''We Weren't Crazy'' is the second studio album by American
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...
artist
Josh Gracin
Joshua Mario Gracin (; born October 18, 1980) is an American country music singer. While serving in the US Marine Corps, he first gained public attention as the fourth-place finalist on the second season of ''American Idol''.
After his elimina ...
. Originally titled ''All About Y'all'', the album was slated for release in mid-2006 after the release of its debut single "Favorite State of Mind". However the album release was delayed when the debut single failed to perform strongly on radio.
[4/18: Finally— the Josh Gracin interview!](_blank)
/ref> A second single, "I Keep Coming Back", was issued in early 2007, and the album's name was changed to ''I Keep Coming Back''. This single similarly failed to perform well. The album was finally issued on April 1, 2008 as a limited release, following the release of its title track which was a top 10 hit.
Overall, the album's five singles have all charted in the Top 40 on the 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 along with digital sales and streaming. ...
charts, including the number ten title track. Next came "Unbelievable (Ann Marie)" (a song that Josh Gracin wrote about his then-wife Ann Marie), which peaked at number 36, his least successful single to date, and "Telluride", which was previously recorded by Tim McGraw
Samuel Timothy McGraw (born May 1, 1967) is an American country singer and actor. He has released 17 studio albums (11 for Curb Records, five for Big Machine Records and one for Arista Nashville). 10 of those albums have reached number one on ...
on his 2001 album '' Set This Circus Down'', which peaked at number 34. "I Don't Want to Live" was recorded as "I Don't Wanna Live" by Chris Cagle
Christopher Norris Cagle (born November 10, 1968) is an American country music artist. He was first known for writing songs for David Kersh before signing to Virgin Records Nashville in 2000. Cagle made his debut on ''Billboard (magazine), Bill ...
on his 2008 album '' My Life's Been a Country Song''. The album debuted at number four 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 advertis ...
'' Top Country Albums
Top Country Albums is a chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine in the United States. The 50-position chart lists the most popular country music albums in the country, calculated weekly by Broadcast Data Systems based on physical sales ...
chart.
Sales of ''We Weren't Crazy'' failed to meet those of Gracin's debut, with 18,000 units sold on its first week. He parted company with Lyric Street in April 2009 after the poor chart performance of "Telluride".
Critical reception
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
editor Thom Jurek called the album's content "formulaic contemporary country", but gave praise to tracks like the title track and "Telluride" as highlights and Gracin's vocal delivery for carrying the material effortlessly, concluding that "if anyone has a chance of making lightning strike twice it's him." The 9513's Jim Malec
Jim Malec is an American journalist and pop music critic known for writing about country music. Malec attended State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, where he worked as an editor for the college's student newspaper and was involved in a cen ...
also gave praise to Gracin's performance on tracks that were "considerably substantive and surprisingly emotionally complex" on "a near flawless set of contemporary country material," but felt that it relied too heavily on tempo and lacked songs that contained emotional depth and intimacy for the listeners, concluding that "it is a solid effort that would greatly benefit from one or two standout ballads, and which, despite its many strengths, ultimately falls short of artistically exceptional." Ken Tucker
Kenneth Tucker is an American arts, music and television critic, magazine editor, and nonfiction book author.
Early life and education
Tucker was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York, and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. He earned a ...
of ''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 advertis ...
'' called it a "solid follow-up" based on the title track, "Favorite State of Mind", "Livin' It Up" and "Unbelievable (Ann Marie)". Rick Bell of ''Country Standard Time
''Country Standard Time'' is a website dedicated to country music and related genres including Americana, bluegrass and rockabilly. It provides news and musical reviews pertaining to the genre. It was established in 1993 by Jeffrey B. Remz as ...
'' was critical of the album's production being "cluttered and uneven" throughout the track listing but called it "a safe, pleasant follow-up."
Track listing
Chart performance
Album
Singles
Personnel
Adapted from the ''We Weren't Crazy'' liner notes.
;Vocals
*Josh Gracin
Joshua Mario Gracin (; born October 18, 1980) is an American country music singer. While serving in the US Marine Corps, he first gained public attention as the fourth-place finalist on the second season of ''American Idol''.
After his elimina ...
– lead vocals
*Russell Terrell – background vocals
*Brett James
Brett James Cornelius (born June 5, 1968) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and record producer based in Nashville. James' compositions have been credited on 494 recordings by a wide variety of artists. Signed to Career Records (a ...
– background vocals
*Perry Coleman – background vocals
*Tom Bukovac
Tom Bukovac (born December 20, 1968) is an American session guitarist and producer. He is also a popular YouTube personality with over 100,000 subscribers. He is a five-time winner of Music Row's Top Ten Album All-Stars award in the guitar categ ...
