{"id":19689,"date":"2020-08-01T10:03:15","date_gmt":"2020-08-01T17:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=19689"},"modified":"2020-08-01T10:05:26","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T17:05:26","slug":"video-web-exclusive-interview-randy-travis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2020\/08\/video-web-exclusive-interview-randy-travis\/","title":{"rendered":"Video &#038; Web-Exclusive Interview Randy Travis"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Video Feature &amp; Web-Exclusive Interview<\/h3>\n<h1>Artist: RANDY TRAVIS<\/h1>\n<h2>Song: \u201cFool\u2019s Love Affair\u201d<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"660\" height=\"415\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/43sDmJFJtLc\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>RANDY TRAVIS DEBUTS PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED \u201cFOOL\u2019S LOVE AFFAIR\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>Randy Travis debuts his first never-before-heard single since his 2013 stroke, \u201cFool\u2019s Love Affair.\u201d It\u2019s been 35 years since he recorded his first number one single, \u201cOn the Other Hand,\u201d and even though his health is not as it once was\u2014to this day he feels life is still good.<\/p>\n<p>Travis\u2019 impact on country music has been long lasting. Countless artists credit him as an influence and inspiration in their music and career. He has 22 No. 1 singles, 31 Top-10 smashes and more than 40 appearances in feature films and television shows. His honors include seven Grammy Awards, 11 Academy of Country Music statuettes, 10 American Music Awards, eight Dove Awards from the Gospel Music Association and Song of the Year honors for \u201cOn the Other Hand\u201d (1986), \u201cForever and Ever Amen\u201d (1987) and \u201cThree Wooden Crosses\u201d (2002).<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19692\" style=\"width: 670px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19692\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19692\" src=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Randy-Travis-03-photo-credit-Robert-Tractenberg.jpg\" alt=\"Randy Travis-03 - photo credit Robert Tractenberg\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Randy-Travis-03-photo-credit-Robert-Tractenberg.jpg 660w, https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Randy-Travis-03-photo-credit-Robert-Tractenberg-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-19692\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Randy Travis, photo credit: Robert Tractenberg<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The previously unreleased \u201cFool\u2019s Love Affair\u201d was written by Keith Stegall, Charlie Monk and Milton Brown in the early 80s. Travis recorded it as a demo. Monk, fondly known as \u201cThe Mayor of Music Row,\u201d is also the long-time host of SiriusXM\u2019s \u201cPrime Country\u201d format. Three years ago, he approached Travis and wife Mary Travis about releasing the demo, but they only had a cassette version of the song.<\/p>\n<p>As Monk recalls, \u201cRandy had a huge career\u2014the greatest career I\u2019ve ever been involved with. I went to Kyle Lehning [Travis\u2019 producer] and played him the cassette. Lehning said, \u2018Charlie, it sounds like a demo and it sounds like a cassette. I don\u2019t know if I can help it. Where\u2019s the multitrack?\u2019 I said, hell, I don\u2019t know. I then spent years looking all over Nashville for a multitrack of this song. Couple of years ago, I was focusing more on my radio side, and I put my building on Music Row for sale. I\u2019d had the building for over 25 years and my wife wanted me to clean it out. I made it real homey and trashy, like any hillbilly publisher would. I brought some boxes back home. My daughter Capucine said, \u2018With all this junk you have\u2014the Country Music Hall of Fame might be interested in some of it.\u2019 They came out, assessed it and they were sending a truck for it. 50 years of my life was getting ready to walk out the door.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Monk continues, \u201cI was fumbling with one of the boxes that Capucine had brought to the house. It fell over and I looked down there and on the big 4-inch box\u2014the title \u2018Fool\u2019s Love Affair\u2019 was on it. It wasn\u2019t a Randy Travis box because we\u2019d done other demos of a couple of girls that day. As Mary and I recently talked about it, we felt it was God putting a hand on that box. Because the next day it was about to walk out of my house to the Hall of Fame, and I would have never seen it again. That was the multitrack of \u2018Fool\u2019s Love Affair.\u2019 I called Kyle and he said, \u2018Charlie, don\u2019t mess with it much. You\u2019ve got to bake it. If you do anything else with it, all the sound will tear off.\u2019 I didn\u2019t know what the hell he was talking about. But Kyle took it some place and baked it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-19691\" src=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Randy-Travis-02.jpg\" alt=\"Randy Travis\" width=\"660\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Randy-Travis-02.jpg 660w, https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Randy-Travis-02-300x295.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Kyle Lehning has produced virtually every album released by Randy Travis. He said, \u201cCharlie brought me the multitrack. I took it over to [multi-Grammy award-winning] Reid Shippen, a buddy of mine who has a great studio in the neighborhood I live in. He\u2019s a great engineer and producer who has worked with Dierks Bentley and many others. He has a restoration company too. Anyone who\u2019s worked with old tapes knows if you don\u2019t bake the old tapes, the oxide will come off. So, they baked the tape and transferred it to Pro Tools. That was the first time I\u2019d heard the multitrack.