EARL THOMAS CONLEY
The music business and it's cast of characters are full of tales concerning acts and
their pursuit for success - the long and winding roads traveled to fulfill their
dreams, the rapidity of No. 1 hits, the languorous nature of a career fading away
into nothing, the remembrance of days gone by never to repeated either critically
or commercially.
Once in a blue moon, however, does a true artist glow like the
brightest star and burn out only to reignite with the presence of the Sun. If anyone
in the world of country music deserves to bear such a distinction, it would be Earl
Thomas Conley.
The son a railroad man, Conley left his Portsmouth home at the age of 14, once his father lost his job. After living with his older sister in Ohio, he rejected a scholarship to art school, deciding to join the Army instead. While he was in the military, he fell in love with country music. Following his discharge, he worked a number of blue-collar jobs while he played Nashville clubs at night.
Making little headway, he relocated to Huntsville, AL, where he worked in a steel mill.
There he met Nelson Larkin, a producer who helped the fledgling singer sign to the independent label GRT in 1974. Over the next
2 years, he released 4 singles all credited to "Earl Conley", each one
scraping the lower regions of the country charts. While this was
still respectable for a developing artist, he was soon eclipsed by other artists who
began having hits with his songs. Larkin gave his brother Billy "Leave It Up to Me," which became the first Earl Thomas Conley song to reach the Top 20.
Mel Street's No. 13 hit "Smokey Mountain Memories" and Conway Twitty's version of "This Time I've Hurt Her More (Than She Loves Me),"
reached No. 1 in early 1976. Conley moved to Nashville to write for Nelson Larkin's publishing house.
Eearly 1979 he had his first Top 40 hit, "Dreamin's All I Do."
with Warner Bros. By the end of the year, he began performing and releasing records under his full name, Earl Thomas Conley.
After spending some time reassessing his career and musical direction, he signed to Sunbird Records and began working with Nelson Larkin again. Conley's first single for Sunbird,
"Silent Treatment", was an immediate Top
10 hit late in 1980, and it was quickly followed by the No. 1
smash hit, "Fire and Smoke", early in 1981. Following his breakthrough success, RCA signed Conley to a long-term deal. "Tell Me
Why", his first single for the label, reached No. 10 in late 1981,
soon followed by the No. 16 "After the Love Slips Away." In the summer of
82, Heavenly Bodies kicked off a string of 21 straight Top Ten hits that ran for
7 years. During that time, he had a remarkable 17 No. 1
hits. He set a record with 4 No. one singles from 1984's Don't Make It Easy for Me --
the first time any artist in any genre had 4 No. 1 hits from the same album.
During the mid 80s, the hits just never stopped coming.It seemed
that everything Earl did became a hit and as the 80s turned into
the 90s, there was no reason to believe that this stunning success
would end just as quickly as it began.
But it did. By 1991, Earl's desires to
record were being replaced with desires to get off a treadmill
that was just going too fast. Issues of control in the studio
fueled his growing disenchantment with music business
politics Other pressures and the passing of his father all
combined to pus a drained Earl into taking a break, which led to 7
year hiatus from the studio.
During this period of much need rest and relaxation, Earl was able
to refocus his creative energies and rediscover the joys of
songwriting. By 1997, a reinvigorated Earl had accumulated over 70
songs and started thinking about a return to the studio.
With longtime friends Randy Scruggs and Curly Corwin in tow, Earl
stood behind the mic, rediscovering his voice with every note. By
January 1998, the team emerged with Perpetual Emotion, a 10
track offering containing 5 new songs co-written by Conley and 5
newly-recorded versions of Earl's most popular No.1 hits.
The project neatly sums up the career of one of the industries
most beloved artists, while its title appropriately suggests that
the emotion that fans have come to know through Earl's No. 1 hits
continues to this day in every song he sings.
