Sunday Music – Behind Closed Doors

Posted on Sun 06/03/2012 by TonyfromOz

Today’s music video is Behind Closed Doors from ‘The Silver Fox’, Charlie Rich.

This video was posted to You Tube by coockiestv

In earlier times, Country Music rarely crossed over into the Mainstream popular charts. Some songs did manage that crossover, but it wasn’t until the late 60’s and early 70’s that Country Music regularly crossed over into the mainstream. The music was just as good as it always was, but radio sort of decided what would be popular with the listening masses, and Country Music had a certain perception about it, and that perception was that rock music was what the general population wanted to hear on their radios.

Then came a new breed of Country music stars who made music that just could not be ignored, both male and female, and their songs were played on mainstream radio because the people wanted to hear it.

Some of those existing Country stars who had been around for years, some of them for decades, also became more noticed, and in some cases, after years and years of being stars in their own genre, they became what is often termed as overnight successes, when they crossed over into those mainstream charts.

Charlie Rich was one of those stars who had a relatively good career in that Country music field, and then in the early 70’s he had a string of hits, that while having an almost distinct Country feel about them, became huge hits, Internationally, as well as in mainstream U.S. charts.

The first of those was today’s featured song, Behind Closed Doors. The song was written by Kenny O’Dell, and this Charlie Rich version was a huge hit in 1973, making it to Number One on the Country Charts, and making it into the Top Five of the mainstream charts as well. He followed this song up with The Most Beautiful Girl, which was a huge Number One on both charts. His next four or five songs also charted well on the mainstream charts, while he was in the middle of a ‘purple patch’ on the Country Charts with nine major songs in that two year period, seven of them going to Number One.

For this first of his major hits, Behind Closed Doors, Charlie won a Grammy Award for best male country vocal performance, and a Grammy Award also went to the songwriter Kenny O’Dell for the same song.

As recently as 2003, this Charlie Rich song ranked as Number Nine in the Top 100 All Time Country Music songs.

Charlie Rich was one of those singers who helped to pave the way for Country Music to be ranked in the same breath as popular music, and now Country Music stars get just as big a billing as anyone else in the music genre.