Wars hall. The manager asked him for demos, which she then sent to Epic Records. He chose to record under the name Doug Stone, so as to avoid confusion with Garth Brooks. Record producer Doug Johnson played three tunes for Epic Records producer Bob Montgomery, who disliked the first two that he heard but enjoyed the third one. Through Montgomery's assistance, Stone signed with Epic in 1989, thus becoming the only artist that Montgomery ever signed without seeing perform live. Musical career 1990–1991: Doug Stone Stone's self-titled debut album was released in 1990 with Johnson as producer. Mac McAnally, Mark O'Connor, Paul Franklin, Brent Rowan, and Willie Weeks were among the session musicians on it. Contributing songwriters included David Lee Murphy, Larry Boone, Randy Boudreaux, A.L. "Doodle" Owens, Johnny MacRae, and Keith Palmer, who would later chart two singles for Epic in 1991. Its first single, "I'd Be Better Off (In a Pine Box)", spent twenty-five weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts and peaked at No. 4. In addition, the single was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Song, and the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for U.S. shipments of one million copies. The album's next two singles were both Top Ten singles as well: "Fourteen Minutes Old" at No. 6 and "These Lips Don't Know How to Say Goodbye" at No. 5. Following these songs was "In a Different Light", co-written by Dickey Lee, which became Stone's first number 1 on Billboard. Stone received three music award nominations in 1991: the Horizon Award (now New Artist Award) from the Country Music Association, Star of Tomorrow from Music City News, and Top New Male Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music. Brian Mansfield gave Doug Stone a four-and-a-half star rating out of five in his review for Allmusic. His review praised "I'd Be Better Off" in particular, calling the song a "towering expression of self-pity that most singers could spend a career trying to top," also saying that Stone "came close" to matching that song's quality in the album's ballads. 1991-1992: I Thought It Was You, From the Heart, and The First Christmas I Thought It Was You, his second album, was released in August 1991. Also certified platinum, it produced three more chart singles: the No. 4 title track, followed by the number 1 "A Jukebox with a Country