“Don’t Close Your Eyes”
Keith Whitley
Written by Bob McDill
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
July 15, 1988
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
August 13, 1988
For all the conversation around 1986 and 1989 as catalysts for the nineties country boom, I think we’re building a case for 1986 through 1989 being a better framework.
Within the last few months covered by this feature, award-winning and top-selling artists like Ricky Van Shelton, K.T. Oslin, Highway 101, The Desert Rose Band, Rodney Crowell, and Kathy Mattea have earned their first No. 1 singles. This gets at why one of the reasons the country music boom got so big so fast, because it wasn’t just new and young talent like Shelton and Mattea in the mix. They hit the scene at the same time that artists like Crowell, Oslin, Patty Loveless, Vince Gill, Pam Tillis, Marty Stuart, Lorrie Morgan, and Carlene Carter, all artists who’d been plugging away for years and had honed their talents while waiting for Music Row to catch up to them. We would never – could never – have a bench like this again. This week, we meet a future Hall of Famer who was a foundational influence for an entire generation of country singers, some of whom are already in the Hall with him.
Keith Whitley hailed from Ashland, Kentucky, descended from a family of immigrants who settled in the area in the 1840s. He met fellow musician Ricky Skaggs in a bluegrass contest when both were high school teenagers, and they formed a close relationship that led to both young men joining Ralph Stanley’s band in 1974. Whitley spent a decade as a popular bluegrass singer and musician before pursuing a country deal with RCA in the mid-eighties.
As it was with Gill and the Judds, RCA released a debut EP from Whitley to introduce him to the country market. It was called A Hard Act to Follow, but it was anything but, as all of the singles peaked outside the top forty. His debut full-length country solo album, L.A. to Miami, put him on the map with the top fifteen title track, which was followed by three more top ten singles from that set. By this time, Whitley was married to Lorrie Morgan and had a clear vision of what his music should be. He convinced his label to shelve some sessions he was unhappy with, and went back into the studio to record his breakthrough album, Don’t Close Your Eyes, with new producer Garth Fundis.
Folks who have been paying close attention to this feature will recognize that name from many excellent No. 1 singles from Don Williams and Trisha Yearwood. Fundis assembled a crew of musicians that worked with Whitley to craft a new traditionalist sound that fully showcases his prodigious vocal talent. Two top ten singles preceded the title track at radio, which became his first No. 1 single.
I’ll bypass the temptation to just say, “It‘s ‘Don’t Close Your Eyes.’ Of course, it gets an A.” Because even though this record’s impact and quality are self-evident, they didn’t happen by chance. We have a composition from another Hall of Famer, Bob McDill, which is a complex, sophisticated, and adult character study. It’s delivered with the same intimacy that it is written, so much so that it feels like we’re in the room with them and witnessing something incredibly private and emotionally revealing.
“Don’t Close Your Eyes” captures why country music mattered so much at this juncture. Whitley says on record what most men would be afraid to say out loud outside their bedroom, and probably inside of it as well. What a heartbreaking request this man is giving. I know you think of him when we make love. Please keep your eyes open and look at me, and maybe you will see that I love you in a way that he never will.
That’s the kind of conversation that nobody is sharing at work the next morning, but will result in a trip to the music store on the way home if you hear it on the radio. The men of this era gave permission to their male listeners to feel their feelings, and helped their female listeners understand what their boyfriends and husbands couldn’t put into words, just like the women were starting to do in reverse.
Keith Whitley’s arrival is a flashing sign announcing that the golden era is officially here, and the only tragedy is that Whitley didn’t live long enough to contribute to it and take satisfaction from his influence on artists like Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks.
“Don’t Close Your Eyes” gets an A.
Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties]
Previous: George Strait, “Baby Blue” |
Next: Restless Heart, “The Bluest Eyes in Texas”
Bob McDill is my favorite country writer. He just has an incredible gift. This song is heartbreaking.
According to McDill, he got the idea for the song while watching the film California Suite. Maggie Smith is married to Michael Caine, who is gay. It’s a marriage of convenience. In the film, she asks him that when they make love one night that this time, don’t close your eyes.
Keith Whitley had been on my radar up to this point in the same nominal sense that he was most country music listeners’ radar. His voice cut through the noise and helped sell his moderately successful mid-80s hits, even though it was clear he hadn’t yet found his sea legs. But my response to hearing this one for the first time has been quite effectively conveyed in multiple You Tube “reaction videos” where newcomers to Whitley’s music are immediately taken by the opening notes of his vocal. It’s a classic example of the right artist finding the perfect song….and leave it to Bob McDill to help take yet another great artist’s career to the next level with a raw lyric with a power that you effectively describe.
I’ve always been curious as to what would have become of Whitley’s career had he lived. Would he have rode the momentum and persevered amidst the brutal competition of the 90s or would his star have faded as quickly as Rodney Crowell’s did? And would his widow Lorrie Morgan have broken out into the mainstream if Keith had lived or was it his passing that elevated her stature as his widow enough for a prolonged stretch of solo hits? Both make for interesting counterfactuals. Whatever the case, this song stands out as the apex of Whitley’s career and, like so many legendary songs, it’s not clear if people appreciated at the time just how iconic of a song as it would be.
