like it just fell out of the sky. Martina, before 1996,
(08:50):
grows up in Kansas, moves to Nashville with John McBride,
who's running sound. Does the grind, the merch tables, the
opening slots, any mic available, that thing. And the first record,
The Time Has Come in 1992 introduced her voice, but
didn't exactly knock the door down. But The Way That
I Am, released in 1993, did that and more. My
(09:12):
Baby Loves Me is everywhere. Life No. 9 keeps it moving.
And Independence Day becomes the song everybody talks about, even
if the chart peak, because it wasn't a No. 1,
doesn't match the impact. By 1995, she's got Wild Angels,
the album, out. And the title track is quietly doing
its work. Stations are testing it. Crowds hear it live.
(09:35):
Word spreads that this one is it. Now, the moment
in 1996, March 2nd, as I mentioned, Wild Angels hits
number one. Now, it's not a reinvention. It's more of
a confirmation. The track breathes. Like, there's air. There's a
chorus that opens up. What changes, though, is everybody else's behavior.
More than her music completely changing, it's how people are
(09:57):
reacting to her music. Writers start moving their best ideas.
her way because they know that that vocal, her vocal,
will carry it. Producers frame the voice instead of just
piling on instruments. In the set, the song becomes the
one people are waiting for, the steady hand. Drop It
Late in the room focuses on without the front person
(10:17):
having to really explain anything. Just play the freaking song.
People love it. Now, why it matters is, well, because
it's the first number one for an artist. It doesn't
create the work. It focuses the work. For Martina, it
settles the, hey, can we trust her as an anchor?
Because remember, the other song didn't go number one, even
though it was massive, because program directors were all weird
about it. But when you have a song that goes
number one, labels can then plan things around you, invest
(10:40):
money in you. Labels can plan release timing with more confidence.
Booker's who pay for artists to come, can assume that
you're going to show up and people are going to
pay and they're not going to lose money. Fans who
liked a couple of singles start following the artist, not
just a couple of songs they love. And because the
song isn't tied to a fad, it ages well. There
are absolutely country fundamentals in this song. Clear lyrics, steady tempo,
(11:02):
vocal on top. It's done clean and it still lasts.
And what it sets up is, well, a lot. A
broken wing in 1997, wrong again in 1999. They kill,
they go to the top. The big voice, clean arrangement
lane becomes hers because she does have that big, strong,
real voice. By the end of the decade, she's collecting
(11:23):
the trophies. Female vocalist trophies, left and right. She's headlining
spaces that used to be, I don't know. None of
that happens without the 1996 moment where the chart finally
gave her a number one and matched what, well, a
lot of people already knew. Wild Angels isn't the start
of Martina. It's the point where the industry stops acting surprised.
(11:44):
or stops wondering if she really can do it. From
March 96 forward, she's not just a great singer that
maybe she'll make it, but she's the one they know
is making it. I was talking to Martina, and I
asked her if she always wanted to be a country
music artist growing up. This is what she said.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
No, I always dreamed of making records and doing, you know,
doing the big thing, but I couldn't at that point
in my life, 18, 19, 20, really settle on country music.
I was kind of like singing all kinds of music.
So I was singing with this cover band. I was
singing everything from Aretha Franklin, to Whitney Houston to Madonna,
you know, just whatever was on the radio at the time,
(12:20):
plus some classics like that.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
And I loved that too.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
So I was like, I don't know if I'm really
ready to go and do country music full time. And
I had an aha moment. I had to quit singing
for a while because I was like waiting tables and
singing in clubs five nights a week. And I started
to get like some vocal fatigue and they did a
scope and said, you know, you don't have nodules, but
it's not looking good. You should probably take some time
off from singing.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
So I did.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
And in the meantime, I So I started singing harmony
vocals in this country band, these two brothers called the
Fowler Brothers. I'd go and sit in and sing harmony.
And then I started singing with my dad's band a
little bit again. And we did a battle of the bands,
which is so weird. We never did that the entire
time I was growing up.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Who's with your dad?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Me and my dad in that band.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
And it was at a club and it was in
Wichita and we did this battle of the bands.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
And something clicked for me.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
One of the DJs that was judging the contest actually
said to me, I don't know what you're going to
do with your singing because I know you sing a
lot of other stuff, but I hope you decide to
sing country music because that would be really great. That
comment coupled with the experience of singing that music again
and realizing how important the lyrics were, how important the
singer is, it just felt like home to me. I
(13:27):
said to my mom, she was there. She ran the
soundboard actually for the band. And I said, I think
I've made a decision. I'm going to move to Nashville
and pursue a career in country music. I didn't tell
my husband. Maybe I kind of did. I think I said,
I want to move to Nashville. And he had a
local sound company. And he was like, all right, let's go.
But we really didn't know anybody. Talk about naive. I
(13:48):
knew I had to find songs. So I'd go to
these publishing companies and walk up and down Music Row
and knock on the door and say, I'm a singer
and I want to get a record deal. Can you
play me some songs that I can record for demos?
