“It’s Just a Matter of Time”
Randy Travis
Written by Brook Benton, Belford Hendricks, and Clyde Otis
Radio & Records
#1 (2 weeks)
October 27 – November 3, 1989
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
December 2, 1989
It was an ambitious move on the part of Randy Travis to launch his fourth studio album with a doo-wop flavored cover of an R&B standard.
Of course, “It’s Just a Matter of Time” had already been a No. 1 country hit for Sonny James in 1970, after being a major R&B and pop hit for its co-writer Brook Benton. The Benton version places the vocal front and center, and James doesn’t stray too far from that approach.
Travis, on the other hand, goes full Lost in the Fifties Milsap here, like Reba did the previous year with “Sunday Kind of Love.” The strings aren’t as intrusive as the background singers, but all of it is simply too much for a still young Randy Travis to navigate. He’d have been better off taking his cues from Ricky Van Shelton on this one, stripping the song down to the studs and pairing a pure country vocal with classic fiddle and steel instrumentation.
If he’d waited until the This is Me era to tackle this one, I think he’d have pulled off the full breadth of what he attempted here. It’s not a bad performance by any standard, but it’s a little out of his reach at this stage of his career.
Travis continued to be a No. 1 hitmaker into the nineties and 2000s, starting with the next single from this project, “Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart.” You can read about it in our companion feature covering Every No. Single of the Nineties.
“It’s Just a Matter of Time” gets a B-.
Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties
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Here’s a rare case of a cover that I actually knew existed before my time. Typically, I only find out they were covers when I read about it in this feature. And even in this case, I only know about the previous versions because a coworker pointed it out a few months ago.
I agree with most of what you’re saying here. This wasn’t the right song for Randy Travis. I appreciate his effort to broaden his musical horizons but the notes this song required simply weren’t in Travis’s wheelhouse. It still mostly sounds good and I liked the arrangement and background vocals, but there are moments where his performance misses the mark quite noticeably. We’ll see if I ever get around to writing the hundreds and hundreds of reviews of songs from the 80s and 90s as I promised. It’s a pretty high mountain to crest. But in case I don’t, I’ll say right now that his follow-up “Hard Rock Bottom of My Heart” was favorite Randy Travis song. This song was in some ways an interesting preview of it as his sound was becoming more experimental, but he accomplished with that one what he fell a bit short of here.
Grade: B
It was originally recorded for a multi artist covers compilation album Warner Bros put out, titled Rock Rhythm & Blues. Randy was the only country artist included. I suspect he didn’t choose the song.
But I do believe that he liked the performance so much that he requested it be a single for him and on his album
I actually had no idea he recorded this song for a while, let alone that it topped the charts. I actually love it. So different from what you expect from Randy, but I think he tackles it well. In regards to the country versions of this song, I do prefer Sonny James version though.
An unexpected pivot to a more sophisticated sound complete with a recitation, all performed by Randy Travis?
Yes, please!
This performance is among my favorites of his if for only how audacious it was for the saviour of country music to go this stylistic route.
As Conway Twitty would call out at the end of his “Rainy Night in Georgia” duet with Sam Moore, “Ah, Brooke Benton! Where are you, son”