Terry Stafford
Amarillo By Morning

Here I would say that a good part of the reason surely lies in the allure of what is distant, exotic, but reducing it all to this, to a mere and simple western daydream, would be absolutely limiting. I am writing this umpteenth "analysis" mainly because "Amarillo By Morning" is, well, simply "Amarillo By Morning," as far as I'm concerned, just listening to it once is enough to understand.

It's called evocative power, babies; as far as I know and have had the chance to understand, the real Amarillo, the main city of the so-called Texas Panhandle, strikes me as a rather dreary place, yet these two and a half minutes or so make it seem like a kind of utopia, an ideal of freedom, and almost make it truly believable. Not that the song offers a rosy perspective on the subject matter, but, in fact, it's about evocative power at its highest levels. For those interested in exploring the issue further, I recommend reading "The Mud Below," a story by Annie Proulx, which offers a much more detailed, realistic, and truthful perspective.

Back to us, "Amarillo By Morning" was brought to success in 1983 by George Strait, now a country superstar, and it was precisely this song that was his great launchpad; Strait deserves credit for having been able to reinterpret it credibly in a, let's say, more "mainstream" way, but in terms of charm, class, elegance, interpretative sensitivity and, above all, the ability to transcend cultural barriers, there's an unbridgeable gap between his version and the original.

So, let's talk about the real "father" of "Amarillo By Morning," Terry Stafford. A typical "Elvis clone," a one-hit-wonder, soon forgotten. He recorded ABM in 1973, after years of inactivity and is practically little more than a Mr. Nobody, both the song and the album to which it belongs achieve modest success, and Terry Stafford returns definitively to anonymity. Why it took George Strait, with all due respect, to do justice to "Amarillo By Morning" is, for me, a great mystery.

That introductory steel guitar arpeggio and a soothing voice, tinged with lyricism and melancholy, masterfully accompanied by a female harmony; this is what makes the difference, what makes the original "Amarillo By Morning" the poignant, imaginative, and poetic instant classic that it is; few elements, maximum simplicity, and an impeccable result. I don't know if it can also be defined as such the "cover," which is my drawing inspired precisely by this song, but what matters is the thought.