On The Record

"Bring Me All Your Lovin'"

Oct 08, 2021

This series, “On the Record,” will be a weekly Substack exclusive in which I’ll go through my recorded catalog song by song starting with my first album, Alabama Song, which was released on MCA Records in 1998. Photos will be attached if available and tolerable.

Somewhere there is a photo of Tricia Yearwood and me singing “Bring Me All Your Lovin’,” together in England. Not everyone knows that she recorded it first, for her 1998 albumWhere Your Road Leads.

But since I don’t have it, here’s one of us together with George Strait, Reba, Chely Wright, and Gary Alan at an MCA Party — I think 2000? Anyway…

Kenny Greenberg, Butch, and I wrote the song at Glen Manor when we were still living in the one-bedroom apartment — we hadn’t moved up in the world enough yet to be able to afford the two-bedroom one, but that was around the corner. I know it was Butch who had the idea for this song. Kenny and I came in on it during the time we were making Alabama Song. And we cut a demo for “Bring Me All Your Lovin’,” but we and everyone else decided it leaned too rock ‘n roll for my first record, so Tony Brown asked if he could have it for Tricia. Of course, we said yes, absolutely, it would be our honor, please do, yes, here it is. Kenny even went in and played guitar on her version. And it was my honor for her to do it. I always wanted to succeed as a songwriter as well as a recording artist, and having cuts by artists as esteemed as Tricia is what that’s all about. And she and I had a lot of fun singing it together on a string of UK shows I opened for her in the fall of 1998. She’s a powerhouse vocalist whom I’ve always admired.

My recording of it falls in the middle, or serves as the second turn, on The Hardest Part. It’s the moment of first knowing that hope might be lost for good. Sad and sexy and full of fever, it seeps out like honey into a full blown country rock song, something I’ve always loved. The guitars on this track are some of my favorites from all of my recordings — the tones are perfect and full, and the way the pedal steel and b-bender work together make a good feeling of convergence. As Kenny says, the frequencies are right. As Mozart reportedly said, play the notes that like each other.

Have y’all watched that thing on Netflix with Rick Rubin and McCartney? It’s fantastic. That’s where I heard the Mozart thing.

Anyway — my good buddy and the former singing drummer in my band, Rick Schell, sang the background vocals on it with me. He’s just terrific on it and always sang so closely with me. This is one of those songs I still sing a lot — you all seem to like it and I always enjoyed how the lyric flowed, plus it’s a fun lyric to sing — lots of consonants to play with. I’m not sure I thought about things like that at the time I made The Hardest Part. Writing about these records is fun in part because I think I’ve matured enough to be able to have a sense of humor about myself. God, I was so uptight then. Even when it came to doing vocals, which isn’t supposed to be uptight at all. Y’all know my friend and guitar foil Adam Landry? He said one of the most brilliant things to me once almost twenty years ago and it has never left me. He said, “Moorer, it can’t be loose if it’s uptight.”

I repeat that mantra to myself quite often.

All in all, I love this track and am proud of it. It holds up pretty well to be twenty-two years old (we recorded the album in 1999). How could I ask for more from it than it has given me?

Personnel:

Acoustic & Electric Guitars: Kenny Greenberg

Electric Guitar: Buddy Miller

B3: Jay Bennett

Pedal Steel: Russ Pahl

Bass: Michael Rhodes

Drums: Chad Cromwell

Background vocals: me, Rick Schell

Fiddle: Joe Spivey

Percussion: Eric Darken

Recorded by Don Smith at Woodland Studios, Nashville, TN

Overdubs by Peter Coleman at Treasure Isle, Nashville, TN