Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On  –  Mel McDaniel  – 1984  (Album – Let It Roll)

This week we’re going way back to a song that was a very big hit at the time, #1, and was exceedingly popular. Mel McDaniel was an artist that had some fun songs and a decent following for a few of years.  This song is the absolute predecessor to Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk many years later.  This was written by Nashville’s best songwriter at the time, Bob McDill who wrote dozens of very big country songs for many artists for decades. This cut through and was a very big hit.  

It was written with mega star Conway Twitty in mind, but Conway said that newcomer traditionalist John Anderson was a better fit.  Anderson was unaware it was Twitty that sent him the song and he too turned it down. It ended up with McDaniel and pretty much became the biggest hit of his career, challenging Louisiana Saturday Night in popularity (fans LOVED that song #6)   But this was his only #1.  This was also noiminated for about every major Country Music award that year including a Grammy.

Sadly, McDaniel’s career was derailed by an accident when he fell into a open orchestra pit during a show in Louisiana suffering very serious injuries.  He never fully recovered.  But was a member of the Opry and is in the Oklahoma Country Music Hall Of Fame.

He passed away in 2011 at 68.