Recalling Whitley’s Country Roots in ‘Songs’

When country music fans talk about the return-to-the-roots spirit of the “new traditionalist” movement of the ‘80s, the first name that is likely to come to mind is Randy Travis.

The deep-voiced singer contributed the most to a refocusing on hard-core country music with a series of high-profile, mid-’80s hits that included “On the Other Hand” and “Forever and Ever, Amen.”

But Keith Whitley was celebrating the same traditional sensibilities in the early ‘80s, when commercial country music was too caught up in the slick, pop-minded “Urban Cowboy” consciousness to pay much attention.

As lead singer with the progressive bluegrass band J.D. Crowe & the New South, Whitley recorded an album, “Somewhere Between,” in 1982 that has just been reissued and remixed by Rounder Records.

Retitled “Sad Songs & Waltzes,” the new edition places even more emphasis on Whitley’s honky-tonk country roots than the original did. Crowe, who produced the new version, stripped off most of the New South’s instrumental backing and recorded new backing tracks with other musicians.

The result is a marvelous showcase for Whitley, who eventually embarked on a solo career and, thanks in part to Travis’ success, found enough support among country radio programmers to have five hit singles in the late ‘80s. Whitley did of an accidental alcohol overdose on May 5, 1989, before his reputation had a chance to spread beyond the boundaries of country music. He was 33. Two months later, RCA released his third album, “I Wonder Do You Think of Me.” The title track went to No. 1 on the country charts.

*** 1/2 Keith Whitley, “Sad Songs and Waltzes” (Rounder).

Jessie Keith Whitley was born in 1955 in Sandy Hook, Ky., where he grew up listening to some of the great stylists of country music, including Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams. He started playing music as a child and formed his own bluegrass band during his early teens.

Along with his pal Ricky Skaggs, he joined bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys when Whitley was just 15. He stayed with Stanley through most of the ‘70s, but eventually moved to Crowe’s band because the group would give him a chance to showcase more of his Frizzell/Williams roots.

He got the chance to do just that with “Somewhere Between,” which contained “I Never Go Around Mirrors,” a tale of low self-esteem that Frizzell co-wrote and recorded. The album’s title song was written by Merle Haggard, another singer in the Frizzell tradition and another huge influence on Whitley.

The New South didn’t make the country charts, but it drew interest to Whitley, who eventually moved to Nashville and signed with RCA Records in 1983. His debut album, “L.A. to Miami” was released in 1985, the same year as Travis’ debut album, and was largely overlooked.

However, Whitley’s follow-up, “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” broke into the Top 10 and spent two years on the country chart. One of its No. 1 singles, “When You Say Nothing at All,” was recorded by Alison Krauss in 1995 and went into the top 10 again.

“Keith was a ‘first take’ guy,” J.D. Crowe says in the new album’s liner notes. “His live vocals in the studio were almost always his best ones, and that’s what you hear here. . . .

“I knew that Keith wanted to do country. I knew he could sing it and knew he should sing it. He loved bluegrass, but he wanted something more.”

“Sad Songs and Waltzes,” one of five previously unreleased tracks on the album, is a fitting choice as the title tune because it was originally written by Willie Nelson as a commentary on the conservatism of country music.

In it, a songwriter composes a heartache ballad about a broken relationship, but he assures his former lover that she needn’t worry about anyone hearing it because “no one is playing sad songs and waltzes this year.”

In the liner notes, Robert K. Oermann, a country music critic and historian, mentions the underlying impact of the song.

“The lyric bemoans the fact that country music no longer aches wistfully, drips with sadness or touches the dark side of life,” he suggests. “It is unfortunately true. And that is why we need to listen to a vocalist with this power now more than ever.”

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).