John Conlee emerged as one of the urban cowboy period’s most admired singers, celebrated for his keen judgment in selecting songs and his unmistakably somber vocal style. Born in 1946 and raised on a tobacco farm in Versailles, Kentucky, he first played guitar during childhood and appeared on local radio by age ten. He later joined the community barbershop chorus yet chose not to chase music professionally at the outset, instead earning a mortician’s license. While working as a disc jockey at several regional stations, he built key industry ties that proved useful after relocating to Nashville in 1971. Five years afterward, a demo secured him an ABC deal; although early singles drew little notice, the 1978 self-penned “Rose Colored Glasses,” written with a station newsman, climbed to the country Top Five. Over the following decade, nearly every release was guided by producer Bud Logan, yielding a steady run of successes that included two 1979 chart-toppers, “Lady Lay Down” and “Backside of Thirty.” Four additional singles—“Before My Time,” “Friday Night Blues,” “She Can’t Say That Anymore,” and “Miss Emily’s Picture”—reached number two by 1981. Between 1983 and 1984 he returned to the summit with “Common Man,” “I’m Only in It for the Love,” and “In My Eyes,” then claimed a final number one in 1986 via “Got My Heart Set on You.” In all, he landed nineteen Top Ten entries through 1987, the year he switched from MCA to Columbia and reached the Top Five with “Domestic Life.” Conlee rarely toured and gradually reduced his studio output, choosing instead to focus on philanthropic efforts supporting American farmers, time with his family, and operation of his own farm outside Nashville.
