| Brights Lights and Country Music | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Rick Nelson |
| Cover: | Bright Lights and Country Music (Rick Nelson album).JPG |
| Released: | May 30, 1966 |
| Genre: | Country |
| Length: | 29:37 |
| Label: | Decca |
| Producer: | Charles "Bud" Dant |
| Prev Title: | Love and Kisses |
| Prev Year: | 1965 |
| Next Title: | On the Flip Side |
| Next Year: | 1966 |
Bright Lights and Country Music was a studio album by American singer Rick Nelson. Released on May 30, 1966, it was his seventh for Decca Records and fourteenth overall. It was considered a significant change in direction for Nelson from the rock and roll of previous albums.
The song "You Just Can't Quit" was the first song he wrote himself and released since "Don't Leave Me This Way" on his second album.[1] He covered country classics such as "Hello Walls", "Night Train to Memphis" and "Welcome to My Word", "Doug Kershaw Louisiana Man"[2]
"You Just Can't Quit" "bubbled under" Billboards Hot 100, reaching number 108,[3] number 76 on the Cashbox singles chart,[4] and number 24 in Canada.
Jimmie Haskell arranged the album and Charles "Bud" Dant produced it.
Suggesting that Nelson "cannily captured the idiomatic feel of contemporary country," biographer and music critic Joel Selvin wrote, "Artistically, Bright Lights served as a stunning reversal of field. It did not come out of a vacuum for Rick [...] But the idea of Rick Nelson as a country singer certainly came a surprise to the general public."
Richie Unterberger of AllMusic said that "Although Nelson's move into straight country music didn't result in notable commercial gains, it made sense given that his prior few rock albums hadn't done much, and that most rockabilly performers had long since gone into the country market.[5]