Red Hot Org - Red Hot & Country (Remastered) (1994/2025) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

30 years ago Red Hot was riding high. Our first three albums: Red Hot + Blue, Red Hot + Dance and No Alternative became successful beyond our wildest dreams. We raised enough money to donate millions to important organizations around the world fighting AIDS, including a million to ACT UP. And we worked with some of the greatest artists and musicians in the world: David Byrne, U2, George Michael, Nirvana, Madonna and many others. Next up was two new albums - one focused on communities of color, Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool, and the other on country music. Cool became Time Magazine’s music of the year, but Country failed to reach an audience in spite of the incredible artists who joined together to raise AIDS awareness in the American South. Country radio wouldn’t play it. Today Queer Country is a thing and Beyonce is topping the charts with nods to some of the same artists on Red Hot + Country, notably Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. Maybe the album was too ahead of its time; maybe its time has finally come.

Red Hot + Country was born when the Country Music Award show wouldn’t let performers go on stage wearing red ribbons symbolizing their support for AIDS awareness. Kathy Matea got so upset she asked her manager, Bob Titley, to call Red Hot and see if we were interested in doing an album showcasing country music and how AIDS was affecting people in their community. We started with the idea of covering John Lennon songs and met with Yoko Ono, who gave us the right to use his music for the project. But none of the country artists got behind the idea even though we met with Allen Reynolds, Garth Brooks’ producer, who said Lennon’s first solo record was an important influence on how they made those smash albums.

Around the same time Randy Scruggs joined the project. He loved the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s crossover album, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” which revived the careers of important country and bluegrass legends such as Bill Monroe, the Carter Family and his dad Earl Scruggs. Kathy mixed in her love of Laurel Canyon singer songwriters and helped bring in Jackson Browne, Crosby Stills & Nash and Jimmy Webb. Mercury Nashville, led by Luke Lewis and Bob Frank embraced the project and helped add some of their top artists like Billy Ray Cyrus and Sammy Kershaw. They also wanted to include a then unknown female singer, Shania Twain, but we were too foolish to grab the chance.

For a long time Garth Brooks was on board. In the end it didn’t happen, but he connected us with his video producer, Bud Schaetzle, who brought in CMT, which is how the TV special Live from the Ryman Auditorium (the original Grand Ole' Opry) came about. Johnny Cash was ill the day of the performance so his old friend Waylon Jennings took his place. Someone on the project had a connection to Levon Helm and our associate producer drove him all the way from Woodstock to Nashville for the show because he wouldn’t fly. Levon, the house band (including legends such as Buddy Rogers, Vassar Clements, Gary Talent, Kenny Aronoff) and younger performers like John Hiatt and Rodney Crowell did rollicking versions of “Caldonia” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” The show closed with a moving rendition of “Amazing Grace” by Shelby Lynne, one of the few country performers who was out back then.

Country radio wouldn’t play the album in spite of the hit potential clearly shown by the country cover album of songs by the Eagles the prior year ("Common Threads") with many of the same artists and far fewer country legends. And radio was the only way to generate sales before the internet existed much less streaming platforms. So, Red Hot + Country sat on the shelf for 30 years and didn’t exist on Spotify or Apple Music … until now. Fortunately, it still sounds amazing and perfectly in tune with 2024 when Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Carl Perkins, Earl Scruggs and other legends shine brighter today than ever before.

One last fun fact … as we were finishing the album there was a few thousand dollars left in the recording fund. The year before Red Hot's third album, No Alternative, featured a cover of Creedence Clearwater’s “Effigy” by the band Uncle Tupelo. They were breaking up and one of the leaders, Jeff Tweedy, was starting a new band called Wilco. We talked him into recording a vintage country song associated with Ernest Tubb and Jimmy Rogers called “The TB Is Whipping Me,'' to show how an incurable viral disease had taken the father of country music. It became the first Wilco track ever released. 30 years later, Jeff Tweedy was still supporting Red Hot, contributing a collaboration with Claire Rousay to the most recent Red Hot album, Transa, celebrating and supporting the trans and nonbinary communities.

This reissue is dedicated to Randy Scruggs and Brian Hannah who didn’t live to see it shine again. And to Kathy Mattea and all the artists 30 years ago who were compassionate and brave enough to put their hearts and souls into a project helping others in need.

Tracklist:
01. Suzy Bogguss - Teach Your Children (2:57)
02. Kathy Mattea - Rock Me on the Water (3:39)
03. Johnny Cash - Forever Young (6:17)
04. Wilco - The T.B. Is Whipping Me (3:42)
05. Jimmie Dale Gilmore - Crazy (2:51)
06. Carl Perkins - Matchbox (6:23)
07. Brooks & Dunn - Folsom Prison Blues (4:02)
08. Dolly Parton - You Gotta Be My Baby (2:27)
09. Marty Stuart - Up Above My Head / Blind Bartimus (3:13)
10. Mary Chapin Carpenter - Willie Short (4:23)
11. Sammy Kershaw - Fire and Rain (4:48)
12. Nanci Griffith - If These Old Walls Could Speak (5:31)
13. Patty Loveless - When I Reach the Place I’m Going (3:17)
14. Randy Scruggs - Keep On The Sunny Side (4:17)
15. Radney Foster - Close Up The Honky Tonks (2:52)
16. Billy Ray Cyrus - Pictures Don’t Lie (3:51)
17. Mark Chesnutt - Goodbye Comes Hard for Me (3:16)


Thanks to the Original customer!