Allen Reynolds

b. 18 August 1938, North Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. In the USA during the late 50s, Reynolds started his professional career as a record producer when he worked with his friend, country singer Dickey Lee, and they enjoyed a regional hit with ‘Dream Boy’. He then worked at Sun Records in Memphis, becoming friends with producer Jack Clement, who recorded him singing ‘Through The Eyes Of Love’ for RCA Records in 1960. Reynolds was drafted and began a banking career, but he then wrote a pop hit, ‘Five O’Clock World’, for the Vogues. He was soon both a credible writer and producer of high-quality material. He worked with Crystal Gayle on ‘Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue’ and ‘When I Dream’. Because of his production commitments, Reynolds has never been a prolific songwriter, but his small output includes ‘Dreaming My Dreams’ (Waylon Jennings, Don Williams), ‘I Recall A Gypsy Woman’ (Jennings, Williams), ‘Somebody Loves You’ (Gayle) and ‘We Should Be Together’ (Don Williams). Gayle is associated with ‘Wrong Road Again’, but Reynolds’ own version made the US country charts, albeit a meagre number 95, in 1978. Some of his songs are written with Bob McDill, whose work is frequently performed by Reynolds’ artists. In the late 80s, he established Kathy Mattea with his productions of ‘Love At The Five And Dime’ and ‘Walk The Way The Wind Blows’. He had his biggest successes in the 90s with the multi-million-selling Garth Brooks and has also produced Daniel O’Donnell. Reynolds was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2000.