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Randy Owen | |
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![]() Owen in 2013 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Randy Yeuell Owen |
Born | Fort Payne, Alabama, U.S. | December 13, 1949
Genres | Country, southern rock, bluegrass |
Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar |
Years active | 1969–present |
Labels | RCA Nashville (in Alabama) DMP/New Revolution (solo) Broken Bow (solo) |
Member of | Alabama |
Website | randyowen |
Randy Yeuell Owen (born December 13, 1949) is an American country musician. He is best known for his role as the lead singer of Alabama, a country rock band that saw tremendous mainstream success throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Alabama became the most successful band in country music, releasing over 20 gold and platinum records, dozens of number 1 singles, and selling over 75 million records during their career. Owen also maintains a career as a solo performer. He released his solo debut One on One in late 2008 and charted two singles from it.
Owen was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2019.
Randy Yeuell Owen grew up on a farm near Fort Payne, Alabama. He is of English and Scots ancestry. He dropped out of high school in the ninth grade, but he returned and graduated from Fort Payne High in 1969. In the late 1960s, Owen and his cousin, Teddy Gentry, began playing music together. They recruited another cousin, Jeff Cook, to form a band, which they called Wildcountry. Their first public performance was at a high school talent show, which they won.
Owen's music career was put on hiatus as he earned an English degree from Jacksonville State University. He was also a member of Pi Kappa Phi, Delta Epsilon Chapter. Upon his graduation, however, the three cousins moved into an apartment in Anniston, Alabama, and by 1973 were pursuing a full-time music career. In 1980, the band, now called Alabama, were signed to a recording contract by RCA Records and quickly reached country superstardom. For the next twenty-two years, Alabama had a tremendous impact on country music, attracting a younger group of listeners, crossing over into pop radio, and paving the way for groups to be successful on country radio.
Alabama released 21 gold, platinum, and multi-platinum albums, 42 singles that topped the charts at #1, and sold over 75 million records in total. They have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and were named the Academy of Country Music's Artist of the Decade in 1989, and the Recording Industry Association of America's Country Group of the Century in 1999.
In May 2002, the band announced their retirement during the Academy of Country Music Awards telecast. For the rest of 2002 and 2003, they performed throughout the country in their American Farewell Tour. In 2005, the band was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Owen lives on his cattle ranch outside Fort Payne. He currently serves as an at-large member of the Board of Trustees of Jacksonville State University. In 2007, he was a judge on Season 5 of the country talent show Nashville Star .
Owen took over hosting duties for Country Gold, the Saturday night classic country request program on Westwood One, beginning July 21, 2012. The show was reformatted upon Owen's arrival, switching to a pre-recorded format (the show's predecessor, Country Gold Saturday Night, was originally live; requests are handled, as they had been with Owen's immediate predecessor, by an answering machine) voicetracked from Owen's home, drifting to a more open-ended "traditional country" format (one that includes more 1990s songs and even some 2000s songs along with country-pop tunes more commonly associated with the classic hits format while moving away from the core songs of the classic country format) and shortening the show from five hours to four. (In protest of the change of format, previous Country Gold host Rowdy Yates relaunched his version of the show as "The Original Country Gold" through Compass Media Networks a year later.) Owen ended his run as host on April 2, 2016, with Terri Clark replacing him the following weekend.
Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
US Country [1] | US [1] | US Indie [1] | ||
One on One |
| 14 | 77 | 5 |
Year | Single | Peak positions | Album |
---|---|---|---|
US Country [2] | |||
2008 | "Braid My Hair" | 45 | One on One |
"Like I Never Broke Her Heart" | 41 | ||
2009 | "Holding Everything" (with Megan Mullins) | — | |
"—" denotes releases that did not chart | |||
2022 Gaither Easter Marathon “I Need Thee Every Hour” featuring Randy Owen and The Issacs.
Alabama is an American country music band formed in Fort Payne, Alabama, in 1969. The band was founded by Randy Owen and his cousin Teddy Gentry. They were soon joined by another cousin, Jeff Cook. First operating under the name Wildcountry, the group toured the Southeast bar circuit in the early 1970s, and began writing original songs. They changed their name to Alabama in 1977 and following the chart success of two singles, were approached by RCA Records for a recording deal.