And they're like, um, sure.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Come on in. It was so odd that they were
probably slightly welcoming, but confused. Yeah. Like, this is really
not how it works, but okay.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
You know, right?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Okay. Bonus event from 1996. It's weird to say bonus
because it was tragic, but Tupac shot and killed September 7th, 1996. Culturally,
he was everywhere, even if hip hop wasn't your thing.
you at least knew the face and you knew some
of the songs. But if we go back to September 7th, 1996,
we go to Las Vegas, the Mike Tyson fight. The
strip is packed. This is the biggest sporting event of
(14:31):
the year other than the Super Bowl. And any of
the Tyson fights at the time were massive. So the
fight happens and everybody's heading to whatever party is next.
Tupac is riding with Suge Knight. They pull up to
a light and shots are fired, sirens, hospital. And it
wasn't social media. So you really didn't know what was
happening as it was happening. Like the news would report
(14:51):
it a little bit, but it was also a rapper.
And a lot of times music news didn't always make
the real news. So you kind of just heard a
little here and there. And it was mostly what you
could hear and how long you'd have to wait. And
people waited forever. It was six days. And every channel
basically had the same updates. And it was, he's in
critical condition. We'll go to the next story. Or there
(15:11):
was a surgery. No big change. You call everybody and
be like, have you heard anything? No, have you heard anything? Again,
if it didn't come out in a magazine or if
you didn't see it on the news... You didn't know
anything about it. So people just waited. And then the
news lands. September 7th, Tupac dies. 25 years old. And
you didn't need to know every song for that to
affect you. Because again, Tupac was a cultural icon. So
(15:34):
when I think back to 1996, where I was a teenager,
I can remember it pretty vividly when they said that
Tupac had died. And so it was a fight. It
was a red light. It was a hospital. It was
a week of waiting. And it was a headline that
pretty much everybody heard around the same time. And 30
years later, Tupac's legacy and his impact is still felt today.
(15:54):
Hang tight. The Bobbycast will be right back. Number seven.
Shania Twain, The Woman in Me and the ACMs, April 1996.
We'll skip the mythology and let's just do a little
(16:14):
timeline here. Because again, with Shania, before 96, we can
talk about 1993. That debut introduces the name Shania. And
you know what? It's kind of, it's a different name.
You hear the name Shania, you're like, I wonder what
that's all about. And that's what 93 did. Then she
links up with Mutt Lang. The Woman in Me hits
in early 95 and the singles arrive in waves. Songs
(16:38):
like Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under, Any Man
of Mine, The Woman in Me, If you're not in
it for love, I'm out of here. All these songs
that we know. You didn't need a chart to know
what was happening. You just needed to be somewhere where
a radio was or a TV was. Cars, kitchens, office radios.
You could just tell. I was talking with Shania and
I asked her what she thinks about when she hears
(16:58):
her song Any Man of Mine these days. I think
of line dancing. You know, this is the one format
where in some places you go and people will still
dance to live music. Like actual dance to music. This
is like the rock kick. You know, that's what it is.
It's like, you know, kick and rock and boots or something.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Sometimes it's easy to forget just how big line dancing
was in the 90s, but hearing that Shania clip is
such a good reminder of how much it shaped country
music back then and how that influence still sticks around today. Now,
getting back to the spring of 1996, ACM Night didn't
change everything for Shania, but it did change how people
talked about her. After the trophies... The meetings got specific and, hey,
(17:42):
are we sure this is country? Because it was country.
The people had spoken. Budget started shifting toward, you know,
her type of music because it was clean. The tracks
were clean. The choruses were earlier, which was a little
unheard of at country music. Sometimes you just start with
a chorus. Radio stopped hedging and like going, maybe, maybe
(18:03):
we'll just play her late at night. Maybe we won't
play her early in the day. And they just started
to put her everywhere. And they put her in the
morning drive and they put her in afternoon. In short,
the debate moved from, what do we do with her?
Let's be safe with her to let's just make her
the main thing. Cause she had earned it. Obviously the
songs earned it. And then when she wins the awards
at the ACMs, I mean, that's what did it. She crushes,
(18:25):
she wins album of the year. Obviously it was the
album of the year and top new female vocalist. I mean,
she probably should have won more than that, but that's
not a bad night. The ACMs, April 1996, allowed people
to start going, I don't know, it's risky too. Man,
it's risky not to. And then that was so strong
(18:46):
for her that it cleared the lane for Come On
Over the next year. And then nobody guessed about anything
with Come On Over. And then radio was like, yeah,
give it to us. That's another thing. The awards didn't
create demand. They actually removed the friction. Even though she
had the success, the awards within the industry that she
won remove people in the industry from saying, I don't know.
(19:07):
The model was simple, strong song, clear arrangement, clean mix,
and then no apologies. This is what she is. Country
didn't change its core. It made it easier to program
and stage and sell to more people. Shania opened up
doors for everybody because Shania had all the elements. She
was country, but people that weren't country were coming in
to check it out and hopefully checking out other things
as well. That's what Shania did. Well, that's what she
(19:30):
was already doing. It just took that night at the
ACM's to make some of the gatekeepers realize it and
not stop her from doing it. Number six, number six,
number six. Lone Star lands their first number one with
No News. When the song No News hit number one
in early 96, Lone Star stopped being that new band
(19:52):
that was such a fun story and started being a
real factor. That first hit kind of changes the temperature
in every room, as far as even in rooms in Nashville.
