We almost didn’t get to hear this one.
I know I say it all the time, but for my money Keith Whitley is one of the greatest country artists of all time. In his short career, the Kentucky native gave us some of the most raw and emotional country music that we’ve ever gotten, songs that have truly stood the test of time and put him firmly up there with the all-time greats.
His tragic death in 1989 cut Keith’s career all too short. There’s no doubt that he would have continued on to become one of the biggest names in country music history, and would have no doubt changed the landscape of country music for decades to come.
Though he only released two full-length albums and an EP during his life, we’ve been blessed with several albums of unreleased music since his death. And one of those unreleased songs, “Tell Lorrie I Love Her,” was included on his 1990 Greatest Hits album.
The ballad, written for Keith’s wedding to his wife, country star Lorrie Morgan, took on a whole new heartbreaking meaning after his death:
“Tell Lorrie I love herTell Lorrie I need herTell her everything would be okayIf I could just see herTell Lorrie I love herTell Lorrie I need herAnd if I leave this old worldTell her she’s the only girl for me”
But as it turns out, the song almost never saw the light of day.
Whiskey Riff spoke with Lorrie and her son, Jesse Keith Whitley, a while back, and she explained the backstory behind the song – which Keith recorded in their house as their daughter Morgan was watching TV:
“I didn’t know we had the tape. Keith did the worktape on it at home, sitting on the counter in his underwear with his guitar, singing this song. And Morgan is a little girl in the background with the TV up real loud, so you could hear actually the TV noise in the song.
But when Keith and I got married, he gave the song, a little cassette to Curtis Young, who was one of the greatest harmony singers in Nashville. And he asked Curtis if he could sing it at our wedding. So Curtis took the tape and learned the song from that.
And the day of Keith’s funeral, before I got into the limo to go to the cemetery, Curtis Young walked up to me and handed me the cassette tape and said ‘I think you need this back.’”
And while they were on the way to the cemetery, Lorrie and her family, along with the head of RCA Records, Joe Galante, popped that tape in the cassette player:
“Oddly enough, I was in the limo with Joe Galante and my manager, and Morgan was in there with me, and all of a sudden we just put it in on the way. And Joe Galante said, ‘Why did Keith never play this for us?’”
The record executive knew right there in the limo on the way to Keith Whitley’s burial that he wanted to release the song, and asked Lorrie for the tape so he could have Keith’s longtime producer, Garth Fundis, mix the song for release:
“I said yes, but it’s my only copy. So he sent me the finished version of it, and they put it on his final album.”
You often hear artists talk about how songs find their way out into world even when it wasn’t the plan. And thankfully, “Tell Lorrie I Love Her” managed to find its way out as a love letter to his wife even after his death.