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lehning was definitely impressed with the recording: \u201cIt was recorded very well. All the instruments were recorded clearly and it even had background vocals, which is rare for a demo. I just added Randy\u2019s longtime steel player, Steven Henson, who also played electric guitar, and Larry Franklin who played fiddle. That\u2019s really all I did to take the song from a demo to a more complete, finished record. I mixed it and we mastered it. Randy\u2019s trademark vocal was real good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We asked Monk, how the idea of the song came to the songwriters. He said, \u201cIt literally was something that somebody said. I don\u2019t remember the exact words but he were rendezvousing with this hot chick at some motel in town. People talk about the right and wrong but back in those days they didn\u2019t talk about doing it often\u2014they talked about doing it just the one time. In the song, a man meets a woman, or a woman meets a man, at a hotel. They are both guilty, if there is guilt to be had. The guy who said he had the rendezvous was of course cutesy about it and cool about it. He turned around and said, \u2018I kinda wished I didn\u2019t do this some time.\u2019 But we didn\u2019t use that in the song.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We asked Kyle Lehning, what was unique about the way Randy interpreted songs and the amazing way he delivered his vocals. Lehning said \u201cThat was the great joy of getting to work with Randy\u2014he\u2019s always been a natural. We never had to have conversations about phrasing. I can count on one hand the number of times I said to him, \u2018why don\u2019t you try it like this\u2019\u2014instead of the way he approached it. In our business, that\u2019s rare. Randy was the same artist on the inside as he was on the outside. There was no pretense. Nobody was pulling the wool over anybody\u2019s eyes about who and what Randy was about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-19690\" src=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Randy-Travis-01.jpeg\" alt=\"Randy Travis\" width=\"660\" height=\"660\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Randy-Travis-01.jpeg 660w, https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Randy-Travis-01-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Randy-Travis-01-300x300.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Lehning continued, \u201cMartha Sharp [Sr. VP of Warner Music Nashville\u2019s A&amp;R] was a huge part of the success early on. She came to us with great songs. She had a great sense of material and knew and understood what Randy was about. So we had a really good resource with Martha. I was listening to a lot. Randy was listening to a lot and writing a lot. We had an agreement\u2014a benefit of the doubt clause. If he had a strong sense of a song he wanted to do, and I wasn\u2019t convinced or wasn\u2019t crazy about it, we\u2019d try it. We\u2019d go in the studio with musicians and it would be one of the songs we\u2019d try. Literally, within about 10 minutes of messing around with it, we could tell if it was going to be a fit\u2014if it was going to work.<\/p>\n<p>Lehning and team worked hard to make sure they recorded the best songs. He recalls, \u201cRandy was a songwriter, but he was competing with the best songwriters in the world. So, for him to get one of his songs through the gauntlet between Martha, Elizabeth and me was not an easy thing to do. If he came to the table with a tune, we\u2019d say \u2018yeah, but is that really better than something Don Schlitz or Paul Overstreet or one of the great songwriters in town had. We were only going to have 10 or 11 songs on the album, and we\u2019re not talking about B sides. We were just trying to make the best record. It was real interesting to note the demo of \u201cI Told You So\u201d was also on this same tape box.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With this previously unreleased track \u201cFool\u2019s Love Affair,\u201d Mary Travis is hopeful this song will be another number one for Randy Travis. She said, \u201cLife is still good.\u201d To which Randy smiled and interjected, \u201cYes, it is.\u201d Mary continued saying, \u201cHe\u2019s still singing. We just sing a different song now. We feel so blessed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Video Feature &amp; Web-Exclusive Interview Artist: RANDY TRAVIS Song: \u201cFool\u2019s Love Affair\u201d RANDY TRAVIS DEBUTS PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED \u201cFOOL\u2019S LOVE AFFAIR\u201d Randy Travis debuts his first never-before-heard single since his 2013 stroke, \u201cFool\u2019s Love Affair.\u201d It\u2019s been 35 years since he recorded his first number one single, \u201cOn the Other Hand,\u201d and even though his health [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7725],"tags":[11745,11746,9455,2273,3736,11747,11748,6007,11749,11750,7566,11751,11752,3010,11753,7978,8633,11754,11755,11756,3942,11757,11758,11759,8548,11760,11761,11762],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19689"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19689"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19696,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19689\/revisions\/19696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}