But when the radio starts playing, you get bigger meetings,
you get label calls, you get festivals happening. saying, hey, play,
or here's more money. Even the vibe around the band,
everywhere you go, you just celebrate it. I mean, you
(20:14):
go from basically explaining yourself and what you're going to
do to planning the next move. And why this record
worked with Lone Star is simple. The idea is clean.
The lines are tight. The groove sits right where radio lives.
You can put it anywhere in the hour and it
lifts the mood. You know, in radio, there's a weird
thing where they want to schedule songs that No two
(20:35):
slow songs back-to-back. You don't want to do three songs
that do this back-to-back. Well, the great thing about this song,
No News, was it kind of worked everywhere. It wasn't
trying to be overly clever. It was just a fun,
good song. And the song also says something about what
90s country did, and did well. It mixed hard, it
mixed humor, and it really wasn't a gimmick. I mean,
(20:57):
No News is witty, but it's not like, hey, get
the joke, wink at you kind of stuff. You can
laugh at the premise... but also still feel like you're
listening to a real song. And that balance keeps casual
listeners from bailing out because it's so corny. And then
also keeps hardcore listeners from, well, bailing out because it's
so corny. It's why programmers could play it at 9am
(21:18):
or 2pm or 530 and it still works. Momentum shows
up fast after a first number one as well. I mean,
the festival holds get better later slots, more money, you know,
then you get headlining spots and markets where you kind
of couldn't sell tickets. And when you get a number one,
those markets, those cities, they kind of sell. The next
single then is welcomed. You just had a number one.
(21:41):
So you're going to put out another song where everybody's
anxious to hear it. You kind of get the benefit
of the doubt, which you never got before. Radio program
directors trust you and trust is everything because once you
have it, the, Hey, can we get our song added?
Conversations become a lot shorter. There's a personal memory thread too,
because fans attach, to a band's first hit, to their
(22:02):
own timeline, like where they were or what they were
doing or what they had. It could be a job,
a truck, a summer, a friend group. I know I
do that with a lot of music. Like I can
hear a song from back in the day and know
exactly where I was in my life. And I do
that with people like Tracy Lawrence or Garth Brooks, even
Faith Hill from way back in the day. But that's
how songs become anchors. Years later, if you mention No News,
(22:24):
someone could tell you a story about that is so
oddly personal and so specific, you'd be like, that's crazy,
but I understand. I mean, that's catalog glue for an artist.
It's what keeps people showing up when you're on your
third album and you're touring through heat and dust. As
far as songwriting goes, you know, this was the kind
of song that you only write after you've written so, so,
(22:45):
so many songs. Because the song was written pretty perfectly
as far as how much space to leave before the hook.
Let's talk about harmonies. When we sing this live, how
is this going to be sang live? Like there was
obviously a lot of work with Lone Star, even within
each other before this song hit. Those small decisions from
that song all rolled forward into the singles, into the tours.
(23:07):
And the next thing you know, they're monsters, right? Everybody
knows Lone Star. Context matters too about this song, 1996.
It was a very crowded year because you had a
bunch of people like giants and country music dropping albums.
You also had a lot of rookies catching fire and,
which meant there wasn't a lot of room on playlists
of radio. And that was really the only way you
were getting music then, or at least learning about new music.
(23:29):
Lone Star moved from, I don't know, maybe to Dependable.
And that's a big swing in that environment because Dependable
sells Saturdays. That's how you get people to come to
a show because they know you're going to be good.
You're going to play songs they like. Dependable lets you
then take smarter risks on the follow-up or the follow-up
to the follow-up without totally losing the room. One song
(23:51):
does not promise a long run, but it does give
you the leverage to have a shot at it. And
no news, that song, go back and listen to it,
handed them that leverage right when they needed it. I
once asked Richie McDonald how he ended up as Lone
Star's lead singer. Here's that story.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Dean was working at Opryland and I had moved from
Texas to Tennessee and I had tried out for Opryland
a year before. We met briefly in Texas. Anyway, I
saw him out at Opryland one day and he goes, man,
he goes, I'm thinking about putting a band together. So
long story short, he kind of ran the, you know,
his time at Opryland and he was ready to do
something else. So he was actually really responsible for putting
(24:30):
Lone Star together and John Rich was out there. We
had two lead singers at the time. You know, John
and I were sharing responsibilities. We were kind of like
a Brooks and Dunn, but a group. But the label
kind of wanted us to go, you know, have a direction.
And they wanted me to have the responsibilities of lead vocal.
So John was, you know, we shared that responsibility at
one point. And then I kind of took it over
(24:50):
and he went on to own half of Nashville.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Let's take a quick pause from the countdown. If you're
building a 1996 highlight reel, Tom Cruise gets his own slot.
He bookends the year, summer with Mission Impossible, winter with
Jerry Maguire. Two totally different lanes, both massive movies. One
launched a franchise, Mission Impossible, heck, they're still making them.
