| Battleground | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1990 | |||
| Studio | Music City Music Hall (Nashville, Tennessee) | |||
| Genre | Country | |||
| Label | HighTone | |||
| Producer | Roy Dea | |||
| Gary Stewart chronology | ||||
| ||||
Battleground is an album by the American musician Gary Stewart, released in 1990. [1] [2] It was his second album for HighTone Records. [3] The album was more commercially successful than his 1988 comeback, Brand New . [4]
The album was produced by Roy Dea. [5] "Let's Go Jukin'" was written with Dickey Betts. [6] "You're the Reason I'm Living" is a cover of the Bobby Darin song. [7] "Nothin' but a Woman" is a cover of the Robert Cray song. [8]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [9] |
| Chicago Tribune | [10] |
| Robert Christgau | B+ [11] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [12] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [13] |
The Boston Globe wrote that "the album dwarfs much of today's country radio fare—and Stewart is a true master at work." [6] The Chicago Tribune called the album "a convincing illustration of why Stewart is a king of that increasingly rare breed: the honky-tonkers." [10] The Dallas Morning News noted that Battleground "has a raw, hollow, sound that immediately conjures up a dark bar." [14]
The Buffalo News determined that, "scratchy and scrawny as his voice is, there is something quite compelling about the way this country/blues/rock veteran puts across a song." [15] The Fresno Bee listed "Nothin' but a Woman" as the second best country cover song of 1990. [16] Robert Christgau concluded that Stewart's "r&r groove is sharp-witted where Steve Earle's is muscle-headed and the average Nashville cat's just mechanical." [11]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Nothin' but a Woman" | 4:03 |
| 2. | "Bedroom Battleground" | 3:09 |
| 3. | "Let's Go Jukin'" | 2:30 |
| 4. | "Nothing Cheap About a Cheap Affair" | 3:12 |
| 5. | "Ol' Hank's Lovesick Blues" | 3:04 |
| 6. | "Woman in Demand" | 2:57 |
| 7. | "Hey Leona" | 3:02 |
| 8. | "You're the Reason I'm Living" | 3:37 |
| 9. | "Delia" | 2:42 |
| 10. | "Seeing's Believing" | 2:46 |
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Gary Ronnie Stewart was an American musician and songwriter, known for his distinctive vibrato voice and his outlaw country sound influenced by southern rock. At the height of his popularity in the mid-1970s, Time magazine described him as the "king of honkytonk." He had a series of country chart hits from the mid- to late 1970s, the biggest of which was "She's Actin' Single ", which topped the U.S. country singles chart in 1975.
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Strait Country is the debut studio album by American country music artist George Strait, released on September 4, 1981, by MCA Records. The album's traditional country music approach—a mix of Texas honky tonk and the Bakersfield sound—presented a sharp contrast to the dominating trends within country music at that time. The album includes the singles "Unwound", "Down and Out", and "If You're Thinking You Want a Stranger ". The album peaked at number 26 on the US Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Strait Country has been certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was one of the first to be recorded and mixed digitally.
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