On this day (September 3) in 1986, Randy Travis was at the top of the country chart with his debut album Storms of Life. It spent eight weeks at No. 1 and produced multiple hit singles, including a pair of chart-toppers. Travis’ early success helped push the country music industry toward a revival of traditional-sounding music.
By the mid-1980s, country music was leaning heavily into pop production. Some of the biggest names in the genre were leaning into pop production that bordered on adult contemporary. A few traditionalists, including George Strait and Reba McEntire, still carried the torch, but the industry vastly outnumbered. Travis’ debut album, and his baritone voice and hard country style, gave Music City the shot in the arm it desperately needed.
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Storms of Life and its singles helped pave the way for the wave of neotraditional country music that came at the end of the decade. Three years after its release, in 1989, Garth Brooks, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, and Travis Tritt released their debuts and found immediate success, signaling a new sound for the coming decade.
Randy Travis Had a Major Impact on Country Music
Fans were eager to hear the kind of country music that Randy Travis was making. As a result, his career took off quickly.
Julie Stevens, who was the program director at KRTY in San Jose, California, told Billboard about her experience with Travis and his debut. “I wouldn’t just say Storms of Life changed country music. I’d say it saved country music,” she said. “We were mired in the crap-tastic sound that was Urban Cowboy. That album landed on my desk, and I couldn’t get it on the air fast enough,” she recalled.
The fans felt the same way. After promoters added Travis to the bill for a George Strait show at the San Jose Center for Performing Arts, the event quickly sold out. “When he walked out on stage that night, he got a standing ovation. It wasn’t just us programmers who recognized what a godsend this kid was. The audience saw it as well.”
Tim Roberts, who was the vice president of music programming for CBS Radio Detroit, called Storms of Life one of the most important country albums of all time. “There’s no question that Storms and those smash singles completely changed country music forever and in a massive, positive way,” he said. “Randy was an international superstar overnight and influenced so many other acts to come afterward, including the class of ’89 with Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Garth, and Travis Tritt.”
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Unspecified – 1974: Conway Twitty performing on the ABC tv special 'The 1974 Country Music Awards'. (Photo by Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