And one, well, that movie's still being quoted all the
time years later. We'll start with Mission Impossible, the summer
(25:15):
of 1996. That wire drop scene in Mission Impossible where
he's in the roof and he falls and the wire
holds him up right before he hits the floor, that's
been everywhere. That theme song, everywhere. It made $ 180 million
in the United States, almost half a billion worldwide. And
in 1996, half a billion was way more than half
a billion now. For a non-superhero revival in the mid-90s,
(25:39):
it was a monster. And it also cemented, I guess
he needed cemented, Tom Cruise as a franchise lead. There
have been seven movies since, the latest being in 2025. Now,
if we move to winter and we talk about Jerry Maguire,
you have to go show me the money or help
me help you or you complete me. It made $ 150
million in America and $ 270 million plus worldwide. Heck, he
(26:04):
almost made a billion dollars that year in movies. That's
a big number for a character first film, which is
what Jerry Maguire was. It became the word of mouth
holiday pick. And it was also good for date nights,
family nights, repeat viewings. Guys liked it because it was sports.
Women liked it because it was romantic. But it was
the year that everybody liked Tom Cruise. Between June and December,
Tom Cruise owned the movies. He owned two different corners
(26:26):
of the culture. The summer stunt image that everybody copied
and the winter catchphrases that everybody quoted. And the net
effect was, well, he was the biggest celebrity in the
whole world. And now, back to the countdown. Number five.
Tim McGraw and Faith Elmery. October 6th, 1996. Here's the
short version. People already liked him. People already liked Faith. Then,
(26:47):
on October 6th, 1996, they got married. It was a
quick headline. But from that day on, you didn't need
a backstory when you heard them. Solo or together, it
just kind of made sense. And a key thing to
remember when talking about their marriage is that a lot
of celebrities will date for PR stunts to gain more
fame or followers or record spins. But with Tim and Faith,
that wasn't the case. Tim's thing was always an easy,
(27:11):
lived-in delivery. Faith's was a clear, steady lead. By 1996,
both were solid on their own. The marriage didn't change
who they were. It just gave listeners a new lens
with how to consume their music. They married in Rayville, Louisiana.
No TV special, no countdown, no TikTok clips. After that,
radio didn't have to explain a pairing. You could just
(27:32):
say the names, hit play, and let the music explain it.
They never felt like a gimmick because the voices also
just matched. But something that doesn't often get talked about
enough is what the marriage didn't do. It didn't force
a rebrand, and it didn't push either artist into a
lane that didn't make a lot of sense. Their solo
records kept the same tone and individuality. The collaboration appeared
(27:54):
where it belonged. It wasn't forced. With select duets during
moments in their shows, and occasionally doing joint interviews. The
takeaway for Country was simple. Couples have always been part
of the story, but not every duo works together. Today
on social media or on radio or in big rooms,
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill showed a workable approach. They
protected their solo careers. They picked shared songs with care.
(28:18):
They were really precious about it. And they let the
blend of all that do the talking. It's number five
because it changed how people heard their music. After October 6th,
you didn't need context to hear them solo or together.
The duets that followed felt like a natural step for
a lot of fans. 90s country love song basically meant
Tim and Faith. I played a game with them. It
was a relationship knowledge test. Tim and Faith were in studio.
(28:41):
Here's that. Question one. Write your answer down. Where did
you first meet? As specific as possible. Tim and Faith.
Where did you meet? They have their pens. They're writing
it in. Tim is in.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I'm in.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
I'm in.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Faith is in. All right, Tim, what do you have there?
A radio seminar. A radio seminar. Yeah, the radio convention thing. Oh, CRS. CRS, yeah. Faith,
what do you have?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
CRS.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
CRS, okay. That was softball.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
What year?
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Oh, gosh.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
93?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
No, no, no. It was probably 94.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
How does that work? Oh, she wrote the year. 93, 94.
How does that work, then? Who comes up to who?
You're both artists. One of you thinks another one's pretty. Like,
what happened? Yeah, she thought I was pretty.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
It was the New Faces show, and we were both
doing the New Faces show. And Clay Walker was there,
who's still a good friend.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Great guy. And we were backstage.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
And we did like this big group picture. And I
was dating somebody at the time and I met Faith.
And when I left, the person I was dating says,
I don't know if I want you to say hi
to her anymore.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Oh, she saw it immediately. Yeah. And so how do
you ask Faith out the first time? How did I
ask her out the first time? How do you ask
her out?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Well, it took a bunch of times, actually.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Do you remember that? Well, of course I remember that.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
But do you remember how you asked me out the
first time? Like, legit asked me out?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
No, you tell.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
Of course you remember.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, but I want you to tell. I think I do.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
Uh-huh. This would go all set up. You brought me
chicken and dumplings. You came to my house. You didn't
announce that you were coming.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
But that was good. That was fine.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
Knocked on my door, opened my door, and he had
a bowl of homemade chicken and dumplings.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
And he said, I— And cornbread.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (30:33):
He said, I made these myself. They're homemade from scratch.
He had the bowl covered in aluminum foil, and he
had a spoon and a fork on top of the bowl.
He says, I didn't know if you like to eat
your dumplings with a spoon or a fork.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Oh, dude. That's money, dude.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Hey, look, you make up for your inadequacy.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
That was like, bam. Okay, here we go. Number two,
where was your first date? Oh, boy. Your first date.
Tim and Faith in studio writing their answers down. Didn't
we have a first date?
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Well, I got.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
The first time you went out somewhere together, your first date.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
Oh, Lord.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
It's not exactly that. That means Tim doesn't really know. No,
I know.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
I'm just putting, like, moment down there.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
All right. I've got mine. First date. Faith is struggling here.
