Girls Next Door

Emerging from Nashville during the mid-1980s, the all-female country vocal ensemble Girls Next Door scored early successes with tracks including "Love Will Get You Through Times of No Money" and the Top Ten single "Slow Boat to China." Their appealing vocal blends and melodic strengths fueled a productive period that ended with the 1991 disbandment, after the group had issued its third Atlantic album, How 'Bout Us. More than three decades later they reconvened as Girls Next Door 2.0, delivering the 2023 collection Now or Never.

Seasoned producer Tommy West proposed in 1982 that Nashville session vocalist Doris King assemble an all-female country vocal quartet, still uncommon then. King joined forces with Cindy Nixon, Diane Williams, and Tammy Stephens, each already appearing regularly at Opryland USA. Once West moved into an A&R role at MTM Records he secured the foursome a deal; they performed at first under the name Belle and Wildflower before adopting Girls Next Door ahead of their mid-decade recording debut.

The 1986 debut album, helmed by West, generated three charting singles, led by "Slow Boat to China," which climbed to number eight on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart. Subsequent road work included support slots with the Oak Ridge Boys and the Statler Brothers plus the quartet’s own headline dates. Their sophomore LP, 1987’s What a Girl Next Door Could Do, reached number 42 on the country albums chart and yielded further singles such as the title song and "Easy to Find." After moving to Atlantic they released the Nelson Larkin-produced How 'Bout Us in 1989; though it registered modest sales, the project underperformed relative to its predecessors and the group dissolved by 1991.

Thirty-one years after that split, Girls Next Door returned in June 2023 with the single "What's This Thing You've Got About Leaving," drawn from the full-length Now or Never.