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music and a genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues and is focused generally on electric guitars and vocals. Author Scott B. Bomar speculates the term "Southern rock" may have been coined in 1972 by Mo Slotin, writing for Atlanta's underground paper, The Great Speckled Bird, in a review of an Allman Brothers Band concert.
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Tony Wade Hayes is an American country music artist. Signed to Columbia Records in 1994, he made his debut that year with his gold-certified album Old Enough to Know Better. Its title track "Old Enough to Know Better", which served as his debut single, reached number one on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. He released two more albums for Columbia Nashville: On a Good Night in 1996 and When the Wrong One Loves You Right in 1998. Later albums were released on Monument Records and independently. In addition to "Old Enough to Know Better", Hayes reached top ten on the Billboard charts with "I'm Still Dancin' with You", "Don't Stop", "What I Meant to Say", "On a Good Night", and "The Day That She Left Tulsa ".
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"Christmas in Dixie" is a song by American country band Alabama. It was released as a single in December 1982 from the RCA Nashville compilation album A Country Christmas. The Christmas song celebrates the holiday in the southern United States. This song was included on Alabama's first Christmas album released in 1985, and has since been included on many Christmas compilations in both the country and all-genre music fields. In 2017, Alabama updated the song by re-recording the unplugged version of it for their third Christmas album titled American Christmas which celebrated its 35th anniversary when they first released the song in 1982. It is the only song credited solely to the four band members, and the one of only two songs to feature a songwriting credit for drummer Mark Herndon.
Greatest Hits Vol. II is the second compilation album by American country music band Alabama. The album was released by RCA Records in 1991, and has since been certified platinum for sales of 1 million units by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Greatest Hits Vol. III is the third greatest hits package released by the American country music band Alabama. The album was released by RCA Records in 1994, and has since been certified double platinum for sales of 2 million units by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Jeffrey Alan Cook was an American country musician. He was best known for being a founding member of the band Alabama, in which he contributed to occasional lead vocals, guitar, fiddle, piano and other musical instruments.
"My Home's in Alabama" is a song written by Randy Owen and Teddy Gentry, and recorded by American country music band Alabama. It was released in January 1980 as the second single and title track from the album My Home's in Alabama.
"I Wanna Come Over" is a song written by Richard Berardi and Michael Berardi, and performed by American country music band Alabama. It was first recorded by pop and rock singer Ronnie Spector in 1978 as the B-side of her cover of the Bonnie Tyler song "It's a Heartache". It was released in September 1979 as the first single to feature drummer Mark Herndon from the album My Home's in Alabama.
"Tennessee River" is a song written by Randy Owen, and recorded by American country music band Alabama, of which Owen is the lead vocalist. It was recorded in April 1980 as the third single from the album My Home's in Alabama. The song was the group's first No. 1 song on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles chart.
Feels So Right is the fifth studio album by American country music band Alabama, released in February 1981 by RCA Nashville. It was their first #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. On the all-genre Billboard 200 the album peaked at #16 and stayed for more than three years, longer than any other Alabama album.
The Closer You Get... is the seventh studio album by American country music band Alabama, released in 1983. All three singles from this album — "The Closer You Get", "Lady Down on Love" and "Dixieland Delight" — reached number one on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in 1983. The album itself reached number ten on the Billboard 200, becoming the band's highest-charting album. Considered a stylistic move towards a more pop-friendly sound, the album was described as a mix of "easy listening" country pop and neotraditional country by AllMusic's Vik Iyengar.
Roll On is the eighth studio album by American country music band Alabama, released in 1984.
Cheap Seats is the fifteenth studio album by the American country music band Alabama, released in 1993 by RCA Records. It produced the singles "Reckless", "T.L.C. A.S.A.P." and the title track. Of these, "Reckless" was the band's final Number One hit on the Billboard country charts until 2011's "Old Alabama", and "The Cheap Seats" was the band's first single in fourteen years to miss Top Ten of the charts. Alabama produced the album along with Josh Leo and Larry Michael Lee, except for "Angels Among Us", which bassist Teddy Gentry produced.
"The Cheap Seats" is a song by American country music group Alabama, released on April 4, 1994, as the third and final single from their album Cheap Seats. "The Cheap Seats" was written by Marcus Hummon and Randy Sharp, and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in mid-1994. It also peaked at number 6 on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks. The song was used as the theme song for Minor League Baseball games broadcast on ESPN in August and September 1994 during the 1994-95 MLB strike.