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If I had my way, Emmylou Harris would win Miss America every year, and not just because she’s really purty. She didn’t come from a country music background, but boy howdy, once Chris Hillman spotted her and recommended her to Gram Parsons as a duet partner, she took to it like (insert homey country metaphor here). But she knew getting romantic with Gram and his drugs was a dead end. She ran that obstacle course, saw him destroy himself, and came out unharmed.
She put together the aptly named Hot Band for her solo career. Guys like James Burton, Ricky Skaggs, Rodney Crowell and Albert Lee (among other greats) played in that band. Hank DeVito played steel. And he wrote a song called “Queen of Hearts” in 1979.
Hank didn’t record his own version. Dave Edmunds was the first to record “Queen of Hearts” in 1979. Sure, he’s a Brit, but he’s always had his fretting fingers on the pulse of American music. The song was hot in Europe, so Edmunds, signed to Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label, wanted an American release. They didn’t wanna.
Rodney Crowell, a member of the Hot Band, released his take in 1980, with a lot of vocal slapback, in 1980:
But the breakthrough for “Queen of Hearts” came through in 1981 with Juice Newton’s genre-spanning version, complete with a video that saw heavy rotation:
It’s been covered countless times since, which must make Hank Devito proud.
Discussion (9)
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Yeah, that song will always be Juice's.
I grew up a hardcore Country music listener in the 70s and 80s, but I never could get Rodney Crowell.
Good post.
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Yes, it's Juice's version I know. I don't think I've heard Crowell's. It's just a great song.
I happened to watch an interview with Steve Fishell, who took over playing pedal steel for Emmylou after DeVito left. He was a total fanboy. Who wouldn't be?
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Juice has the juice on this song
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Queen of Hearts, Sweetest Thing and Angel of the Morning were all cross over hits for Juice Newton. (Country and Adult Contemporary)
Getting piped in random Spotify tunes (based on a similar song by an similar artist) I recently was reminded of this Juice Newton tune I like.
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To go a bit off topic just one more time .... I had a song obsession(until I played the bejeesus out of it) with this version of Chuck Berry's C'est la Vie(You Never Can Tell) .... I would bother mentioning the players in this iteration of the Hot Band but Emmylou names them all at the end of the tune if you bother to listen.
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