Favorite BIG #1 HITS Through the Years: 1978 Country

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Along with looking at select #1 pop songs for the first 25 years of my life (trust me, looking at the list, it's hard to go past 1985...wasn't all that easy to get to 1985!) I'm also looking at those years through the eyes of #1 songs from the music of my soul. Here's the 1978 #1 country song I picked. 1978 (Country): Two More Bottles of Wine - Emmylou Harris Emmylou Harris is a product of the musical burgoo we now call "Americana." She began in the Washington, DC-area folk scene, then joined country-rock legend Gram Parsons, where she admittedly received a lot of her country education. (My favorite story she told on herself: Parsons gave her a cassette tape that featured the Louvin Brothers, and after being mesmerized by Ira's voice she asked him, "Who's this woman? She's got the greatest voice I ever heard!") After Parsons' death (quick aside: you can go to the motel near Joshua Tree National Park and stay in the actual room Parsons died in...book in advance, though, because there's a long waiting list!) Emmylou took her musical hodgepodge and began recording albums. Her LPs featured covers of country (the Carter Family's "Hello Stranger"), rock ("Bad Moon Rising"), and then-unknown songwriters such as Townes Van Zandt (she recorded the classic "Pancho and Lefty" six years before the famous Merle Haggard/Willie Nelson rendition) and Rodney Crowell (who was, at that time, a member of her "Hot Band"). Her criteria seemed to be simple: if it's a good song, she'd do it. That includes this song, by a then-up-and-coming songwriter by the name of Delbert McClinton. McClinton is now a legend in Texas, Americana, and blues-rock; however, back then, he was more along the lines of the protagonist in this song who'd "be in the sun all day, but I'm sweeping out a warehouse in West L.A." Now both are legends. And this terrific song put them together. Two More Bottles of Wine Written by Delbert McClinton Recorded by Emmylou Harris From Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town, 1978 #1 for one week I'm 1,600 miles from the people I know: