On December 16, 1978, Ronnie Milsap appeared on Billboard’s country singles chart with “Back On My Mind Again,” which eventually made its way to number two. It stayed there for three weeks, blocked from the top spot by Eddie Rabbitt’s “Every Which Way But Loose.” Even though it broke Milsap’s streak of seven consecutive number one singles, the record was an obvious success.
It also bought Ronnie some extra time to work on his next LP. “Images” was the first album he made in his own studio, purchased from Roy Orbison, who had simply called it “U. S. Recording Studios.” Milsap re-dubbed it “GroundStar Lab.” Chief engineer Ben Harris explained to Billboard’s Robyn Wells: “That ‘laboratory’ thing started off as kind of a joke. Ronnie would say, ‘I’m going into my la-bor-atory to work now’ and the name just stuck.”