I am. I wouldn't call it a date, but it's
the first date. If you have no answer, you have
no answer.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I have an answer.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
I have an answer, but it's top secret.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Okay. It's a top secret first date.
Speaker 5 (31:39):
I plead the fifth.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
What do you have, Tim? Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Okay. That's it. Okay. Fair enough. I'm going to ask you.
I'll ask you one more. What's Faith's biggest pet peeve?
Write it down. No, write it down.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
Period.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
What's Faith's biggest pet peeve? Write it down. What's Faith's
biggest pet peeve?
Speaker 7 (31:59):
Period.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Oh, boy.
Speaker 6 (32:00):
That could be many things.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
You can't miss this one, Faith. He can. This is
on him. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
And my turn?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Cleanliness. What do you have?
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Oh, I'm supposed to write that, too?
Speaker 1 (32:11):
You can say whatever you want. Yeah, what is yours?
Speaker 5 (32:13):
Yeah, cleanliness. Oh, sorry, sorry. Yeah, cleanliness. She's a neat
freak when.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
It comes to cleaning.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I am.
Speaker 5 (32:23):
I hate clutter.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
She'll clean the house for six hours at a time.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
You clean your own house? Well, no.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
Yes, I do, but we have a lot of help.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I mean, we don't have a butler and stuff like that.
Somebody else can clean everything. We need a butler.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
We do.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
No, we have great. How about Mr. French? Remember Mr. French?
Speaker 5 (32:45):
No, I do.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I love to clean. I love to clean. I know Mr.
Speaker 7 (32:50):
Belvedere.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
That's as early as I go. Hang tight. The Bobbycast
will be right back. Number four. Dina Carter, born January 1966,
the daughter of renowned session guitarist and songwriter Fred Carter Jr.
(33:14):
Growing up around working players and studio days shaped how
she looked at the job. Song first. Show up prepared.
30 years later, Dina would put out her first major hit,
Strawberry Wine. That's 30 years from the day she was born.
And Dina Carter's name would be known well in country
music for a long time to come. But before that
moment with Strawberry Wine, she took a different route. She
(33:37):
went to the University of Tennessee, she studied rehab therapy,
and she worked with patients, an interest sparked by her grandmother.
Music never really left, but the degree that she had
taught habits that later mattered. Listen closely, don't rush, keep
it honest. After she graduated, Dina came back to Nashville
and started the slow climb. Cutting demos, playing writer's rounds,
(33:57):
working in small rooms where you earn attention one song
at a time. She knew how sessions ran and what
a clean chart looks like when you're in a session.
But things changed for her real quick. A work tape
reached Willie Nelson, who invited her to Farm Aid in 1994.
By the way, she was the only female solo performer
that year. That same tape kept circulating, and within months,
(34:19):
she signed with Capitol Records. Her debut album, Did I
Shave My Legs for This? Man, it was massive. It
was awesome. It reflected who she was. Straightforward, a little dry,
grown without extra gloss. When Strawberry Wine came around, some
thought it was too slow for an artist's debut song. Oh,
we only like fast songs. Oh, we only like upbeats. Yeah,
(34:41):
as you know, that really didn't matter. The song was
too good. Dina heard a real place in a specific
summer and then recorded it simply, just letting the story lead.
It lined up with everything she'd learned. Don't crowd the vocal.
Give the lyric room. Trust the listener. 1996 did the rest.
Strawberry Wine hit number one on Billboard's Hot Country Songs
and won CMA Song of the Year. In that same stretch,
(35:02):
she was nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year, Album
of the Year, Music Video of the Year, the Horizon Award,
which now is Best New Artist. But she had arrived.
The album climbed number two on the Top Country Album chart.
The headlines mattered, but the bigger shift was practical. She
got better co-writes. She got real studio time. And she
got a touring plan that didn't rely on tricks to
(35:24):
hold a room. So when you think about 1996, Dina
Carter and Strawberry Wine... Remember that the road to it
all started three decades earlier. A Nashville upbringing, years of
steady work, a cosigner that believed in her, and finally,
the right song at the right time. Even today, this
song is still everywhere. I asked Dina if she ever
(35:46):
hears it. And then she just wants everybody to know
that that's her song. This is what she said.
Speaker 8 (35:50):
I posted something on socials a couple of years ago
because we were driving down Broadway, which is rare. We're
just on this side road over by the Palm at
a red light. And I heard this girl upstairs in
the open air sports bar up there singing it. And
I'm like, stop the car. And I get out of
the car and I run up there and I'm standing there.
(36:12):
Watching her, she freaks out. And I went up and
hugged her. And it was just like a super moment
for both of us. That was really cool on Broadway
to hear someone covering it upstairs.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
That's pretty cool that you heard it.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
Very cool.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
But cool for her, too, that you happened to be
driving by and then you ran up the stairs to
kind of acknowledge her.
Speaker 7 (36:29):
So crazy.
Speaker 8 (36:30):
And the thing that I am just in love with
right now is TikTok and being able to do duets
and thumbs up people and seeing all the love.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
I bet there's a lot of TikTok people singing Strawberry Wine, huh?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
It's millions.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Millions.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Like, I'm going, there's where all my people are. Number three.