– background vocals
*Jerry McPherson – background vocals
;Instrumentation
*Larry Beaird – acoustic guitar
*Bryan Sutton
James Bryan Sutton (born 1973) is an American musician. Primarily known as a flatpicking acoustic guitar player, Sutton also plays mandolin, banjo, ukulele, and electric guitar. He also sings and writes songs.
Biography Early career
Sutton's gr ...
– acoustic guitar
*Ilya Toshinsky
Bering Strait was a Russian country music band, whose style was sometimes called "redgrass". In 2003, the band was nominated for a Grammy Award and appeared on the TV show ''60 Minutes''. The group disbanded in 2006. The lineup on their first al ...
– acoustic guitar
*Kelly Back – electric guitar
*Tom Bukovac – electric guitar
* J. T. Corenflos – electric guitar
*Troy Lancaster – electric guitar
*Mike Brignardello – bass guitar
*Glenn Worf
Glenn Worf is an American bassist known mainly for his work as a session musician. He has recorded with many major country music acts and also tours with Mark Knopfler.
Early life and education
Worf was born in Dayton, Ohio, and grew up in Madis ...
– bass guitar
*Jimmie Lee Sloas
Jimmie Lee Sloas is an American session musician, producer, and songwriter, who plays bass.
History
Jimmie Lee Sloas, born in Ashland, Kentucky, grew up in Fairborn, Ohio and Isonville, Kentucky. His father, Dave, was a member of the popular ...
– bass guitar
*Dan Dugmore
Dan Dugmore is an American session musician known primarily for playing the pedal steel guitar
Born in 1949, Dugmore was raised in Pasadena, California. Influenced by the Flying Burrito Brothers, he learned to play steel guitar after Flying Bur ...
– steel guitar
A steel guitar () 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 conventional guitar i ...
* Paul Franklin – steel guitar
*Russ Pahl – steel guitar
*Rob Hajacos – fiddle
A fiddle is a Bow (music), bowed String instrument, string musical instrument, most often a violin or a bass. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including European classical music, classical music. Althou ...
*Steve Nathan – Hammond B-3
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...
, piano
*Jonathan Yudkin – banjo , fiddle , mandolin
A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...
*Michael Rojas – keyboards , organ
Organ and organs may refer to:
Biology
* Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function
* Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body.
Musical instruments
...
, piano
*Matt Rollings
Matt Rollings is a Grammy Award-winning American composer, keyboard player and record producer.
Known mainly for playing in Lyle Lovett's Large Band, Rollings has worked with many artists, not all country. Rollings won the 'Best Traditional Pop ...
– keyboards
*Tim Akers – keyboards
*Larry Harden – drums
*Chris McHugh
Chris McHugh (born 1964) is an American musician from Camden, NJ. He began his career as the drummer of Christian rock band White Heart from 1986 to 1989. McHugh toured and played as a session drummer with artists such as Aaron Neville, Pe ...
– drums
*Brian Pruitt – drums
*Lonnie Wilson
Lonnie Wilson is an American drummer, songwriter, and record producer, known primarily for his work in country music. Life and career
Born in Monroe, Louisiana, Wilson was originally the lead singer of the band Bandana, which charted ten single ...
– drums
*Jim Hoke – harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...
;Technical
*Marty Williams – mixing
*Luke Wooten – associate producer, mixing
*Bart Morris – assistant engineer, additional recording, digital editing
*Kyle Manner – assistant engineer
*Leslie Richter – assistant engineer
*Mike "Frog" Griffith – production coordination
*Donna Winklmann – production coordination
*Leon Zervos – mastering
;Imagery
*Sherri Halford, Ashley Heron, Glenn Sweitzer – art direction
Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games.
It is the charge of a sole art director to super ...
*Glenn Sweitzer/Fresh Design – package design
*Margaret Malandrucculo – photography
Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...
*Melody Malloy – wardrobe
A wardrobe, also called armoire or almirah, is a standing closet used for storing clothes. The earliest wardrobe was a chest, and it was not until some degree of luxury was attained in regal palaces and the castles of powerful nobles that sep ...
*Crystal Tesinksy – grooming
A groom (short for bridegroom) is a male participant in a wedding ceremony.
Groom or grooming may also refer to:
Occupations
* Groom (profession), a person responsible for the feeding and care of horses
* One of the competitors in combined drivi ...
References
{{Authority control
2008 albums
Josh Gracin albums
Lyric Street Records albums
Albums produced by Brett James