NASHVILLE, TN. (RCA Nashville Records) - Few artists have earned the kind of legacy created by Country
Music Hall of Fame legend Eddy Arnold, and on the 60th anniversary of his first hit single in 1945, the consummate country crooner steps back into the spotlight with the August 16 RCA Nashville release of After All These Years.
The dozen tracks on After All These Years mark Arnold's first disc of all-new recordings since 1997, as he lends his warm, classic vocals to a ballad-rich collection produced by “Cowboy” Jack Clement and Jim Malloy.
It was Arnold's love of a good song and a lifetime of singing that helped lure him out of retirement to record After All These Years, a disc celebrated in writer/historian Robert K. Oermann's liner notes as Arnold's 100th album. From the endearingly romantic Cindy Walker-penned title track to the sprightly and playful, day-late, dollar-short comeuppance of “Don't She Look Good” and the loping, love-of-a-good-woman balladry of “It'll Be Her,” the gentleman entertainer offers an elegant collection of songs, some of which he's wanted to record for years.
Sporting Arnold's take on the Roger Miller classic, “King of the Road,” other highlights include the wishful musical magic of “If Only,” Jim Weatherly's “If I Had Lived My Life Without You,” and the celebration of life and remembrance of album opener, “Old Porch Swing,” for which he recently filmed a music video. Arnold also revisits a song he co-wrote - the timelessly beautiful lost-love standard, “You Don't Know Me” - which became a hit three times over: for Ray Charles (No 2 Pop, 1962), Mickey Gilley (No 1 Country, 1981), and began with Arnold's own Top 10 in 1956.
With After All These Years, the now-87-year-old former CMA Entertainer of the Year only adds to the accomplishments that have made him a titan across the landscape of country music history - as a television personality, songwriter, and recording artist - charting an astounding 92 Top 10 singles and 28 No 1 hits that spent a record-setting 145 weeks atop the Billboard charts.
Honored this year with a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award, the man who has sold more than 85 million records (with such classic hits as “Make the World Go Away”) continues to leave his mark on the world of music well beyond the accumulated Billboard chart history that, to this day, ranks him as the No 1 country artist of all time.
