Conway Twitty, Lost In The Feeling

By Danny R. Phillips

Growing up in a family of country music fanatics I have always been quite aware of the legendary status surrounding one Mr. Conway Twitty. His classic country “slow jams” have been favorites of cover bands, drunken karaoke singers, and honky tonk jukeboxes from Lubbock, Texas to Osaka, Japan.

Many people have no idea that Conway started his professional singing career as a rockabilly delinquent in the same vein as Johnny Cash, Gene Vincent, and Eddie Cochran. Though he had marginal success with rock, it wasn’t until he uttered two of the most famous words in all of music that he became a superstar: Hello Darlin’. Those words were from the smoky hit of the same name, and when spoken in a barroom baritone, they have given men a pickup line to make women’s panties wet ever since.

Though Conway released many classic albums in his lifetime and had very few missteps in his storied career, Lost In The Feeling, an album recently reissued 16 years after Twitty’s death, is not one of them. After listening to it, I must suggest that perhaps it should have stayed out of print. It’s not that is a horrible record on par with such crimes against humanity as William Shatner’s The Transformed Man or the ill-conceived soundtrack to the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band movie. Lost In The Feeling is merely a showcase for Grade A Prime Country Cheese on a level that few could ever hope to surpass. Originally released on July 18, 1983 by Warner Bros. it shows the total lack of judgment and restraint that happens to someone after years of being in the spotlight.

The horrors begin before even removing the shrink-wrap. The cover is a classic of bad photography, bested only by the sexed out, cocaine concept of Bob Welch’s tasteless French Kiss. On the Lost cover we get Twitty in all his soft-lit, come-hither glory. A woman with giant hair and lovely blue eye shadow hugs him from behind and looks at him wantonly as though he were Brad Pitt. Though tacky cover art is to be expected from an album originally released in the early 1980s, more should be expected from the man who gave us “It’s Only Make Believe.”

Lost In The Feeling is a sad representation of what Conway became in the 80s. Between appearances on Hee Haw, Austin City Limits, and The Grand Ole Opry, he recorded albums that were pale shadows of his previous triumphs. The lowest point of Lost is the Muzak-quality cover version of The Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight.” It’s bordering on hilarious rubbing up against absurd. Conway’s version of this already Lite Rock classic makes those California country rockers sound as heavy as Obituary. Most of the rest of Lost In The Feeling is an exercise in how far Conway had gone in an apparent attempt to appease his aging fans and distance himself from his bad boy days . . . such as they were.

Not all of Lost is a loss, however. There are moment that shine with Conway’s classic seductive greatness: “The Best is Yet To Come” and “A Stranger’s Point of View” are hints that he desperately wanted to get back to what made him an icon but the rest of the material only lets him down.

Lost In The Feeling is something to purchase only if you’re a fan who believes Twitty did no wrong or if you are a collection completist. If you are neither one of these, go to any record store and by a good hits collection. You’ll get all the songs that made the man from Arkansas a legend, and more than likely none of the songs that made it onto Lost In The Feeling.

Feel free to disagree with Danny’s assessment of this album: Shout! Factory has it available for purchase on their website.