Leigh-Anne Rimes, The Road to Blue. Leigh-Anne Rimes was born
in Mississippi but grew up in Texas. She gravitated to
microphones early. She did talent shows and pageants and national anthems. Really,
any gig that would have her. By grade school, she
had banked more stage reps than most adults. And the
(37:05):
voice people heard in 1996 was not a stunt. It
was a skill set that she'd been building for years.
Before the major label moment, there were small records and
local radio stops. It was that kind of groundwork, even
when she was so young, that would get her noticed eventually.
And legendary songwriter Bill Mack took notice of her. He
had a song, Blue, that needed the right singer. Somebody
(37:26):
who could carry a classic song without turning it into
nostalgia theater. For Leanne, at the age of 12, which
is crazy, Curb Records came calling, and a year later,
In 1996, her debut album, Blue, arrived. The title track
introduced her. The rest of the record kept the promise.
What listeners heard was a teenager who was moving from
(37:48):
a regional talent now to a national act. Signing that
early reshaped her career overnight. Leigh-Anne began booking national TV shows.
She got award show invites. She recorded in bigger studios.
Better songs started coming in. The challenge was growth under
a spotlight. The team around her had to pace touring
and recording so her voice could stay healthy. And again,
she's still barely a teenager. Inside Nashville, the impact of
(38:11):
that curb deal was broader than just one artist. After 1996,
more young vocalists were given room to sing clean, spacious
songs without being packaged as group acts. She kind of
paved that road for a lot of young singers after this.
And to most listeners, it felt like an overnight arrival.
That single was massive. It stuck. The album traveled. But
(38:33):
her on stage is what sealed the deal because she
could actually sing even though she was a kid. You know,
when that happens and you can't sing and you can't perform,
fans stick around for the next release, which they did
for years to come, which they're still doing now. So
when you think about 1996, Leigh-Anne Rimes and Blue put
the contract at the center of the story. A major
(38:53):
label took an early public bet. A young singer met
the moment and together they showed that traditional doesn't have
to mean old. It didn't in her case. Again, she
was barely a teenager. That song introduced her. It was massive.
That album showed she could stay. And the hard part
from there was growing up without losing that thing that
made everyone listen in the first place. Okay, let's do
my 1996 non-country. So when I think of 1996, I
(39:17):
think about Atlanta and the Olympics. And it was cool
that the Olympics were in America. About to do that again.
But 1996, the Olympics were in Atlanta. And there was
a guy named Richard jewel and the whole story was
he saw a backpack that looked like i shouldn't be
there and so it was under a bench in the
centennial olympic park so he calls the cops like he
calls authorities and so he then starts to clear people
(39:40):
out of the area minutes later that backpack he thought
was possibly something up to no good was up to
no good it exploded Two people died, more than a
hundred people were injured. And so they started blaming him
at first. And it was weird because it was all
over the news. Investigators started to be interested in Richard
(40:01):
Jewell because of a theory that they called hero bomber.
The idea was that a lonely, frustrated person might plant
a bomb and then, oh my God, discover it in
order to become famous and receive praise. And Richard Jewell
was a former police officer. And he was a security
guard who desperately wanted a law enforcement career. So some
(40:23):
investigators said that what he was doing and what he
did exactly fit that profile. The problem was they were
basing all this just on a profile. They did not
have the evidence. And so again, it started to get
on the news with his name. He became famous for
being the person they were accusing of bombing the park
because there was a leak inside the investigation. So within
(40:47):
days of this, News organizations flashed in his face were
saying the FBI considers Richard Jewell their prime suspect. It exploded.
I remember it. Cameras were camped outside of his house.
Reporters were following him everywhere. So we're being fed this.
And there were like four channels at the time. So
(41:07):
of course, everybody assumed he was guilty. And this all
happened before social media. He was never charged. Not one time.
The FBI searched his home. They interviewed everyone around him.
They surveilled him constantly. They spent months investigating him, but
they never found evidence linking him to the bombing. Eventually,
the government said, hey, you're no longer a target of
(41:28):
the investigation. And later on, the attorney general was Janet Reno.
She expressed regret and then apologized to Richard Jewell, the
guy who was a security guard that saved so many lives.
that all of a sudden was the bad guy. Imagine
you're him. Oh my God. Literally, he was saving people's lives.
(41:55):
What he was doing, it reduced the death toll. He
was a national hero, but Richard Jewell didn't get to
feel that. There's a movie about it as well. And
that movie starts off a little dopey, but it ends
up being really good. It still makes me mad thinking
(42:15):
about it. Later, they did identify Eric Rudolph as the
real bomber. He was an anti-abortion extremist. He was a
domestic terrorist. He wasn't just responsible for the Olympic Park bombing.
He also carried out bombings at abortion clinics and at
a lesbian nightclub. After years on the run, they caught
him in 2003, according to the story that I read.
He pled guilty. So, that story sucks. That story sucks.
(42:43):
For about.
Three months, America thought Richard Jewell was a bad guy
that killed people. I mean, that is an example of
like one of the first that were canceling somebody sort
of before canceling was a thing because he was all
over magazine covers and I don't know, it sucks. That's all.
(43:04):
That's the first thing that comes to mind whenever I
think about my 1996 is the Olympics and the Atlanta
Olympic Park bombing. But I don't just want to do
that because that story really pisses me off. I'll give
you a couple other good things that I remember from 1996.
