RANDY TRAVIS WENT ALMOST NINE YEARS WITHOUT A NO. 1 — THEN A GOSPEL SONG GAVE HIM ONE MORE. By the early 2000s, Randy Travis no longer ruled country radio the way he once had. His last Billboard country No. 1 had come in 1994 with “Whisper My Name.” Then he heard “Three Wooden Crosses.” Written by Doug Johnson and Kim Williams, the song told a story of faith, death and redemption. Randy was so struck by its final twist that he stopped his treadmill, rewound the cassette and listened again. Country radio responded too. In 2003, “Three Wooden Crosses” reached No. 1 — Randy’s first in almost nine years and ultimately his 16th and final Billboard country chart-topper. It also became the CMA Song of the Year. The song came from a gospel album. But it carried Randy Travis back to the top of country music. Sometimes the song nobody expects is the one that gives a legend one last No. 1.

Randy Travis and the Song That Brought Him Back to No. 1

By the early 2000s, Randy Travis was already a country music legend, but the hit-making pace that once seemed effortless had slowed. His last Billboard country No. 1 before the comeback came in 1994 with “Whisper My Name.” Nearly a decade passed without another trip to the top of the chart.

Then came “Three Wooden Crosses.”

Written by Doug Johnson and Kim Williams, the song arrived with the feel of a simple story, but it carried something much larger inside it: faith, loss, and the quiet surprise of redemption. The kind of ending that makes a listener stop, rewind, and hear the whole thing again. That was exactly the reaction Randy Travis had when he first heard it.

There is something moving about that detail. A veteran artist, already known for one of the most recognizable voices in country music, hearing a song that still has the power to make him pause in his tracks. It was not flashy. It was not built like a typical radio machine. It was just a story song with a gospel heart, and that was enough.

Country radio agreed. In 2003, “Three Wooden Crosses” reached No. 1 on the Billboard country chart, becoming Randy Travis’s 16th and final chart-topper. For an artist who had helped define traditional country for a generation, the comeback felt especially meaningful because it came through a song rooted in conviction rather than trend-chasing. The recording also went on to win CMA Song of the Year, giving the track an even bigger place in country music history.

A Gospel Song With Country Power

What made the moment stand out was not just the chart success. It was the path the song took to get there. “Three Wooden Crosses” came from a gospel album, yet it still connected deeply with country listeners. That crossover quality gave the song a rare kind of life: spiritual, narrative-driven, and unmistakably human.

For Randy Travis, it was a reminder that a career does not have to depend on constant reinvention to matter. Sometimes the right song arrives at the right time and restores everything that made an artist special in the first place.

Sometimes the song nobody expects is the one that gives a legend one last No. 1.

That is the quiet truth behind “Three Wooden Crosses.” It was not just another single. It was a return to form, a late-career gift, and a final reminder of Randy Travis’s power to turn a story into a moment that country music would not forget.

RANDY TRAVIS WENT ALMOST NINE YEARS WITHOUT A NO. 1 — THEN A GOSPEL SONG GAVE HIM ONE MORE. By the early 2000s, Randy Travis no longer ruled country radio the way he once had. His last Billboard country No. 1 had come in 1994 with “Whisper My Name.” Then he heard “Three Wooden Crosses.” Written by Doug Johnson and Kim Williams, the song told a story of faith, death and redemption. Randy was so struck by its final twist that he stopped his treadmill, rewound the cassette and listened again. Country radio responded too. In 2003, “Three Wooden Crosses” reached No. 1 — Randy’s first in almost nine years and ultimately his 16th and final Billboard country chart-topper. It also became the CMA Song of the Year. The song came from a gospel album. But it carried Randy Travis back to the top of country music. Sometimes the song nobody expects is the one that gives a legend one last No. 1.

Ten months after Waylon Jennings died, Jessi Colter sat at a white piano in Phoenix and sang a song about wanting just one more night with someone you love. Waylon died at their home in Chandler, Arizona, on February 13, 2002. He was 64. He and Jessi had been married for more than 32 years. Then, on December 30, at a gathering thrown by Waylon’s family at Phoenix’s Rhythm Room, Jessi went to the piano and played Elvis Presley’s “One Night.” A reporter there noted that the choice did not feel accidental. Earlier that evening, Jessi had said it was time to say goodbye to sorrow. For decades, she had sung beside Waylon, survived the hardest years with him, and built a life around the man behind the outlaw image. Now his chair was empty. And instead of singing one of Waylon’s songs, Jessi chose one about wishing one night could somehow be enough.

Billy Joe Shaver’s final performance happened in a kitchen. The last song he sang was “Live Forever” — a song he had written with the son he had already buried. In April 2020, with COVID shutting down stages, longtime guitarist Jeremy Lynn Woodall came to Billy Joe’s home to record a small performance. No crowd. No spotlight. Just Billy Joe in his kitchen, singing the song he and Eddy Shaver had written years earlier. By then, life had taken almost everything it could. A sawmill accident had cost him two fingers and part of another. In 1999, he lost both his wife Brenda and his mother to cancer. The next year, Eddy died. Then in 2001, Billy Joe suffered a heart attack onstage at Gruene Hall and survived bypass surgery. Still, he kept going. He had written or co-written nine songs on Waylon Jennings’ Honky Tonk Heroes, helping give outlaw country some of its most important words. About six months after that kitchen performance, Billy Joe died from a stroke at 81. Then, in 2022, Willie Nelson, George Strait, Miranda Lambert, Steve Earle and others recorded his songs for a tribute album. Its title was Live Forever. That kitchen performance wasn’t prophecy. It was something even better. Billy Joe Shaver had spent his whole life proving the song true.

WAYLON JENNINGS SPENT A LIFETIME DISTRUSTING OTHER PEOPLE’S ANSWERS ABOUT GOD. THEN HE WROTE HIS OWN. Waylon grew up in the Church of Christ in West Texas, hearing the kind of fire-and-brimstone preaching that stayed with him long after he stopped going to church. He never liked being told exactly what God was supposed to look like, who was going to heaven, or who deserved hell. That tension followed him for years. Then, in the 1990s, Waylon sat down and wrote “I Do Believe.” Jessi Colter later said the song surprised her. Waylon rarely expressed his faith that openly. But the message was unmistakable: he believed in God — just not through fear or somebody else’s rules. His faith was personal, imperfect, and entirely his own. Before the Highwaymen recorded it, Waylon played the song for his friend Will D. Campbell, the unconventional preacher and writer. Campbell listened and gave him two words: “That’ll preach.” The Highwaymen released “I Do Believe” on The Road Goes on Forever in 1995. It was never a major hit. Waylon later said he thought it might be the best song he ever wrote. For a man who spent his career refusing to let Nashville tell him how to sing, it made sense that he eventually refused to let anyone else tell him how to believe. Waylon Jennings never needed someone else to write his answer about God. Eventually, he wrote it himself.