''American Child'' is the second studio album by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

artist Phil Vassar. Released in 2002, the album initially contained twelve tracks, with the title track serving as the lead-off single, reaching top 5 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

) charts. After the lead-off single fell from the charts, Arista tested another song entitled "This Is God". This song received such positive feedback from its test audience that the album was recalled and re-released in 2003 with "This Is God" (and a cover of

Huey Lewis and the News Huey Lewis and the News are an American rock band based in San Francisco, California. They had a run of hit singles during the 1980s and early 1990s, eventually achieving 19 top ten singles across the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, Adult Contempora ...

' "

Workin' for a Livin' "Workin' for a Livin'" is a single by American rock music, rock band Huey Lewis and the News, released in 1982. Included on their 1982 album ''Picture This (Huey Lewis and the News album), Picture This'', the song peaked at number 20 on the ''Bil ...

") added to the track listing. The former was also released as a single, reaching Top 20 on the country charts, while the third single ("Ultimate Love") peaked at number 41, becoming the first single of Vassar's career to miss Top 40 entirely. Vassar produced the album with

Byron Gallimore Byron Gallimore (born in Puryear, Tennessee) is an American record producer known for more than two decades of work in the field of country music. He has worked with artists Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Sugarland, Lee Ann Womack, and Jo Dee Messina. F ...

except for "This Is God", which Vassar produced with Dann Huff instead. Although it was not issued as a single, "Athens Grease" was made into a

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

Track listing

Personnel

* Mike Brignardello - bass guitar *

Pat Buchanan Patrick Joseph Buchanan (; born November 2, 1938) is an American paleoconservative political commentator, columnist, politician, and broadcaster. Buchanan was an assistant and special consultant to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, an ...

- electric guitar * Perry Coleman - background vocals * Paul Franklin -

steel guitar A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conve ...

* Carl Gorodetzky - string contractor *

Aubrey Haynie Aubrey Haynie (born March 27, 1974) is an American bluegrass musician who plays the fiddle and mandolin. In his career, he has recorded three studio albums for the Sugar Hill Records label, all three of which contained mostly songs that he wr ...

- fiddle,

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

Michael Landau Michael Christopher Landau (born June 1, 1958) is an American musician, audio engineer, and record producer. He is a session musician and guitarist who has played on many albums since the early 1980s with Boz Scaggs, Minoru Niihara, Joni Mitch ...

- electric guitar * B. James Lowry - electric guitar * Brent Mason - electric guitar * Gene Miller - background vocals * Steve Nathan - keyboards *

Michael Omartian Michael Omartian (born November 26, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, keyboardist, and music producer. He produced number-one records in three consecutive decades. He has earned 11 Grammy Awards nominations and won three. He sp ...

- string arrangements * Clayton Ryder -

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

* Jeff Smith - background vocals * Russell Terrell - background vocals * Phil Vassar - piano, lead vocals * Biff Watson - acoustic guitar * Lonnie Wilson - drums

Chart performance

References

{{Authority control 2002 albums Albums produced by Byron Gallimore Arista Records albums Phil Vassar albums