On this day (August 29) in 1980, Alabama released “Why Lady Why”—the tender ballad that would become the group’s second No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart and the second link in a record-setting streak: 21 consecutive No. 1 singles, in as many releases, stretching from 1980 through 1987.
“They wrote songs that made a lasting impression on the Southland,” said Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor. “If that’s all my music could do, I’d be proud to have done it.”
Written by Alabama founding member and bass player Teddy Gentry and Rick Scott, “Why Lady Why” was the follow-up to Alabama’s first chart-topper, “Tennessee River.” The band initially cut the song before signing their major label record deal with RCA, and then revisited it for their debut album, 1980’s My Home’s in Alabama. They began working with producer Harold Shedd, who remixed the original track with strings at Music Mill in late 1979.
Part of the song was on the B-side to “My Home’s in Alabama” on MDJ Records in January 1980, before RCA issued “Why Lady Why” as its own single.
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Alabama: Harold Shedd and a Strings Remix
“I rented a studio in Berry Hill and put strings on it and finished the album,” Shedd said. “The project produced the band’s first two chart-topping hits, ‘Tennessee River’ and ‘Why Lady Why.’”
At the time, the broken-hearted ballad was a departure for Alabama, mostly known as a Southern rock-leaning bar band. “Why Lady Why” included stacked harmonies and a mournful guitar solo layered on top of a polished string section. Harold Shedd’s lush production, paired with Gentry’s tender lyrics, showed that Alabama was more than a high-energy country-rock outfit. Their next hit—”Old Flame”—followed suit. The shuffling mid-tempo lacked the strings but leaned harder into emotional lyrics and directed the spotlight back to members—Gentry, Randy Owen (singer), Jeff Cook (guitarist) – harmonies. The sound became their calling card—and it still is, decades later.
“There’s a reason Alabama is the biggest country band of all time,” Jason Isbell said. “The songs they recorded are great reflections on what it’s like to live and love in the South.”
Alabama: 43 No. 1 songs
Since the band’s major label debut in 1980, Alabama has sold more than 80 million albums and charted 43 No. 1 hits. In addition to “Why Lady Why,” the group’s signature songs include “Mountain Music,” “Roll On,” “Feels So Right,” “If You’re Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band),” “Dixieland Delight,” and “My Home’s In Alabama.” The group was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005.
“They were our Beatles, because that’s how big they were to us,” Kenny Chesney told Pollstar.
Old Dominion’s Trevor Rosen told People that Alabama “paved the way.”
“They changed the perception of what it means to be a band in country music,” he said.
More than four decades after their country music breakthrough, Alabama is still routinely celebrated by the country music industry.
A Mountain of Accolades
Dierks Bentley presented Alabama’s Owen and Gentry with the CMA Pinnacle Award at CMA Fest 2023, which recognized the band’s genre-defining impact on country music. The following year, CMT presented a two-hour televised salute, CMT GIANTS: ALABAMA, which was filmed several months earlier and aired on August 15, 2024. BMI named frontman Randy Owen a BMI Icon at the 72nd BMI Country Awards on November 19, 2024. The group will also receive NSAI’s Kris Kristofferson Lifetime Achievement Award at the 8th Annual Nashville Songwriter Awards on September 23, 2025.
Alabama has tour dates posted through December.
(Photo by Lester Cohen/Getty Images)
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