Red Hot + Country

1994
TracklistError Loading File
  • Teach Your Children Suzy Bogguss, Alison Krauss + Kathy Mattea with Crosby, Stills, and Nash
    Play Pause
  • Fire And Rain Sammy Kershaw
    Play Pause
  • Folsom Prison Blues Brooks & Dunn + Johnny Cash
    Play Pause
  • Rock Me On The Water Kathy Mattea + Jackson Browne
    Play Pause
  • Matchbox Carl Perkins, Duane Eddy + The Mavericks
    Play Pause
  • Crazy Jimmy Dale Gilmore + Willie Nelson
    Play Pause
  • Willie Short Mary Chapin Carpenter
    Play Pause
  • Forever Young Johnny Cash
    Play Pause
  • If These Old Walls Could Speak Nanci Griffith + Jimmy Webb
    Play Pause
  • Up Above My Head_Blind Bartimus Marty Stuart with Jerry Sullivan + Tammy Sullivan
    Play Pause
  • You Gotta Be My Baby Dolly Parton
    Play Pause
  • Close Up The Honky Tonks Radney Foster
    Play Pause
  • Goodbye Comes Hard For Me Mark Chesnutt
    Play Pause
  • Pictures Don't Lie Billy Ray Cyrus
    Play Pause
  • When I Reach The Place I'm Going Patty Loveless
    Play Pause
  • The T.B. Is Whipping Me Wilco with Syd Straw
    Play Pause
  • Keep On The Sunny Side Randy Scruggs with Earl Scruggs + Doc Watson
    Play Pause

OVERVIEW

Red Hot + Country came about because of a controversy at a Country Music Award show where performers were told they could not wear red ribbons to show support for People with AIDS. One performer, Kathy Mattea, was so upset she approached Red Hot and asked if we could do an album together to raise awareness among country music artists and fans. The first idea was to use John Lennon’s music, which Yoko Ono graciously donated; but that didn’t work out and the direction of the project turned to a variety of music featuring covers of rock legends such as Bob Dylan (“Forever Young”), Crosby, Stills & Nash (“Teach Your Children”), Jackson Browne (“Rock Me on the Water”), James Taylor (“Fire and Rain”), Carl Perkins (“Matchbox”), Willie Nelson (“Crazy”), Johnny Cash (“Folsom Prison Blues”) as well as traditional and original songs. The quality of the music and musicians had a great deal to do with the involvement of Randy Scruggs as the overall music producer, who also brought on his father Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson to do an all star recording of “Keep On The Sunny Side”.  The album closed with the first track released by Wilco, a cover of the classic “The TB is Whippin’ Me” by Jimmie Rodgers (as interpreted by Ernest Tubb,) the father of country music who died of an incurable disease in the 1930s.

Red Hot + Country was poised to be a smash hit album, but country radio stations largely kept it from their playlists and from the larger audience it was designed to reach.

Red Hot & Country Live

Red Hot also produced a TV program for Country Music Television, which featured live performances at the Ryman Theater in Nashville (the original Grand Ole Opry) by artists on the album as well as Levon Helm, Waylon Jennings and Shelby Lynne; and hard hitting interviews by people affected by AIDS in the country music community.

PRESS


all music

RED HOT + COUNTRY is the fourth album in the very successful RED HOT series of genre-specific recordings benefiting AIDS Awareness. This time it’s country music’s turn

Read More…


People

This heavily folk-tinged album was spearheaded by singer Kathy Mattea and includes some of country’s heavy-hitters (Mary Chapin Carpenter, Brooks & Dunn) along with some talented fringe-dwellers (Alison Krauss, Nanci Griffith).

Read More…


ew.com

he result is Red Hot + Country (Mercury), an uneven but often extraordinary album that rallies some of the biggest names of multigenerational mainstream and alternative country

Read More…


CREDITS

Executive Producer:
John Carlin
Music Producer:
Randy Scruggs
Red Hot Producer:
Brian Hanna
Longform video directed by:
John Carlin and Ritchie Vetter