Get the latest gossip
Remembering Lefty Frizzell, Still an Important Influence on Many Artists Who May Not Really Know Him
“That’s the Way Love Goes," co-written by Frizzell, celebrates two anniversaries this month.
In “What Am I Gonna Do,” the opening track on Chris Stapleton’s current Higher album, a broken-hearted man revels in a barroom jukebox that incessantly plays “That’s the Way Love Goes.” John Anderson’s version of “I Love You a Thousand Ways” charted in 1981, Dwight Yoakam’s reworking of “Always Late With Your Kisses” hit the top 10 in 1988, Irish band The Chieftains enlisted Mick Jagger for the title track of the 1995 album The Long Black Veil, and Keith Whitley delivered a key remake of “I Never Go Around Mirrors.” For the latter song, Whitley — who usually blasted Frizzell’s music in the back of his bus before he took the stage — persuaded Frizzell’s “Mirrors” co-writer, Sanger D. “Whitey” Shafer (“All My Ex’s Live in Texas,” “I Wonder Do You Think of Me”), to compose a second verse. Josh Turner, Trace Adkins, Tracy Lawrence, Garth Brooks, Dylan Scott, Toby Keith, Joe Diffie, Daryle Singletary, Scotty McCreery and Cody Johnson are just some of the singers to whom parts of Lefty’s approach have been bequeathed.
Or read this on Billboard