EDDIE RABBITT’S NUMBER ONE HITS
Rhino Collects 17 of the Country Star’s #1 Hits for Career-Spanning Collection
that Includes His Signature Smash, “I Love A Rainy Night”
Available May 12 from Rhino Records
LOS ANGELES — As one of country music’s most progressive crossover artists, Eddie Rabbitt epitomized the changes transforming the genre in the mid-1970s, helping usher it out of the backwoods and barrooms and into suburban subdivisions and malls. Rhino celebrates the innovative country artist with a collection featuring 17 of his #1 country hits. NUMBER ONE HITS will be available May 12 from Rhino Records at all retail outlets, including www.rhino.com, for a suggested list price of $18.98 (CD) and $9.99 (digital).
Arranged chronologically from 1976 to 1990, the disc encompasses Rabbitt’s prolific career, which included a remarkable 33 straight Top 10 hits. Rabbitt continued to record and tour through the ’90s, but died in 1998 at the age of 56 after battling lung cancer.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Rabbitt moved to Nashville in the late ’60s where he wrote hits for
other artists, including “Kentucky Rain,” a song Elvis Presley took to Top 20 and “Pure Love,” a #1 for Ronnie Milsap. Rabbitt’s first hit, singing his own song, came in 1976 with “Drinkin’ My Baby (Off My Mind).” The single established his style too, with tempos influenced by light rhythm & blues and vocals with plenty of echo, all sounding like they would fit on an album by Dion or The Drifters. Despite the citified sound, his themes came straight from the country jukebox.
Rabbitt’s string of hits continued with “You Don’t Love Me Anymore,” “Suspicions,” “The Best Year Of My Life,” and “You Can’t Run From Love.” NUMBER ONE HITS also includes the duets “You And I” with Crystal Gayle and “Both To Each Other (Friends And Lovers)” with Juice Newton. But it is Rabbitt’s finger-snapping hits — a blend of old-time rock, Broadway sass, and country simplicity — that he is best known for: “Drivin’ My Life Away,” “I Love A Rainy Night,” “Gone Too Far,” and “Someone Could Lose A Heart Tonight.”
Rabbitt was part of a generation that greatly diversified country music, all but defining what became known as the Urban Cowboy movement. As a new day dawned in country music, it was this country boy from New Jersey who helped turn the calendar.
NUMBER ONE HITS
Track Listing
1. “Drinkin’ My Baby (Off My Mind)”
2. “You Don’t Love Me Anymore”
3. “I Just Want To Love You”
4. “Every Which Way But Loose”
5. “Suspicions”
6. “Gone Too Far”
7. “Drivin’ My Life Away”
8. “I Love A Rainy Night”
9. “Step By Step”
10. “Someone Could Lose A Heart Tonight”
11. “You And I” – with Crystal Gale
12. “You Can’t Run From Love”
13. “The Best Year Of My Life”
14. “Both To Each Other (Friends & Lovers)” – with Juice Newton
15. “I Wanna Dance With You”
16. “The Wanderer”
17. “On Second Thought”
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