Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On

Roy Orbison famously eyed a pretty woman walking down the street in "(Oh) Pretty Woman." If she'd been wearing a pair of tight blue jeans, Mel McDaniel would have joined him. The Oklahoma-born country singer cries, "Lord, have mercy," when he spots a denim-clad lady "walking, rockin' like a rollin' stone" in "Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On," the lead single from his seventh studio album, Let It Roll.

In 1984, McDaniel's label, the Nashville division of Capitol Records, brought country music producer Jim Foglesong on board as their new president while McDaniel was working on his new album. Foglesong suggested that McDaniel try working with Jerry Kennedy, a session musician who played on and produced several records for Jerry Lee Lewis. During their first session together, they cut this track.

This was McDaniel's first and only #1 hit on the Country chart - a feat that surprised no one but the singer himself. "I did not ever dream that it would be a #1 song," he recalled in The Billboard Book of Number One Country Hits. "Jerry kept saying it was a hit, my wife kept saying it was a hit, my band kept saying it was a hit. I believe in everything that we record, and always hope for the best, but you never know when that one's gonna be there."