Surprises, Country Roots and Retirement
The release of her fourth album, Surprise, marked her second foray into the Adult Contemporary charts, but it was not well received in country music.
All four of Sylvia's albums were produced by Tom Collins, who also produced Mandrell, Charley Pride, and Ronnie Milsap. They have been described by critics as too slick for country music.
Her following album, One Step Closer, produced by The Judds' producer Brent Maher, had a more "earthy" feel to it and was more acoustic as opposed to her previous slick countrified pop oriented music. Sylvia's final top 40 country hit was "Nothin' Ventured, Nothin' Gained", from the unreleased album "Knockin Around". The shelving of this album marked the end of Sylvia's tenure with RCA Records. The label did release a greatest hits compilation and a single from it titled "Straight from my Heart". The record received no promotion from RCA and the single charted in the low 60s. In the late 1980s RCA began streamlining its roster of country-pop artists and the casualties included Sylvia, Dolly Parton, Louise Mandrell, Deborah Allen, Juice Newton, John Denver and Kenny Rogers.
Over an eight-year period, Sylvia crisscrossed America many times with her popular concert performances (over 200 per year), and she was a frequent guest on network television talk shows and specials — from The Today Show and Good Morning, America to Dick Clark's American Bandstand and the Country Music Awards.
Her decision to stop touring and recording at the end of the 1980s was not fueled by the grueling schedule, as some might guess, but by her desire to bring more of herself to the music. So, she turned her energies to songwriting and began a new phase of her journey.
Read more about this topic: Sylvia (singer)
Famous quotes containing the words country, roots and/or retirement:
“The distractions, the exhaustions, the savage noises, the demands of town life, are, for me, mortal enemies to thought, to sleep, and to study; its extremes of squalor and of splendor do not stimulate, but sadden me; certain phases of its society I profoundly value, but would sacrifice them to the heaven of country quiet, if I had to choose between.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)
“Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing—instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)