Dixieland Delight

"Dixieland Delight" is a song written by Ronnie Rogers, and recorded by American country music band Alabama. It was released in January 1983 as the lead-off single from their album The Closer You Get....

"Dixieland Delight"
Single by Alabama
from the album The Closer You Get...
B-side"Very Special Love"
ReleasedJanuary 28, 1983 (U.S.)
Recorded1982
GenreCountry
Length3:57 (single edit)
5:23 (album version)
LabelRCA Nashville
Songwriter(s)Ronnie Rogers
Producer(s)Harold Shedd and Alabama
Alabama singles chronology
"Christmas in Dixie"
(1982)		 "Dixieland Delight"
(1983)		 "The Closer You Get"
(1983)
Music video
"Dixieland Delight" at CMT.com

Background and writing

Songwriter Ronnie Rogers, who previously had hits with Ed Bruce, Dave Dudley, Tanya Tucker and others, recalled to country music journalist Tom Roland that the idea for "Dixieland Delight" came to him when he was driving down Highway 11W, a road in Rutledge, Tennessee.[1] The song's first line ("Rollin' down a backwoods, Tennessee byway; one arm on the wheel") soon led into an image of the main character's other arm wrapped around his girlfriend and - with a long, hard work week at an end - envisioning a weekend of fun and relaxation with her.

When Alabama recorded the song in 1982 for The Closer You Get, it differed substantially from the acoustic demo cut by Rogers.[1]

Content

The song's title refers to the girlfriend of the singer. Later in the song, Rogers conjures up images of various forest animals (e.g. a white-tailed buck deer and a red-tailed hawk) and how they bring peace to him, before returning to how the main character plans to become intimate with his girlfriend ("Home-grown country girl, gonna give me a whirl") during their weekend outing.

The song picks up the tempo somewhat with a fiddle bridge before a reprisal of the refrain.

Music video

A music video was filmed for the song, and was directed by David Hogan. It has aired on CMT, TNN and Great American Country.

Chart performance

Released in January 1983, "Dixieland Delight" became Alabama's ninth No. 1 song on Billboard magazine's Hot Country Singles chart.[2] To date, "Dixieland Delight" remains one of the group's most popular songs.

The original album version was edited by nearly 1½ minutes for release as a single. The differences include:

  • A shorter introduction (about half of the intro is excised).
  • Shorter fiddle bridges; the second one almost immediately goes into the final reprisal. Also, a slower guitar riff is edited out before the tempo picks up for the segue leading into the first fiddle bridge.
  • An earlier fade out (not quite halfway through the first verse reprisal).

The single edit is included in several of Alabama's greatest hits collections, including For the Record. The full-length album version is included on the band's second greatest hits album.

Legacy
The song has become a fight song for the University of Alabama.

"Dixieland Delight" is one of Alabama's most enduring singles, and is closely associated with 1980s country music as a whole. The songe has been referenced in Brad Paisley's 2011 single "Old Alabama", by Midland in 2017's "Make a Little", and Russell Dickerson's 2017 hit "Every Little Thing". [3] The song has become a fight song for the University of Alabama, played regularly at Crimson Tide home football games. The song was briefly dropped in 2015 after complaints about vulgar additions to the lyrics by some fans, but was reinstated three years later, with a plea from university officials to not sing the modified version.[4]

In 2018, the song's publishing rights—once owned by two different companies, but later solely reverted to Rogers—were sold to Downtown Music, a global independent rights management and music services company. Billboard columnist Tom Roland considered the deal unusual, citing it as a rare example of a single song deal. Roland noted that Downtown "expects to garner favorable placements and higher visibility by highlighting its attributes."[3]

Charts
Chart (1983) Peak
position
US Hot Country Songs (Billboard)[5] 1
Canadian RPM Country Tracks 1

See also
  • Morris, Edward, "Alabama," Contemporary Books Inc., Chicago, 1985 (ISBN 0809253062)

References
  1. Roland, Tom, "The Billboard Book of Number One Country Hits" (Billboard Books, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1991 (ISBN 0-82-307553-2)), p. 349-350
  2. Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Country Hits: 1944-2006, Second edition. Record Research. p. 18.
  3. Roland, Tom (August 7, 2018). "Downtown Music Lands One-Song Deal for Alabama's 'Dixieland Delight'". Billboard. Retrieved October 29, 2019.
  4. Dave Wilson (October 13, 2018). "Best of Week 7: Alabama is on 'Dixieland Delight' watch". ESPN. Retrieved October 13, 2018.
  5. "Alabama Chart History (Hot Country Songs)". Billboard.
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