It’s Mountain Music Time: How Alabama Owned Springtime in the 1980s

The first days of spring are hard to beat. The temps start rising, the snow melts, and the outdoors start calling. The random rain and thunderstorms also make for great excuses to stay in and get some spring cleaning done. In the 1980s, it also meant that Alabama was about to dominate the country chart with another hit album.

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Alabama is the most successful band in country music history. They have notched 11 No. 1 albums, spending a whopping 125 weeks in the peak position. That’s just under two-and-a-half years atop the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Interestingly, several of those weeks came in the early spring. Apparently, there’s something about the warmer weather that makes their specific brand of mountain music sound better.

[RELATED: On This Day in 1983, Alabama Released the No. 1 Single That Later Became a Favorite for Generations of Crimson Tide Fans]

The pattern began with their first No. 1 album, Feels So Right, and continued throughout the decade.

Alabama Returns to the Top Like Wildflowers Returning

Let’s start at the beginning. Alabama released their fifth album, Feels So Right, in February 1981. It hit No. 1 for the first time in late May. Then, it bounced in and out of the top spot for the rest of the year, logging 16 weeks at No. 1 before the calendar changed to 1982. It spent the first two weeks of the year at No. 1. Then, after a week, it was back at the top for a nine-week run that ended on March 26. So, the pattern starts with their first chart-topper.

Their next album, Mountain Music, reached the top spot for the first time a few weeks later, in mid-April. Fast-forward to 1983, where the album is at No. 1 for the first 14 weeks of the year. Its reign ends on April 8. Then, later that month, The Closer You Get… hit No. 1, where it stayed for 12 weeks.

Like clockwork, Alabama was back the next year with Roll On. It reached No. 1 for the first time on March 17. The LP’s initial six-week run at the top solidly captured the first weeks of spring. In 1985, their album 40 Hour Week spent nearly the entire season atop the country chart. It peaked on March 30–ten days into spring–and stayed there until June 21, which was the first day of summer.

They were a little late in 1986. Greatest Hits topped the chart for the first time on April 26. Then, the band’s next two No. 1 albums, The Touch and Just Us, broke the cycle. However, they were right on time with Southern Star, their final No. 1 album of the decade. It reached the top spot on March 11 and stayed there for three weeks, welcoming spring with a killer LP one more time.

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