Pure Connie Smith is the thirtieth studio album by American country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 artist, Connie Smith

Connie Smith

Connie Smith is an American country music artist. She began her career in 1963 after winning a local talent contest near Columbus, Ohio, which attracted the attention of country songwriter Bill Anderson...

. The album was released in April 1977 on Monument Records

Monument Records

Monument Records was an American record label, Washington, D.C. named for the Washington Monument, founded in 1958, by Fred Foster and Buddy Deane . Buddy Deane soon left the company, and in the early 60's bought KOTN in Pine Bluff, Arkansas where he retired to until his death...

 and was produced by Ray Baker

Ray Baker (music producer)

Ray Baker is a Nashville music producer. His first hit record produced was I Just Started Hatin' Cheating Songs Today by Moe Bandy in 1974. He also produced It Was Always so Easy to Find an Unhappy Woman and It's a Cheatin' Situation, both by Moe Bandy...

. It was Smith's first album for the Monument label, after leaving Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 earlier in the year.

Background

Pure Connie Smith contained ten tracks of new material. The only cover version included on the release was Dottie West

Dottie West

Dottie West was an American country music singer and songwriter. Along with her friends and co-recording artists Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, she is considered one of the genre's most influential and groundbreaking female artists...

's Top 20 single, "When It's Just You and Me." The album was recorded in a different format than any of Smith's previous albums, being that most of its material had a softer Country pop

Country pop

Country pop, with roots in both the countrypolitan sound and in soft rock, is a subgenre of country music that first emerged in the 1970s. Although the term first referred to country music songs and artists that crossed over to Top 40 radio, country pop acts are now more likely to cross over to...

 sound. After signing with Monument in 1977, Smith's musical style moved towards not only Country pop, but also towards slow tempo Adult Contemporary and upbeat Disco as well. Allmusic critic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...

 reviewed Smith's 1993 compilation, Greatest Hits on Monument (which included three songs from Pure Connie Smith) and criticized her musical sound under Monument, stating, "This is commercial music that doesn't really work. It has a state-of-the-art production that dates instantly, walks the line between crossover pop and country-pop rather clumsly, and lacks good material."

Slipcue.com reviewed Pure Connie Smith and gave it a more positive review, calling the album Smith's "swinger album," further explaining that the album had a "much looser, casual sense of morality in evidence." The release was issued on a 12-inch LP album

LP album

The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

, with five songs on each side of the record.

Release

Pure Connie Smith only spawned one single. The album's first track, "Coming Around" was released as a single in March 1977, only becoming a minor hit in the United States. The song peaked outside the Top 40, reaching #58 on the Billboard Magazine Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

 chart shortly after its release. Pure Connie Smith itself failed to chart the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, as all of Smith's albums for the label "stiffed" according to Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic.

Side one

1. "Coming Around"
2. "That's What Loving You Can Do"
3. "Don't Treat Me Like a Stranger"
4. "Scrapbook"
5. "Every Move You Make (Is Saying Goodbye)"

Side two

1. "It Pleases Me to Please You"
2. "I Don't Want to Be Free"
3. "When It's Just You and Me
   When It's Just You and Me
   "When It's Just You and Me" is the name of a 1976 single by Dottie West, that became a Top 10 Country hit in 1977.This song is important because it marked the first single released by West under her new record company, United Artists. Her material was now more sexual and riskier material, and this...
   
   "
4. "You and Love and I"
5. "Lovin' One Day at a Time"

Sales chart positions

Singles

Year	Song	Chart positions
		US Country Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...
1977	"Coming Around"	58