(written by Kye Fleming & Dennis Morgan)
Barbara Mandrell (#1 country, #102 pop – 1980)
Kye Fleming and Dennis Morgan were the most prolific Nashville
songwriting team of the early ‘80s. From 1978 through 1983 they racked
up 20 Top Ten singles on the Billboard country chart, with seven of them
hitting #1. They started by fairly similar methods. Morgan grew up in
Tracy, Minnesota, leaving high school in his junior year to pursue
music. He played the coffeehouse circuit all over the country in the
early ‘70s, finally settling in Nashville. After writing a few
advertising jingles, he earned a contract in 1976 to write for Charley
Pride’s Pi-Gem Music, a company headed by producer Tom Collins, who will
figure prominently in our story in just a bit.
Fleming grew up
in numerous towns, thanks to the requirements of her father’s position
in the Navy. When she was 12, the family finally settled in Arkansas,
and in the ninth grade, she started writing songs. Like Morgan, she
played coffeehouses for much of the ‘70s, until she met Elvis Presley’s
bass player Jerry Scheff, who got her an appointment with Pi-Gem. In
January of 1978, she and Morgan wrote together for the first time.
Many of their songs were written to order. Tom Collins was producing
Ronnie Milsap, Sylvia, Steve Wariner and Barbara Mandrell, among others,
and when he needed material, he frequently gave the writers a title or a
framework he hoped to explore. Fleming and Morgan wrote and rewrote,
pushed and pulled at their songs, until they had exactly what was needed
for each particular artist. But “Years” differed from their usual
approach in that it came more from the heart rather than by a certain
pattern or formula. Fleming considered it one of her favorite
compositions.
When producer Collins and Barbara Mandrell
appeared at Nashville’s Sound Emporium studio to record “Years,” Collins
felt the session went well and he liked what he heard, but he thought
the song turned out too long to be considered for a single release, and
would therefore be used only as an album filler for her upcoming LP
“Just For The Record.” Randy Wright, who played drums in Mandrell’s
band, the “Do-Rites” (named after her old ’71 hit “Do Right Woman, Do
Right Man”) provided an “answer voice” on the chorus, but Collins was
unsatisfied and brought in a session singer, who did a more elaborate
performance. When MCA’s deadline to turn in the album came due, he still
hadn’t remixed “Years” with the new background vocalist. Collins wasn’t
concerned though, because he still considered the track unsuitable for
release as a single, so Wright’s voice remained on it.
However,
“Years” caught on quickly with radio listeners because many disc
jockeys around the country were playing it from the “Just For The
Record” album, which had shipped in August of ‘79 (disc jockeys were
still allowed to play album cuts in those days, unlike now), so
Barbara’s label (MCA) decided to rush-release it as a single on December
7th. Two months later, “Years” (still with the original mix containing
Randy Wright’s voice) reached the #1 plateau on February 23, 1980.
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