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Influential Country Music singer of the 1980s and 1990s. Born Randy Bruce Traywick on May 4, 1959, he didn't break into the scene instantly: a deal with Paula Records in 1978 produced only two dud singles. Three years later, he released a live album as Randy Ray, but it wasn't until 1985 that he signed a contract with Warner (Bros.) Records, this time as Randy Travis. Even this wasn't an instant success, as his first Warner single, "On the Other Hand," stalled at #67 on the country charts. However, he had a Top 10 hit with "1982" only a year later, and then persuaded the label to re-release "On the Other Hand." Despite this unorthodox move, that song went on to become his first #1 hit. Of his next twelve singles, all but two went to #1 on the country charts. His first three Warner albums, Storms of Life, Always & Forever, and Old 8×10, are considered some of the finest country of The '80s, and a cornerstone of the genre's shift back to a more traditional, fiddle-and-steel sound compared to the pop crossovers that dominated the first half of the decade. Songs such as "On the Other Hand", "Forever and Ever, Amen", "I Told You So", "Too Gone Too Long", "Honky Tonk Moon", and "Deeper Than the Holler" are still among his most popular cuts.

His first release of The '90s, "Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart" (from 1989's No Holdin' Back), was his longest-lasting chart-topper. After that, however, his career started to run hot and cold: the duets album Heroes & Friends in 1991 was met with tepid critical and radio reception despite going platinum and becoming his last #1 album. High Lonesome had a lead single ("Point of Light") which was written for George H. W. Bush's "Thousand Points of Light" program, followed by three consecutive cuts that Randy co-wrote with a then-rising Alan Jackson, including the #1 hit "Forever Together" (the two also wrote Alan's #1 hit "She's Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues)"). After two out of three cuts from a Greatest Hits Album also went to #1, Randy hit another speed bump in 1993 when Wind in the Wire, an album of cowboy songs for a TV movie of the same name, failed to send either of its cut into the Top 40. He bounced back for four more hits off 1994's This Is Me, including the #1 "Whisper My Name", but the singles off 1996's Full Circle bombed and he exited the label.

Travis then moved to DreamWorks Records for two more albums: You and You Alone had three Top 10 hits, while A Man Ain't Made of Stone also underperformed. At this point, Travis repositioned himself as a gospel artist, moving to Christian label Word Records for a string of five albums released between 2001 and 2005. Among the few singles from said albums, "Three Wooden Crosses" was the only one that got any attention from radio, becoming his last #1 hit to date. Returning to both traditional country and Warner Bros. in 2008, he put out Around the Bend, which got a couple Grammy nominations despite no hits. Carrie Underwood covered "I Told You So" in 2009 and eventually re-released the song as a duet with him, bringing him into the Top 10 one last time. The success also dovetailed into his 2009 greatest-hits package I Told You So: The Ultimate Hits of Randy Travis.

Travis suffered a Creator Breakdown in the early 2010s that culminated in a series of drunken antics. He later suffered a major stroke, but recovered in time to cut two covers albums: Influence, Vol. 1: The Man I Am and a second volume.

In 2016, Travis was awarded the highest honor in country music when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.


Tropes present in Randy Travis' work:

  • Animated Music Video: "Before You Kill Us All" was one of the first in country music.
  • Black Comedy: In "Before You Kill Us All", the narrator's dog and cat won't eat, the goldfish and plants have all died and the narrator himself is depressed. He pleads his lover to come back before she kills them all.
  • Blood-Stained Letter: "Three Wooden Crosses" has a blood-stained bible that was given to a hooker by a preacher who was dying from an accident, and which she read to her son, who also became a preacher.
  • Cool Old Guy: "He Walked on Water" is about how the narrator perceived his great-grandfather to be one of these.
  • Dual-Meaning Chorus: "Spirit of a Boy, Wisdom of a Man" has the main character choosing between the two titular options in three different life scenarios: whether to consummate a teenage romance, whether to support the resulting child, and whether to commit adultery.
  • Genre Shift: From country to country-gospel, then back again.
  • List Song:
    • "Deeper Than the Holler" lists country-themed analogies for the narrator's love.
    • "Whisper My Name" lists metaphors for the experience of hearing the one the narrator loves do as the title says.
  • Lyric Swap: The last chorus of "Three Wooden Crosses" changes "Why there's not four of them, heaven only knows" to "...now I guess we know," as we've found out what happened to the survivor of the crash.
  • Lyrical Cold Open: "He Walked on Water".
  • The Man in the Mirror Talks Back: Present in "Stranger in My Mirror":
    There's a stranger in my mirror
    Who don't know how to behave
    He keeps grinnin' 'bout you and whistlin' tunes
    While he ought to be watchin' me shave
    We move alike and we look the same
    But I swear we've got totally different brains
    And the love we're in with you
    Just makes it clearer
    He used to be my twin
    Now there's a stranger in my mirror
  • Not So Stoic:
    • "The Box" is about a box that the narrator finds, containing sentimental memorabilia from his father, including a poem about his children and a faded leather Bible. The narrator then concludes that "We all thought his heart was made of solid rock / But that was long before we found the box".
    • Also done in "A Man Ain't Made of Stone":
      I was supposed to be the rock that you could stand on
      Stronger than an old oak tree
      But all you ever wanted was the one thing
      I never let you see
      The tender side of me
      I tried to be a mountain, solid and strong
      All it took was your leaving to know I was wrong
      A man ain't made of stone…
  • Pun-Based Title: "On the Other Hand" refers to the other side of the argument and the hand where the narrator wears his wedding ring.
  • Re-release the Song: As mentioned above, he released "On the Other Hand" twice within a year.
  • Rhyming with Itself: "Better Class of Losers" subverts this by rhyming "suite" and "sweet".
  • Small Reference Pools: For some reason, country radio tends to forget that he continued to have hits for at least a decade after "I Told You So", which is usually the most recent song of his that you'll hear regularly.
  • Son of a Whore: One of the characters in "Three Wooden Crosses". It turns out that the preacher telling the story to his congregation is the son of the hooker who survived the crash, who read the Bible that the preacher who died gave her to him.
  • Spoken Word in Music:
    • In "Storms of Life", Randy says "You know? She almost had me turn around".
    • "Promises": the line "She's just a woman".
  • Symbolic Baptism: He's done two songs about baptism:
    • The Kenny Chesney duet "Baptism" (also titled "Down with the Old Man (Up with the New)" is the narrator's first-person redemption tale about being baptized in the river. The lyrics reference various gospel songs and the feeling of redemption.
    • In "Pray for the Fish", this is Played for Laughs. Eddie Lee Vaughan is scoffed by onlookers simply because of his sinful past, leading others to joke that they should "pray for the fish" who are now swimming in all the sin that has washed off of him. A lightning storm occurs right as he is baptized, indicating that Vaughan made the right choice.
  • Sympathetic Adulterer: The narrator of "Reasons I Cheat" may be interpreted in this way. While he admits to having an affair, the reasons he gives for doing so may make it seem not justified, but at least somewhat understandable.
  • Talk About the Weather: "As long as old men sit and talk about the weather" is a line in "Forever and Ever, Amen".
  • Uncommon Time: The verses to "If I Didn't Have You" are in 7/2.
  • Vocal Evolution: On the songs he did as Randy Traywick in the 70s, he had a more swaggering voice that sounded like a mix between Waylon Jennings and Conway Twitty. By the time he signed to Warner, his voice developed into his familiar reedy bass-baritone, most noticeable by the time he recorded Old 8×10. It happened again in the late 90s-early 2000s when he started sounding older and more weathered.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: In "Three Wooden Crosses", three out of the four passengers on the bus are killed in the crash. The fate of the bus driver (and the driver of the truck) is never revealed.

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