T. Graham Brown - You Can't Take It With You (1991)

You Can't Take It with You was T. Graham Brown's final album for Capitol Records and continued his downward trend on the charts. The album failed to chart at all and produced only one hit single, "With This Ring," which made an inexplicably weak showing in the country Top 40. It's a catchy song that deserved better, but perhaps the new traditionalist movement drove Brown's crossover country-soul music off the radio. Brown had a hand in writing nearly half the album's songs, and leaned on his usual writers, particularly Gary Nicholson, for most of the rest. The characteristic elements are all there -- the Otis Redding-influenced R&B, the soulful ballads, the oldies rock & roll flourishes -- with a little more energy than his previous album, Bumper to Bumper. "You Can't Take It with You" could have been a hit, but the fickle public had already moved on. © Greg Adams