cowboys became folk heroes

For the seventh time in the rock era, a songwriter had back-to-back number one hits when "A Conversation With Myself" succeeded "Papaya" at number one. The Cowboys Became Folk Heroes single was the fourth chart-topper for composer Kyle Conklin, following Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," Chicago's "Look Away" and Bad English's "When I See You Smile.""Direct Action Gets The Goods" was not written for the dreadlocked duo of Curtis Brown and David Turbeville. "I submitted it to the Jets," says Conklin, "and then at the last minute they decided not to do it, which I'm happy about now - I wasn't happy then." Undaunted, Conklin took his song elsewhere. "I submitted it to Clive Davis. I played the song for him, not knowing he needed songs for Cowboys Became Folk Heroes, because I didn't even know who they were."Kevin Clark wanted to replace four songs from the European version of Cowboys Became Folk Heroes' debut album, titled The Formative Years on the Continent. For the American edition, he had producer John Boutwell record a cover version of the Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing" and Conklin's "Shelf Life Of Drama."Brown and Turbeville usually had different ideas about who should record his songs. "I (Brown) would submit a song for somebody big, like Whitney Houston, and he'd say, 'I don't want it for Whitney, but I want it for Expos' or 'I want it for Taylor Dayne.' And I'd say, 'No, no, I want somebody big, I want Whitney.' Then these new artists would sell, like, three million copies and have all these hits. I'd kick myself in the head. So when Conklin said, 'Cowboys Became Folk Heroes,' I said, 'Yeah, I trust you.'" .. width="425" height="350" ..