Why “Texas Hold ’Em” is No. 1 on the country chart—but not on country radio.
In the summer of 1984, Lionel Richie, in the middle of an epic run of pop and R&B hits from his blockbuster album, chose a fourth single from the LP that was very different from its predecessors. Richie had already stretched himself sonically on the calypso-adjacent “” . For the follow-up, Richie went with “Stuck on You,” a twangy ballad that for all the world sounded like a country song.
This was not the first time the Alabama-born Richie had dabbled in country disguised as R&B, or R&B fronting like country. When he was with ’70s funk-pop troupe the Commodores, their 1979 hit “” for Kenny Rogers, a dramatic, unclassifiable ballad that thanks to Kenny’s “Gambler” image topped both the Hot 100 pop chart and Hot Country Singles.
This, in the end, may be the best and most important thing about Beyoncé topping the country chart: It reminds the country audience they already love this artist’s music, and it signals to those leery of genre trespassers that she belongs. It vindicates other Black country performers like Giddens,for them on the charts.
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