The Oak Ridge Boys - Fancy Free
#98
By Tom Mott
March 26 1981
The Oak Ridge Boys
Fancy Free
Genre: Country Pop
Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5
Tom’s Rating: 3.4 out of 5
Highlights
Elvira
Another Dream Just Came True
giddy up ba-oom papa oom papa mow mow
giddy up ba-oom papa oom papa mow mow
I remember Elvira being blasted for a cheerleader routine at a high school pep assembly. Start Me Up and Flamethrower are the other two cheerleader routines I remember.
It was a (checking my notes) cover of a minor 1966 single by Dallas Frazier, who also wrote Alley-Oop in 1957, which was made famous by the Hollywood Argyles, a hastily-assembled studio band who recorded it with the help of Kim Fowley, later manager of The Runaways in the mid-70s. Alley-Oop contains the line "look at that caveman go" which David Bowie referenced in his song Life on Mars. Anyways, after singing backup on Paul Simon's Slip Slidin' Away (!) the Oak Ridge Boys covered Elvira,and it crossed over massively. As in Islands in the Stream massively.
After college, I interviewed to be the assistant to a producer whose wall was lined with gold records from Barry Manilow, Kenny Rogers, and Lionel Ritchie. Oh what a tangled web we weave. He had a treadmill in the his condo with a phone attached that had multiple lines, and wore a velour jumpsuit unzipped to reveal a massive, gold Star of David medallion. We were not meant to be, baby. (But you know what? He produced albums for Barry Manilow, Kenny Rogers, and Lionel Ritchie. I didn't.) Intersections. Rock-n-roll is country is doo wop is r&b is pop.
This album: I am expecting Kenny-Rogers-ish country pop with harmonies and maybe some schmaltz. Let's find out together. Real-time track by track thoughts ...
Elvira -- I prefer original doo-wop from the 50s & 60s more, but this is undeniably fun.
Somewhere in the Night -- Late-era Elvis could've made something of this. Their harmonies are great, but this feels light-weight.
She's Gone to L.A. Again -- OK, this is interesting. What the Dillards did for bluegrass (modernizing), maybe The Oak Ridge Boys are doing for gospel. Maybe? I don't agree with all the production choices -- bad 80s drums -- but it's got a funky undertow that almost sounds like a synclavier but is probably a baritone sax.
When I'm With You -- Piano and strings. A sing-along chorus doesn't save the bass lead who honestly sounds like Garrison Keilor here. No.
A brief aside. Apart from Elvira, the songs so far are firmly in the late-70s AM pop milieu. It's easy to forget how huge songs like "Lucille" and "Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue" and "Nobody Does It Better" were. Also, country music with horns isn't all too different from soul music with horns. Ray Charles and Elvis both figured that out 20 years earlier.
Another Dream Just Came True -- A slice of classic country with steel-pedal and a strong yee-haw vibe. Dammit, I like it. Reminds me a bit of "Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song." Looking it up ... and there you go, it was written by the same guy who wrote The Gambler for Kenny Rogers.
(I'm Settin') Fancy Free -- One of their signature songs. I've got no complaints. Straight-ahead country pop. This could easily be a Willy Nelson song. (I like Willy's sparer stuff, but dang it he recorded a lot of schmaltz too.)
Dream on Me -- Dang, sounds like Kenny Rogers again. Alison Kraus covered this in 2017. I like the production on her version better.
When Love Calls You -- Put this in Whitney's hands and you've got a smash single from a Disney princess movie.
How Long Has It Been -- Drums, piano, strings. My interest wanes.
I Would Crawl All the Way (To The River) -- Another clone of the Gambler, but it's a gospel song.
End notes: This is straight-up country pop. It sure ain't Southern Rock (which Barry Oakley said was like saying Rock Rock). It's not unenjoyable. Not my thing, but if a classic country station tossed some of these songs into the mix, I wouldn't change it. The musicians on this are all top-notch Nashville session players, so it's clean and tight. It's a little hokey in places, but honestly less campy/schmaltzy than I assumed heading into it. Bob Evans Food springs to mind. Two-thirds of the USA eats this stuff up. I'm a loner and a rebel, Dotty.
I admit it feels like penance for continually advocating to Allen that we should include more R&B, funk, and rap albums in the Listening Post. "Oh so you want to be more inclusive, eh Tom? OK, here's The Oak Ridge Boys." Dammit. Time to retreat and retrench.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5B089xYxcKyuZOE2B9jj1J?si=uui8DD6PSS-pZHKTYmemJA
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