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ALABAMA
TWENTIETH CENTURY

The music business turned up the heat on country music's most popular and enduring band this year and the group responded with the outpouring of creativity that you hear on Alabama's Twentieth Century.

Once RCA's executives got a copy of "God Must Have Spent a Little More Time On You", the collection's first hit single, they urged Alabama to deliver the album ahead of schedule.

"We were going to just relax, sit back and have a wonderful time," reports lead singer Randy Owen. "Then when they heard 'God Must Have Spent a Little More Time On You,' they went, 'Wow. How fast can you get this sucker done?' It really put the pressure on and took a lot of extra effort. But you know what? When things are toughest, that's when this band is the closest."

Alabama's Randy Owen, Teddy Gentry, Jeff Cook and Mark Herndon all shine on Twentieth Century. This is the band's 22nd studio album for RCA, but one of the hallmarks of Alabama is its ability to continually reinvent its sound to always sound fresh.

"God Must Have Spent a Little More Time On You" features background harmonies by the redhot quintet 'N Sync, which had already enjoyed a big pop hit with the song.

"I have always believed that music is music, that a great song is a great song," comments Owen. "If we put aside our prejudices and just go for what is truly a hit, I think music in general benefits, and so do its fans." Alabama's previous disc partners have included Lionel Richie and K.T. Oslin.

Country broadcasters went wild when they heard the new collaboration and began airing a pirated copy of "God Must Have Spent a Little More Time On You." This pressured RCA to issue it five weeks before its intended release date. That, in turn, accelerated the pace of Twentieth Century's production.
"Sometimes in your greatest hour of stress you can rise to a new level of creativity," says Owen. He co-wrote six of the album's songs, including the tender fatherhood ballad "I Love You Enough To Let You Go," the zippy romp "Life's Too Short To Love This Fast" and the gently soulful ode to enduring commitment "Too Much Love."

He and Alabama's Teddy Gentry are among the collborators on "Write It Down In Blue", an irresistably memorable midtempo meditation on the end of a relationship. They also provided the album's sexy uptempo rocker "I'm In That Kind of Mood" and its romantic ballad "Little Things". Gentry sings lead on "Then We Remember", which has a swaying r&b groove. Guitarist Jeff Cook wrote and sings the album's horn-punctuated "beach music" number "Mist of Desire."

"We Made Love" is embellished with romantic piano work and a lovely string section. On "Small Stuff', Alabama delivers a blue-collar lyric of facing the daily grind ofmortgage payments, household problems, the minimum wage and family life. The album's title tune, "Twentieth Century" is country music's first millennium song. Other developments of the past year have included the installation of Alabama's star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame last October. It is located in the 7060 block of Hollywood Boulevard with Stevie Wonder, Paul Newman, Sophia Loren, The Supremes, Miles Davis and The Temptations as its neighbors.

The band began the year with a Grammy nomination and by becoming the most awarded act in the history of the American Music Awards. In mid year Alabama was voted People magazine's favorite band. It opened its second Alabama Grill theme restaurant. By year's end its career sales topped 60 million records, ranking it alongside The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones and Chicago as one ofthe 10 biggest selling bands in the annals of popular music.

Alabama has sold more concert tickets than any other country group. It has won more than 150 show-business awards. Seventeen of its prior albums are Platinum sellers. Mountain Music, released in 1982, is Quintuple Platinum, as is 1986's Greatest Hits. Roll On (1984), The Closer You Get (1983) and Feels So Right (1981) are all Quadruple Platinum. Christmas (1985), Greatest Hits III (1994), 40 Hour Week (1985) and the act's debut album, 1980's My Home's In Alabama, were joined by For the Record as Double Platinum sellers.

"We've been so blessed", says Owen. "I'm just a grateful ol' farm boy. I didn't start out to have No.l records and all this stuff with Alabama. Everybody in this band had just one goal when we started and that was to just have a job in the music business and not have to go back to factory work. We are among the fortunate few, who were able to make a living playing music.
Alabama remains committed to its career by still performing more than 125 concerts a year.

"We just want to do it. It' s not the money. It's the fact that people still want you to come and play for them. It's great to be wanted. And we feel that today we have the best band backing us up that we've ever had." Randy Owen and his bass playing cousin Teddy Gentry joined multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter Jeff Cook, a distant cousin, to work as professional musicians in 1973. They took up residence in a Myrtle Beach, S.C. honky-tonk called The Bowery. Drummer Mark Herndon joined the group in 1979.

Alabama's string of No.1 hits began in the summer of 1980. The band was named country's Entertainer of the Year in 1982, 1983 and 1984. Twenty-one consecutive singles went to No.1 in 1980-87 and in 1989 Alabama was named the field's Artist of the Decade. In the 1990s, 15 of its singles have topped the charts so far.

The boys did, indeed, return to Ft. Payne -- not as common laborers as predicted, but as the town' s most beloved citizens. The four have not lost their just-folks humility and have maintained their common-man work ethic. That is why Twentieth Century is the record that it is.

"It was a hellacious deadline," says Owen, "the most difficult album we've done since Feels So Right, which was recorded in two weeks and its 'Old Flame' was out as a single the day after we recorded it."

"Well, if this turns out to be as successful as that, then it will all be worthwhile. I'm just very grateful to still be around after all these years. Things look good these days. Take Cher for example, she started in this business before we did and today she's No.1 all over the world."

STREET DATE JUNE 15, 1999

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