| High-Tech Redneck | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | November 23, 1993 | |||
| Studio | Masterfonics and The Music Mill Nashville, TN | |||
| Genre | Country | |||
| Length | 30:46 | |||
| Label | MCA | |||
| Producer | Buddy Cannon Norro Wilson | |||
| George Jones chronology | ||||
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High-Tech Redneck is an album by American country music singer George Jones. It was released in 1993 on the MCA Nashville Records label and went Gold in 1994.
By 1993, Jones had recorded two critically acclaimed albums for MCA but was still having a great deal of difficulty getting played on the radio, which was focused on younger, emerging stars. The new album, which employed two producers, Buddy Cannon and Norro Wilson, was an attempt by MCA to broaden the singer's appeal, with biographer Bob Allen observing in his book George Jones: The Life and Times of a Honky Tonk Legend, "In 1993, the label released Hi-Tech Redneck, a new and oddly uneven Jones LP that tried to cast him in a slightly different and more lighthearted perspective, in hopes of breaking the radio deadlock." It did not work; the album made it to number 30 on the Billboard country albums chart while the single peaked at 24—a very respectable showing in reality, considering the lack of radio play the singer was receiving. The other single from this album to make a chart appearance on Billboard was his duet with Sammy Kershaw, "Never Bit a Bullet Like This", a song also found on Kershaw's 1994 album Feelin' Good Train. The album was dedicated to Conway Twitty, who had died in June 1993 and features a cover of Twitty's "Hello Darlin'" to close out the album, which Jones had also recorded during his stint on the Musicor label.
"A Thousand Times a Day" was later recorded by Patty Loveless on her 1996 album The Trouble with the Truth, from which it was released as the second single, becoming a Top 20 hit for her that year. "The Visit" was later recorded by Chad Brock on his 2000 album Yes!
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [1] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [2] |
Jimmy Guterman of New Country magazine rated the album 4 out of 5 stars, saying that "Jones expertly walks through a series of boasts, gags... fables, and depictions of emotional devastation that suggest what Hank Williams might have sounded like had he lived to record using the Nashville sound." Guterman also praised the duet with Sammy Kershaw on "Never Bit a Bullet Like This" as a "riot", and noted the album's cover of "Hello Darlin'" that it "succeeds both as a tribute to Twitty's style and to Jones' ability to wrench new ideas out of a song country fans have heard hundreds of times." [3]
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "High-Tech Redneck" | Byron Hill, Zack Turner | 2:26 |
| 2. | "I've Still Got Some Hurtin' Left to Do" | Donny Kees, Richard Ross | 2:51 |
| 3. | "The Love in Your Eyes" | Wayland Holyfield, Norro Wilson | 3:52 |
| 4. | "The Visit" | Gene Ellsworth, Brad Rodgers, Charles Stefl | 3:21 |
| 5. | "Silent Partners" | Bobby Braddock | 3:03 |
| 6. | "Tear Me Out of the Picture" | Bill Rice, Sharon Rice, Mike Lawler | 3:25 |
| 7. | "A Thousand Times a Day" | Gary Burr, Gary Nicholson | 3:06 |
| 8. | "Never Bit a Bullet Like This" (featuring Sammy Kershaw) | Jim Foster, Mark C. Petersen | 2:21 |
| 9. | "Forever's Here to Stay" | Larry Bastian, Buddy Cannon | 3:38 |
| 10. | "Hello Darlin'" | Conway Twitty | 2:43 |
| Region | Certification |
|---|---|
| United States (RIAA) [4] | Gold |
Harold Lloyd Jenkins, better known by his stage name Conway Twitty, was an American singer and songwriter. Initially a part of the 1950s rockabilly scene, Twitty was best known as a country music performer. From 1971 to 1976, Twitty received a string of Country Music Association awards for duets with Loretta Lynn. He was inducted into both the Country Music and Rockabilly Halls of Fame.
Samuel Paul Kershaw is an American country music artist. He has released 16 studio albums, with three RIAA platinum certifications and two gold certifications among them. More than 25 singles have entered the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including his only number one hit "She Don't Know She's Beautiful" and 10 more Top 10 hits: "Cadillac Style", "Anywhere but Here", "Haunted Heart", "Queen of My Double-Wide Trailer", "I Can't Reach Her Anymore", "National Working Woman's Holiday", "Third Rate Romance", "Meant to Be", "Vidalia", and "Love of My Life".
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