Bradley's Buzz

bub106 Tanya Tucker – Ridin’ Rainbows
December 4, 2007
Original Release: February 1977
MCA Records #2253

Of her first four albums for MCA Records this is by far my favorite. So what exactly makes Ridin’ Rainbows so much better than Tanya Tucker, Lovin & Learnin or Here’s Some Love – well let me tell you.

First and foremost the song selection is above and beyond what Tanya has chosen prior to this – also there’s a whole new image that is starting to emerge. By 1977 our girl was over 18 and it seems she was trying to spruce up her looks and her music.

Just look at the glamour shots on the front and the back of the album and you realize this isn’t the Delta Dawn era teenager. The songs reflect this new type of big city sophisticate as well – there’s still country leanings on a few songs but it’s a more upscale type of country – something that reflects big city Dallas than say the prairie towns of 300 reflected on some of her other songs. Most of the album is set in a contemporary pop mode than country and even the ballads aren’t of the sawdust and cheating wife variety – instead they’re laced with pop drums, guitars, strings and loads of emotion.

Ridin’ Rainbows opens with the piano and guitar pop/country hybrid “Dancin’ The Night Away” and it’s just uphill from there – the music falls away and our girl sings, “Standin’ beside the ocean lookin’ across the water/ everything is beautiful here but I still don’t feel like I oughtta…” for she remembers dancin’ the night away with her man. The song was released as a single and hit #16 on the country charts. It’s a really catchy song and our girl embraces this new urban cowboy persona perfectly.

Then we break into the best song on the album – “Love Me Like You Never Will Again”. Now I’ve never been a big fan of ballads – the songs that are supposed to be so heartfelt to people come off as cheesy to me. But not on Ridin’ Rainbows, as my all time favorite song on the album, “Love Me Like You Never Will Again” is a winding string laden sweep of raw passion and emotion – no doubt thanks to the excellent chops of our singer, but the lyrics are there to bring her to us and it doesn’t disappoint at all. As I’m sure you’ll agree once you hear it. It’s just fricking incredible from beginning to end – including a piano break that breaks into a drum/string/choir laden third verse. Just listen to Tanya sing, “Let my lips taste the sweetness of your skin and then love me like you never will again…” It’s pretty hot, and I’m certainly not of the persuasion to be turned on by a Tanya, but cripes it’s that good. (See our downloads below).

Then we get a one two kick with some fun with “Wait Til Daddy Finds Out” a cute little song about infidelity (I know huh?) But the song is catchy as hell and the bridge is fun as Tanya tells us, “Well Daddy’s been a hell of a father/ and daddy’s been working seven nights in a row/ Daddy let mama get a little bit lonely/ sitting home waitin’ for her sugar to show…” The bridge finds us cowering with Miss T when she hears a car coming up the drive – “I’m gonna run and find me a safe place to hide/ cause I know what’s gonna hit that fan/ Oh mama you better take a look outside….” But don’t worry about T, Daddy, Mama or the other man, cause by the end of the song ‘one man walked in the bedroom/ one man walked out of run and one woman’s shopping for a new nightgown…”

Then another favorite of mine comes up – “Let’s Keep It That Way” a song Anne Murray would do the following year and a version I was more familiar with. However, now I know what I was missing because Tanya totally makes this song.

Again, the sophisticated new lady of the 70’s has emerged and in the mid tempo “Let’s Keep It That Way” she’s contemplating having a hot and heavy affair but as she reminds her wine drinking partner, ‘we’re not cheaters yet/ let’s keep it that way…’ and the chorus always gets me singing along, “cause I don’t want to have to tell him a lie when I get back home/ cause it would tear apart his fairy tale world if I did him wrong…”

The formula of fast song then slow song continues as we break into the total pop of “White Rocket” which is a song I thought I wouldn’t particularly care for. This time the hero of the story is a homeless drunk though most of that story is told through the euphemism of the white rocket – ‘he’s on a white rocket through the night/ sailing on a white rocket/ every night he gets right back where he belongs/ and his white rocket keeps him smilin’ til it’s all gone…” But the song is actually really touching and a fairly interesting take on a social disease that has surely never played so seriously on a Tanya Tucker record. Plus it’s really a fun song – and did I mention it’s pop – I mean pure pop.

