Shenandoah

One Liner: Ex-session musicians churning out 80's country gold

Wikipedia Genre: Country

Home: Nashville (but originally from Muscle Shoals, AL)

Poster Position: Small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  Another one of these bands where nothing came to me before I clicked on their Spotify, but I definitely know a few of the top ten.  Annoyingly, their top ten repeats songs, so I guess they really didn't have the run of hits I would have expected.  Strangely, the one song that pops into my head for them is "Under the Kudzu," but that isn't even in their top ten.

Shenandoah refers to a native indian tribe and an Oneida Iroquois chief, and several areas in Virginia are named the same - a town and county, River, Valley, Mountain, National Park, a University, etc.  There are also towns with the same name in many other states, as well as multiple ships like the USS Shenandoah, the CSS Shenandoah, and others.  There was movie using the name staring Jimmy Stewart and a resulting Broadway musical.  There is even a beard style called the Shenandoah, which "is grown full and long over the jaw and chin, meeting the sideburns, while the hair above the mouth is shaved" and is also called the "chin curtain."

But the band is five guys from Muscle Shoals, Alabama that formed in 1984.  The lineup has not been static the entire time, and from 1997 to 2000 the band was broken up entirely, but it sounds like two of the original members are still along for the ride.  Nine albums, with two being certified Gold.  That is much less than some of the others on this poster, I figured we'd have some platinum stuff here.  Five number one singles, and a Grammy Award for a collaboration with Allison Krauss.  These guys were originally a collection of session musicians who decided to give a real band a go, and CBS Records signed them.

After they became commercially successful, this ubiquity of their name came back to bite them.  After their third album, a band from Kentucky threatened to sue Shenandoah over the use of the name Shenandoah. After a financial settlement with that band, two other bands filed lawsuits over the name. The lawsuits depleted any earnings and the band ended up filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early 1991.  That's not very fun.

The top track for the band is "Two Dozen Roses," with 49 million streams, and was originally on 1988's The Road Not Taken.

Classic sad sack love song.  Solid stuff.  I don't know why it is bugging me, but that "Under the Kudzu" song isn't even listed in their Spotify.  Like, that whole album just isn't there.  I guess their RCA Records albums, which they made after that bankruptcy, aren't available for streaming for some reason.  I'm going to give it to you anyway, because I enjoy the tune.  Zero streams.

Good old song about the South.  Part of the reason the song is so memorable is probably because it made me wonder what the hell kudzu is.  But a kind of southern rock tune there.  That was from their 1993 album, so it would have hit right around the time I was hearing more country from more sources.  I think "I Want to be Loved Like That" was also a song I recall from that album.  Too bad they aren't available for streaming.

One more, their other big hit, was "Next to You, Next to Me," from 1990's Extra Mile.  25 million streams.

An actual video!  And those mechanics are creepers!  Stop looking up the skirts, bro!  Also, he is looking way too intently into his fellow band-members' faces.  He looks like that hobbit dude - Samwise Ganjee.  But, end of the day, that is a good song - a fun classic full of schmaltz and two mentions of barbecue chicken.  I dig it.

They released a new album in 2020 that features a bunch of current country folks - Zac Brown Band, Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, Brad Paisley, Ashley McBride, etc.  None of these songs are very good, and their stream counts reflect my personal judgment.  They do a surprisingly good "Can't Buy Me Love" on their Certified Hits album though.

They aren't top of my list here of all of the available stuff on this poster, but solid.