Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 13, 1990 TAG: 9004130103
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From staff and wire reports
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Like a movie sequel, the "Living Legends Tour" featuring Conway Twitty and George Jones is returning to the Salem Civic Center tonight - exactly one year to the day after it rolled through town in 1989.
Show time is 8 p.m.
You can bet that tonight's concert won't be too different from last year's. Jones will open with his trademark tales of honky-tonks, lovesick boozers and man's eternal battle with the bottle.
Then Twitty will finish things off.
Listen for his hits like "Hello Darlin'," "Linda on My Mind," "The Rose," "I'd Love to Lay You Down," "It's Only Make Believe," "Mississippi Woman, Louisiana Man" and others.
Twitty - whose real name is Harold Jenkins, but who took the name Conway from a town in Arkansas and Twitty from a place in Texas - thinks the reason he's had so many No. 1 hits during his 34 years in music is a matter of percentages.
"If there's any secret to my longevity in this business, it's the fact I always put 99 percent of the emphasis on the song," he told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "It's one percent singer, record company and everything else, as far as I'm concerned."
The son of a Mississippi River boat captain, Twitty preached at religious revivals as a boy and once dreamed of becoming a Baptist minister. He later was offered a contract to play baseball in the Philadelphia Phillies organization.
But he stuck with music, learning his first chords on the guitar at age 4, scoring his first No. 1 hit as a rock 'n' roller with "It's Only Make Believe" in 1958, before turning country in the mid-'60s.
Since then, Twitty has had more No. 1 hit singles in Billboard Magazine than anyone else in country music (Merle Haggard is second) or anyone in pop, beating Elvis and the Beatles.
Despite the No. 1 hits, the legendary singer has never been voted top male vocalist by the Country Music Association. But there are other rewards.
One of his recent No. 1 singles was "Julia." One night at a show in Minneapolis, fans as usual placed roses with notes attached along the edge of the stage.
"I always try to read them," Twitty said. "That night I didn't, but the next night I asked my wife to read me a few of the notes. One said, `Dear Conway, I'm here tonight. Please sing my song. Love, Julia.'
"I thought that was fantastic. That's what it's all about between a recording artist and his fans. You're supposed to sing it just to one, just to her."
In April, MCA Records is releasing a compact disc with 25 of Twitty's hit singles. Heartland Records sells a Conway Twitty collection on television. Twitty's latest record, "House on Old Lonesome Road," came out nearly a year ago. His next, of 10 new songs, will come out in September.
"Making a record is a good three-month process with us," he said. "We'll go through between two- and three-thousand songs in that three-month period.
"I've written about 20 of the 54 No. 1 records I've had, and hundreds of things in albums. We compare one song against another in that three-month period. My songs - if they're not good enough, they don't make it.
"I always keep them. If nobody else records them, then for the next album we put them back in the pot again."
Twitty takes his relationship with his fans seriously, which is why he doesn't sing medleys or update arrangements in concerts.
"I make sure the people in my band, who've been with me for years, play exactly the same little licks that are on the record," he said. "I sing them exactly. People only hear that song once a year and they want to hear it just exactly the way you recorded it."
Twitty does sometimes welcome change. On his last three albums, he has taken the advice of producer Jimmy Bowen, who suggested that he think about four hit songs and six "piece-of-business" songs that you would never think radio would like.
"It put a new spark in my recording life. I really have enjoyed it. I think it has added some years to my career," he said.
Through the years, Twitty's tunes have primarily been love songs. His target audience is women.
"I say things I think a woman wants to hear and men want to say and don't know how to say. All he has to do is drop a quarter in the jukebox and at the appropriate time squeeze her a little bit. She gets the message and Conway Twitty has got another hit," he said.
Staff writer Mark Morrison contributed to this story.
by CNB