Our title track was the first single and I’m not really sure why. Not because it isn’t a good song, it’s just there’s so many other choices on here I think. I’ve kind of talked about “Ridin’ Rainbows” in previous posts as the theme to the song is Tanya being with a rodeo rider who’s always gone and to keep a part of him with her she wants to have a baby. “While you’re out there ridin’ rainbows/ I get awful lonely on the ground/ so I was thinkin’ maybe we could have a little baby/ that I could love when you’re not around….” For a long time I never really cared for it, but the years have softened me and I like it again. Of course being in the middle of this album certainly helps it, since by the time you get to the song you’re full into Tanya’s new world of greatness.

Pure country makes its return in “It’s A Cowboy Lovin’ Night” that has the chorus ringing, “shuffle with me Houston stranger/ it’s a cowboy lovin’ night” as Tanya spends her time waiting for the dance at some “It’s been so long since Dallas/ many lonely nights have come and gone/ we may not last but a dance or two/ but it might last all long…” Normally I wouldn’t care for something so country but this is Tanya Tucker and the song just oozes cowboy loving – you can practically see the smoky bar and smell the beer. Yep it’s that good and was once again another top ten single hitting #7 on the country charts.

“It Was Always You” is another sweeping ballad and it’s almost as good as “Love Me…” I just love Tanya all emotional and adult and full of softness. I’m not sure where the voice came from she uses in some of the song, but it’s just superb. The song opens with the awesome line, “I’ve been loved before/ there’s no use pretending/ I have been around/ more than most I guess/ still each chance that came my way/ I turned around and walked away/ wondering why I never knew but now I know/ it was always you…” It’s very sweet but not in the icky way – just sweet, simple and great!

“Knee Deep In Loving You” is another fast country pop song that’s full of fire and fun. While the final cut on the original album is another sweeping ballad – “Wings” is something you really have to hear to believe – I mean she ends up singing in French by the end of it; and it’s not over done nor is it silly as it may sound – what it is, is a super cool song and the end to a super cool album – until now.

Sometime in 1977, Tanya recorded yet another single for her Japanese fans (Huh?) – this time out it’s a pop number called “Rock'n Roll Girl From Alaska” and it’s just as crazy and fun as it sounds – and of course it had to be part of our bonus tracks.

But there’s more where that came from because in the summer of 1978 Tanya ended up in Los Angeles and the world was about to see a whole new side of our girl – but first she recorded a lovely little song to help raise money and awareness about baby seals and the inhumane way they were/are being butchered for their fur. “Save Me” actually became a bit of a hit charting on both the country and the pop charts.

But the great surprise is, though I had heard “Save Me” before, I didn’t actually own the 7” until recently where I discovered there was a B-side that was never released on anything else. It was well worth the wait to hear it, “Slippin’ Away” is the pop side of Tanya as it’s a precursor to her work on her next album TNT, which would blow the lid off of Tanya-ologists.

Tanya Tucker – Ridin’ Rainbows (bub106)
Track List:
01. Dancing The Night Away 02. Love Me Like You Never Will Again 03. Wait Til Daddy Finds Out 04. Let’s Keep It That Way 05. White Rocket 06. Ridin’ Rainbows 07. It’s A Cowboy Lovin’ Night 08. It Was Always You 09. Knee Deep In Loving You 10. Wings
Bonus Tracks:
11. A Rock’n Roll Girl From Alaska 12. Save Me 13. Slippin’ Away

After Ridin’ Rainbows, MCA released Tanya Tucker’s Greatest Hits collecting songs from the four albums we’ve been discussing – Tanya Tucker, Lovin & Learnin, Here’s Some Love and Ridin’ Rainbows which you can sometimes find on CD at Amazon.

So we’ll skip our review of TNT for now and come back to talk about our next reissue that isn’t on official CD – 1979’s full on rock/pop album Tear Me Apart – and believe me it’s great so I have plenty to say about it.