There may not be a band that is more influential in country music than Alabama. Formed by cousins Randy Owen, Teddy Gentry, and Jeff Cook in 1969, Alabama spent decades releasing some of country music’s biggest singles.
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Alabama’s hits are far too many to mention. But these are four of the most important songs by Alabama, which everyone should know by heart.
“Mountain Music”
“Mountain Music” is written by Randy Owen. The song, one of Alabama’s most popular singles, is the title track of their 1982 album.
The song says, “Drift away like Tom Sawyer / Ride a raft with ol’ Huck Finn / Take a nap like Rip Van Winkle / Daze dreamin’ again / Oh, play me some mountain music / Like grandma and grandpa used to play / Then I’ll float on down the river / To a Cajun hideaway.”
Owen wrote “Mountain Music” with a drum solo, but he had an ulterior motive.
“I was so excited about it,” Owen recalls (via The Boot). “I told the folks at RCA, ‘I’ve written a song, and it’s got a drum solo in it!’ They were like, ‘Radio’ll never play that.’ The reason that I wrote the drum solo part of it was so that Jeff would have time to put the guitar down and pick up the fiddle.”
Mountain Music is certified quadruple platinum.
“Dixieland Delight”
“Dixieland Delight” came out in 1983. On Alabama’s The Closer You Get… record, “Dixieland Delight” is written by Ronnie Rogers.
The song, an ode to life in the south, says, “Spend my dollar / Parked in a holler ‘neath the mountain moonlight / Hold her up tight / Make a little lovin’ / A little turtle dovin’ on a Mason-Dixon night / Fits my life, oh, so right / My Dixieland Delight.”
Rogers tells Al.com that he had written about half of “Dixieland Delight” when he found out Alabama was looking for songs. He wrote the rest of it with them in mind.
“Song Of The South”
In 1988, Alabama released “Song Of The South”, but they weren’t the first to record the tune. Written by Bob McDill, Johnny Russell first recorded “Song Of The South”, followed by a collaboration with Tom T. Hall and Earl Scruggs. But it’s Alabama’s version that is the most popular. “Song Of The South” is on their Southern Star album.
The lyrics include lines like, “Cotton on the roadside, cotton in the ditch / We all picked the cotton, but we never got rich / Daddy was a veteran, a Southern Democrat / They ought to get a rich man to vote like that / Sing it / Song, song of the south / Sweet potato pie, and I shut my mouth / Gone, gone with the wind / There ain’t nobody lookin’ back again.”
“Angels Among Us”
“Angels Among Us” actually wasn’t a No. 1 hit for Alabama, but it remains one of their most important. Written by Becky Hobbs and Don Goodman, the song is about acknowledging the presence of angels, even if they can’t be seen.
“Angels Among Us” says, “Oh, I believe there are angels among us / Sent down to us from somewhere up above / They come to you and me in our darkest hours / To show us how to live to teach us how to give / To guide us with the light of love.”
In 2012, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital began giving out the Randy Owen Angels Among Us Award, given to artists who support the work of St. Jude.
Photo by Jason Davis/Getty Images for Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum
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