“You’re Gettin’ to Me Again”
Jim Glaser
Written by Woody Bumar and Pat McManus
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
September 15, 1984
Tompall and the Glaser Brothers had a pretty good run as a country band, but they never made it higher than No. 2 on either of the country charts. Jim Glaser went one better with his only big radio hit.
Good luck finding that hit today, mind you. The only version on Spotify is a pretty good live cover of it by Lorrie Morgan, though I was able to embed a YouTube clip of the original recording below.
“You’re Gettin’ to Me Again” has an opening line for the ages – “I wake up in the morning, but I don’t shine.” It doesn’t fully deliver on the promise of that opening, and Glaser isn’t a strong enough singer to overcome the “everything plus the kitchen sink” production approach used here. Seriously, by the time they started with the handclaps, my eyes rolled back in my head.
Glaser sounds like a seventies AM folkie here, but this would work really well as a straight ahead country song, as the Morgan live cover suggests. It’s a shame Alan Jackson didn’t cover this instead of “Who’s Cheatin’ Who,” because this was a uniquely eighties hit that he could’ve improved upon.
Glaser didn’t have another significant hit after this, though he did win the ACM Top New Male Vocalist Award on the strength of his biggest hit. After three albums in the eighties, he released his onl other solo album in 2004. Glaser passed away in 2019 at the age of 81.
“You’re Gettin’ to Me Again” gets a C.
Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties
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According to Record World, “Rings” made it to #1 for Tompall & The Glaser Brothers in 1971. They did a tremendous job with the song.
I got to see Jim Glaser on a package show at the Five Seasons Center in Cedar Rapids Iowa in January 1983. While his act was not as dynamic as the show put on by Tompall and the Glaser Brothers, he was an excellent singer and put on a very entertaining show. Jim released three albums on Noble Vision Records before the label folded (or was absorbed) into MCA. Unfortunately, none of these three albums were ever issued on CD. One CD was issued in 2004 but includes none of the material on the Noble Vision releases.
This song was contained on the album MAN IN THE MIRROR. It was a really good album and Noble Vision released six singles from the album, including (IMHO) the best song on the album “If I Could Only Dance With You” which reached #10.
Jim issued a number of singles in the years preceding the Noble Vision recordings including his version of “Woman, Woman”, easily his best known song, which reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 for Gary Puckett & The Union Gap in 1968.
I think you short-changed Jim, in giving the song a “C”. I would call it a solid “B”
Glaser won the ACM Tope New Male Vocalist award because he was a spectacular singer.
Listen to his control and range. It’s wild.
The busy production on this single distracts from the subtle strength of his singing skills.
This certainly does sonically slot right in with what I imagine Gordon Lightfoot or Jim Croce sounded like on ’70s’ am radio.
I guess for that reason, I had absolutely no idea this was a mid-’80s country hit.
Coming back to this song because I went on a Jim Glaser kick tonight. He’s honestly a remarkable singer. Like Peter said, his range and control is excellent. If I Could Only Dance with you, like Paul Said, is probably the single that does him the most justice.