“The Church On Cumberland Road”
Shenandoah
Written by Bob DiPiero, Dennis Robbins, and John Scott Sherrill
Radio & Records
#1 (2 weeks)
March 31 – April 7, 1989
Billboard
#1 (2 weeks)
April 22 – April 29, 1989
Shenandoah’s No. 1 hits are scattered across two decades and three labels, but their most satisfying chart toppers all came during their first run on Sony, including the first of three No. 1 singles that will close out the decade for the band.
Shenandoah got its start as a house band in Alabama that was composed of local touring musician and lead singer Marty Raybon, alongside former session musicians Jim Seales, Mike McGuire, Stan Thorn, and Ralph Ezell. They leveraged a friendship with songwriter Robert Byrne, who would co-produce their debut album after they signed with Columbia, They had early difficulties agreeing on a band name, and their label’s suggested choice of Shenandoah would come back to haunt them once they made it big.
But under the moniker, their self-titled debut album eventually produced a top ten hit, setting the stage for their most successful album, The Road Not Taken. After lead single “Mama Knows” went top five, the album’s next three singles went to the top. All three have remained enduring classics, starting with the best “get me to the church in time” song that country music ever got.
Shenandoah was a band of family men who avoided songs about drinking and cheating, so an uptempo romp like this hits their sweet spot. He partied a little too hard and overslept, suggesting this man is a lightweight who didn’t eat enough before his one night of debauchery. Raybon is the perfect vocalist to deliver this story, as one can imagine him easily choosing a life of teetotalism after having so much “fun” that he almost missed his wedding.
An entertaining start to an impressive run from an underrated band.
“The Church On Cumberland Road” gets an A.
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I was already a fan of Shenandoah after Raybon’s moving performance of their first major hit, “Mama Knows”. This rockin’ follow-up kept their momentum going in a big way. I always figured this song was about the narrator getting to the church in time for his wedding, but when I was 11 I didn’t put together that his tardiness was related to bachelor party debauchery. The concept could have come from pretty much any 80s movie but works very nicely as a song here, probably in part because Raybon makes for such an unlikely deviant. Once again, my county fair came through and booked Shenandoah to perform in the summer of 1990. Unfortunately, it rained that night and the show was canceled, leading my cousin and I to go to the theater to see the film “Arachnophobia” as Plan B. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel as Shenandoah was booked to return the following summer and the weather didn’t stop them in August 1991. The band had a few howlers over their run on radio, but I primarily remember them for their numerous classic hits, polished up further by Marty Raybon’s first-rate vocals. They endured deeper into the 90s than quite a few of their contemporaries.
Out of curiosity, how did Shenandoah’s name end up coming back to haunt them?
Grade: A
Their departure from CBS/Columbia was tied to being sued over their band name. The label didn’t back them in the dispute, despite choosing the name for them. They lost all the money that they’d made on the road to lawsuits, and had to file bankruptcy. Doing so voided their CBS/Columbia contract. They had some hits on RCA and Liberty, but they never returned to the gold-selling level of their final two Columbia albums and a budget hit package featuring material from those two albums.
Shenendoah was a name that had been used frequently by folk groups of the past. I seem to recall that one or more of them may have copyrighted some variant of the name (such as Shenandoah Boys or Shenandoah Valley and sued for copyright infringement). As the story goes Shenandoah owned the rights to the name ‘Diamond Rio’ (a name they were using until their label, CBS, decided that they needed a new name).Having just emerged from litigation by two other bands over the name ‘Shenandoah’, Shenandoah was not about to put another band through that agony and simply signed over the rights to the Diamond Rio name to Marty Roe and company.
Shenandoah was always my favorite of the newer vocal groups, mainly because I really like Marty Raybon as lead vocalist.
Shenandoah sounded so perfectly suited to the moment, country but contemporary.
I actually liked their ballads more than their uptempo material. Raybon is an underrated lead vocalist.
I always thought the line “How can a bored-out Ford go so slow” was “How can a boy in a Ford go so slow?”
I was no mechanic.
This song has great urgency to it, as if he really cannot wait any longer to get to the church. Probably my favorite Shenandoah song, though Ghost In This House is excellent as well.