It was the premiere season of Everybody Loves Raymond, and
(43:25):
it wasn't even that I super got into Raymond in 1996,
but because it started in 1996, it ended up going
a long time, and I ended up really loving Everybody
Loves Raymond. And then later played golf with Ray Romano,
which I thought was pretty cool. He was super funny,
super nice. But I love that show. It was wildly successful.
And overall, my podcast, The Bobbycast, I actually did an
(43:50):
episode with a guy who created the series. And it's
mostly about him and Ray's life kind of mixed together.
So yeah, that's a good one. And then also Tickle
Me Elmo. And you might know what that is now.
But it was like whenever you see people fighting for
like Pokemon cards right now. Or flat screen TVs on
Black Friday. That's what Tickle Me Elmo was all about.
(44:12):
People were buying them like crazy. And it wasn't even
that you could resell them so fast on the internet.
I mean, it was 1996. That really wasn't a thing.
But everybody wanted a Tickle Me Elmo. News stories were
basically Richard Jewell and Tickle Me Elmo. Man, the Richard
Jewell thing still fires me up. That sucked for that dude.
But that is my non-country story. 1996. Number two. The
(44:39):
Dixie Chicks, the 1996 hinge before Wide Open Spaces. The
group that would dominate the late 90s started as a
very different act. In the early 90s, the Dixie Chicks
were a Texas group, and they did a lot of busking,
a lot of bluegrass, a lot of regional gigs... Sisters
Marty and Emily on the fiddle, banjo and mandolin. They
had the tight harmonies and it was a Roots first
(45:02):
set list. They had good crowds, good merch, a lot
of miles, but they were still very regional. The real
turn came when Natalie Mains joined the group. Same Dixie
Chicks name, but the band itself changed. Natalie brought a bigger,
more modern lead, a little punchier, a little more grit.
Suddenly the harmony snapped into a different shape. They just
(45:23):
sounded like a different band. A year after Natalie Mains
joined in 1996, Monument Records stepped in with a deal
that moved the Dixie Chicks from small town Texas to
Nashville and the stage that comes with Nashville. A label
contract provided producers and studio time and a song flow
that didn't really dry up or didn't sound the same,
(45:44):
sounded a little younger. The team around them started pairing
the band's identity of heavy acoustics, the sisters, and Natalie
Mains taking the lead and sounding very, very modern. The
goal wasn't to sand off the edge, it was to
frame it so the rest of the country could hear, well,
what they had already built with their version of the
Dixie Chicks in Texas. You can hear the plan and
(46:04):
what followed. Producers kept the arrangements very lean, so much
so that radio could understand it, but the fiddle and
the banjo stayed in the picture, and the fiddle and
the banjo were still very prominent. Natalie sang high in
the mix, so you heard her voice very distinctly, and
Marty and Emily, they supported singing the harmonies and playing
the instruments, and it really was them playing and singing.
(46:25):
It's the same toolkit you'll hear later on with wide
open spaces. If you're writing the countdown for 1996, this
moment's easy to place. It's the setup in 96 that
made the Dixie Chicks explosion possible. Without the monument contract
and people just starting to be a little more interested
in the Dixie Chicks, songs like There's Your Trouble, Wide
(46:46):
Open Spaces, You Are Mine, they would have never made
it up the charts. Heck, they'd have never had a
shot at the chart. So the headline here is not
a trophy. It's not a chart week. It's not a
number one. It's not a massive tour. It's a hinge.
1996 is when a skilled regional band became a national plan.
Same Sisters, new lead, a label that knew how to
(47:08):
frame it, and a sound that could live on radio
without losing its roots. Now, two years later, the results
are everywhere, but we'll get into that. But the year
that makes it possible, the year that sets the table,
is 1996. That's why it belongs near the top of
the list. Number one, one, one, one, one, one, one.
That's not an effect. That's my voice. Number one. In
(47:29):
country music, the top trophy almost always lands with a
solo name. One face on the poster, one voice at
the mic, one headline. Generally still the case. But in 1996,
Brooks and Dunn broke that pattern. A duo winning entertainer
of the year was an outlier because it's even listed
as entertainer of the year, not entertainers. but let's talk
(47:50):
about the way that they got there to understand it better.
When you look back at their run as a duo,
by the time 1996 came around, Kix Brooks and Ronnie
Dunn had a five-year stack of hits. I'm talking about
Brand New Man, Hard Workin' Man, Waitin' on Sundown, many,
many more. Their roles... in the duo were clear and
also perfectly complimentary. Ronnie was the guy that sang most
(48:12):
of the songs. Big voice, big lead singer. Kicks live
really drove the show's pace. He also sang some of
the songs. In 1996, the Machine kept moving when they
released their cover of the original B.W. Stevenson song, My Maria.
Maybe you didn't know that My Maria was a cover,
but it is. In their version... Brooks and Duns is
(48:32):
still a hit 30 years later. It's so big that
people don't even know sometimes that My Maria was a cover.
But when it comes to Entertainer of the Year, it
wasn't really about My Maria or one song. It was
the band's ability to operate on a different level, not
just in the shows themselves, but the industry, like the
business layer of it. Entertainer of the Year is partly logistics.
