Jonny Lang “Lie to Me” charted

Lie to Me Jonny Lang

Writer(s): Bruce McCabe, David Z (see lyrics here) First Charted: March 8, 1997 Peak: 15 AA, 12 AR, 12 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 25.25 video, 17.52 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Blues singers and guitarists are stereotypically viewed as grizzled, old black men from the Mississippi Delta. Their music felt weary and withered because the performers themselves were. They’d been beaten down by love and life and poured their battered souls into their art. Even the most successful musicians of the genre – B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf – never achieved a lot of mainstream, commercial success. Blues took a surprise hold on some of Britian’s biggest rock acts in the 1960s and ‘70s when white acts like Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin incorporated it into their sound, even covering traditional blues songs and playing with some of the genre’s most notable performers. In the 1980s, America embraced Stevie Ray Vaughan, a white singer and guitarist who took up the mantle as possibly the most visible blues artist in the world until a tragic helicopter accident ended his life at only 35 years old. Then along came Jonny Lang. He was anything but a grizzled, old black man from the Mississippi Delta. He was a FIFTEEN-year-old white kid from Fargo, North Dakota when his big-label debut, Lie to Me, was released. He started playing guitar when he was 12 and after his father took him to see the Bad Medicine Blues Band, one of Fargo’s few blues bands, Lang started taking guitar lessons from Ted Larsen, the band’s guitarist. Several months later, Lang joined the band. He got signed to A&M Records in 1996 after independently releasing the album Smokin’ when he was 14. Lie to Me came out in 1997 at a time when other white blues artists were gaining attention as well. Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Corey Stevens had both released their debut albums in 1995 and sophomore albums in 1997. All Music Guide called him “a technically gifted blues guitarist, capable of spitting out accomplished licks and riffs at an astonishingly rapid rate” AMG but said the album didn’t have “much emotional weight,” AMG which could probably be attributed to a teenager trying to sing world-weary songs. The title cut from Lang’s album was about “a guy so distraught over his crumbling relationship that he asks his girl to tell him lies so he can believe everything will be as it was.” SF In an interview 20 years later, Lang said, “I don’t think I related to any of the songs until I was in my 20s, as far as life experience goes.” SF Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Jonny Lang AMG All Music Guide SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia First posted 1/15/2023.