Grade: A
And just as a heads-up, I notice that on the website’s 1988 roster, the link to George Strait’s “Baby Blue” disappeared with the emergence of Whitley’s song. As I was doing my deep dive into past reviews in the past months, I noticed other #1’s that had posted reviews but the links weren’t on the yearly rosters. Two that come to mind are Randy Travis’s “Before You Kill Us All” and Trisha Yearwood’s “How Do I Live?” I only happened upon those reviews when it occurred to me that both were #1’s but I hadn’t seen the reviews, so I did a site search and found them lingering in purgatory.
This is happening a lot in this feature. Thank you for flagging it. I’m not sure if I’m forgetting to do it or I’m not saving properly. I’ll get those missing ones added in now.
Hey, I see I’m not the only one re-reading all these articles. I started with the Sirius, moved on to the 90’s (I’m in 1998) and will enthusiastically read the 80’s again. Great site and great stories.
“For all the conversation around 1986 and 1989 as catalysts for the nineties country boom, I think we’re building a case for 1986 through 1989 being a better framework.”
Ditto. for my money that golden era goes through at least 1991.
In the wrong set of hands, this song could be bombastic and overwrought. But the special voice of Keith Whitley delivers this Bob McDill song where it belongs, which is in the top echelon of country songs ever. Hard to top one of the greatest vocal talents of the genre pairing with one of the greatest songwriting talents of the genre. It’s easy to see why Whitley was so influential for such a tragically short commercial career.
Being much more of a blugrass fan than most country listeners, I had been aware of Whitley for at least seven or eight years before his breakthrough at radio. He appeared as lead vocalist and guitar on three really good J.D. Crowe & The New South albums. Before that he appeared on several Ralph Stanley albums.
In 1982, J.D. Crowe, knowing of Whitley’s love for traditional country music, produced an album on him titled SOMEWHERE BETWEEN. The album features Keith’s first stab at “I Never Go Around Mirrors” (without the extra verse written later) and what I think was the first recording of the song ‘Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind”. The original album was not a best seller but it was a good album. In 2000 Rounder reissued the album as SAD SONGS & WALTZES, stripping off much of the original backing tracks (played by members of the New South), remixing and adding a more contemporary backing. The original album was augmented by four tracks recorded by Rounder for a record that never materialized and the title track that was left off the original album because it was felt that the album was already too ballad-heavy.
According to PragueFrank’s website, the original musicians were Keith Whitley [vocal/guitar], Ricky Rector [rhythm guitar], Kelly Black & Billy McClelland [electric guitar], Weldon Myrick [steel], Michael Rhodes [electric bass], Jimmy Gunn [drums], Glen Duncan [fiddle], Jon Probst [piano], Dale Ann Bradley, Steve Gulley, Alison Krauss, Wes Hightower [harmony vocals]. The overdub sessions included: Wendy Miller [vocals/mandolin], Pete Wade [electric guitar], Doug Jernigan [steel/dobro], Steve Bryant [bass], Kenny Malone [drums], Bobby Slone [fiddle], Jon Probst [piano] + The Jordanaires.
I suspect that when his time as a country star was over, like Skaggs, Whitley might have returned to bluegrass and kept recording.
Paul — I found out not long ago that Moe Bandy recorded ”Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind” first, for his 1977 album I’m Sorry for You My Friend. I haven’t heard it, but Keith’s version was great, as was the whole Sad Songs & Waltzes album.
This single, and the album it was on, absolutely blew me away as a listener.
As much as any other artist, Conway Twitty set the table for this kind of country music confessional.
What felt wild, was that one of Nashville’s young guns was doing it as well and as convincingly as the master.
The sound Whitley takes to the top of the charts here sounds fully realized. His mature beyond-his-years vocals sound like they were parachuted in from some past golden era as he is simultaneously declaring the arrival of another golden era in country history.
Whitley had been building to this moment his entire musical career, but when it arrived it felt special and spectacular.
There was an element of newness to it despite his not being a “new” artist at all.
Music historians love to set goal posts to frame significant events and describe eras. It’s a convenient device to organize thoughts and centre statements about how genres evolve.
It is, however, seldom accurate.
The spill-over and flow through of influences is less tidy and clear.
What is interesting, is that special artists were getting their opportunity en masse in Nashville in the late eighties.
With this classic country performance, Whitley became as much the signature male vocalist of this generation as Randy Travis.
He was a new generation’s Lefty Frizzell or George Jones and his career was breaking right before our eyes.
This is a really interesting train of thought that would work well for an expanded thought piece. Our site would benefit from some writing informed by very knowledgeable fans of 60s to 80s country music. We’ve got a lot of great archival writing from Paul Dennis about the early parts of this era especially. We haven’t really come into our own yet back then and were really more focused on new music. I’m looking forward to some of his writing from back in the day once I get it formatted for modern standards. I would love to showcase some more writing in that vein.