Everything they put out that year made sense without needing
(48:55):
to be pitched to the public. New track fits on
the radio perfect. New tour dates makes perfect sense where
they're going. their winning of Entertainer of the Year changed
conversations inside the Nashville machine as well. Because a duo
taking Entertainer of the Year told labels and managers that
big doesn't have to mean just one person. After 1996,
it all changed from who's the star into, hey, does
(49:17):
this work more so than just finding one person? Now,
why is this the number one of 1996? Because really,
it's the clearest you had to be their achievement of 1996.
And while Brooks and Dunn paved the way for other duos,
they remain the only ones, the only duo ever to
win CMA Entertainer of the Year. 1996 is not just
a Brooks and Dunn had a big song year. It's
the year they proved that a Everything from radio, tickets,
(49:39):
and brand. In a decade full of massive solo personalities,
the loudest statement, at least in 1996, was two voices
sharing one spotlight and making it feel like it was
just really one big complimentary voice. Now, long before they
took home Entertainer of the Year, Ronnie and Kix both
went to college. Well, separately. And they eventually realized that
(50:00):
what they studied wasn't really what they wanted to do.
Here's Ronnie Dunn talking about going to school to be
a preacher and and realizing that that wasn't for him.
Speaker 7 (50:08):
My grandfather was a big main deacon in the Emanuel
Baptist Church in Elredo, Arkansas. His big thing was, I
was the oldest of 16 grandkids. He just goes, I
want one of my grandsons' place to be a minister.
And I think that's where I picked that up. You're young,
and your impression, you're absorbed. you know, that stuff. Next
thing you know, lo and behold, I go off to Abilene,
(50:28):
Texas to study Bible and the ministry. And I learned
real quick that the second that I had to step
up and speak in front of a crowd, that that
wasn't for me.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
So you didn't even have the performance, like bug whenever
it was time to speak what you think you're going
to do with the rest of your life.
Speaker 7 (50:46):
No, you had to do it to get licensed. This
is so weird. I didn't know this. I was too
young to know this. To get licensed as a minister,
you get licensed and then you get ordained. If you're licensed,
you have to go up and preach a sermon. So
this pastor we had in South Texas, Port Isabel, had
me go up and do a sermon, which was the
biggest nightmare of my life.
Speaker 6 (51:05):
Yeah, how'd it go?
Speaker 1 (51:05):
What do you remember about it? Horrible, horrible. I remember.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
No.
Speaker 7 (51:10):
I mean, it was awful.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
You know how it is.
Speaker 7 (51:13):
You know how it is standing up as a comedian
in front of people, period, and trying to hold that crowd.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
What you have to do.
Speaker 7 (51:19):
It's the same concept, you know.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Do you remember what it was on? No.
Speaker 5 (51:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
I was random.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Now here's Kix talking with me about growing up in Louisiana,
what inspired him to pursue music as a kid and
his family's love for music.
Speaker 6 (51:34):
I went to Riverside Elementary, two blocks away over on Audubon,
where Billie Jean Horton lived. She was the last wife
of Hank Williams. They got married in Shreveport and they
got married down in Baton Rouge. I think they got
married twice and one day was kind of unheard of
at the time after Hank got divorced from Audrey. So
he died and then she married Johnny Horton. And their daughter,
Nina Horton, was my age. And we were in grade
(51:57):
schools together at Riverside. We still stay in touch. And
there are little white houses just like we had. I mean,
to think Johnny Horton and Hank Williams. I mean, this
is a little white house. You know, it's probably a
three bedroom. on just a plain old, you know, suburban
Shreveport Street, just like us. It seems so average, you know,
(52:17):
but going inside and seeing those gold records and those
guitars and portraits of Johnny Horton and over the fireplace
and all that stuff, it was real special and real cool.
And it really It really, it set something inside of
me going, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
You being able to see those, did it actually let
you know that it was possible to do that?
Speaker 6 (52:35):
That's what I mean. It seemed like something that it
wasn't just some pie in the sky, star in the sky.
It was something that people did, you know, regular people
like my dad, you know, they just live down the street, but.
They were playing music. And I mean, from the time
I can remember, our family sang as much as we talked.
You know, you get in the car, you start singing songs.
It was just a thing. And we always had bands,
(52:55):
you know, and from grade school on up.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
Who bought you your first guitar? My dad did.
Speaker 6 (53:00):
But my grandmother bought me a ukulele when I was
like six years old because my mom died when I
was like four. So I spent a lot of time
with her. She was real musical and my cousins were too.
And I remember that came from Sears and Roebuck. It
was $ 9.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
95.
Speaker 6 (53:12):
I'll never forget it. white and had red stripes on it.
Really cool. And I had a songbook and I just
learned to play chords and sing songs with that ukulele.
I learned how that worked, but I really wasn't strong
enough to play a guitar. My dad got me a
steel string guitar when I was 10 or 11.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
So there you have it, the top 10 moments in
country music from the year of 1996. Thank you for listening. Obviously,
97's coming. Make sure you follow us on socials, at
The Bobbycast. It'd be cool if you followed and if
you like stuff, you put a comment, all that engagement helps.
And we appreciate you listening. And again, coming up next, 1997.
(53:57):
Love this episode of The Bobbycast? Subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Host
Bobby Bones
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