“A Little Bit of You“
Lee Roy Parnell
Written by Trey Bruce and Craig Wiseman
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
August 4, 1995
Lee Roy Parnell earns his third No. 1 hit.
The Road to No. 1
After topping the chart with “I’m Holdin’ My Own,” Lee Roy Parnell went top twenty with a cover of the Hank Williams standard, “Take These Chains From My Heart.” Ronnie Dunn duetted with him on the track. The final single from On the Road missed the top fifty, but Parnell returned to No. 1 with the lead single from his fourth Arista album, We All Get Lucky Sometimes, which was his first release on the label’s short-lived Career imprint.
The No. 1
“A Little Bit of You” is generic mid-nineties country fare, from the lyrics to the milquetoast production.
What elevates it is Parnell’s strong vocal performance and his slide guitar work. As a singer and a musician, he sounds like he’s trying to break out of the sterilized limitations he’s been placed under.
That works somewhat well with this particular song, which is about how a woman’s love cuts through all the other things in life that are keeping him down.
He finally lets loose on his next No. 1 hit, which has the energy to match the man at the mic.
The Road From No. 1
Trisha Yearwood provided harmony vocals on Parnell’s next single, “When a Woman Loves a Man.” It went top fifteen. The third single from We All Get Lucky Sometimes is Parnell’s final No. 1 hit to date. We’ll cover it in 1996.
“A Little Bit of You” gets a B.
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Always loved this one! Sometimes simple feel good love songs from the 90’s just really hit the spot for me, and this has always definitely been one of them. This song simply never fails to brighten my mood and put a smile on my face whenever I hear it, not to mention the mid 90’s nostalgia it brings back for me, as well. Personally, I’ve always really enjoyed Parnell’s melodic, mid tempo cuts like this, which can be total earworms, others being “What Kind Of Fool Do You Think I Am,” “Back In My Arms Again,” “Night After Night,” “Tender Moment,” “On The Road,” “Wasted Time,” etc. I do agree with you that Lee Roy’s vocals and guitar playing do make the song a lot better than it probably would’ve been in the hands of other male artists of the time. His slide guitar has always been such a pleasure to hear, and this is no exception.
This is another song I always enjoyed immediately while listening to country radio in 1995. It particularly brings back great memories of one of the very first trips to Pennsylvania that my parents and I ever took. The Lee Roy Parnell song was the first song I heard when my step dad flipped the radio to the country station just as we were on our way, and I remember it being stuck in my head throughout nearly the rest of the day, lol. I remember it being in my head when we were in Lancaster, PA just outside of Paradise, while we were checking out this cool outdoor decoration store called Almost Paradise (which sadly just closed about 5-6 years ago). I even still have the pinwheel we bought there, lol. :)
This also reminds me that I used to think Lee Roy Parnell and Neal McCoy’s voices sounded almost alike when getting back into country music in 1995. Like, I remember hearing Neal’s “They’re Playing Our Song” for the first time and thinking he sounded similar to Lee Roy.
Agree with the B rating. I have “A Little Bit of You” on LRP’s cd “Hits & Highways Ahead”.