Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

This compilation is not accompanied by an instalment in the country history, because the next chapter goes with the next mix. And, in some ways, it makes sense that this mix has no history (of course, the timeframe is covered by past articles in the series) because the late 1970s was a time of hiatus.

Many of the stalwarts of just a few years earlier ceased having strings of hits, and those artists who had grown out of the Outlaw movement now had their day. In this mix, the likes of Guy Clark, John Anderson, Larry Jon Wilson and Moe Bandy owed something to the Outlaws. Even Tom T Hall, who wrote so many mainstream numbers without ever being mainstream himself, is calling for the Outlaw guys to stick to their country roots and return to Nashville (while one of the leading Outlaws, Kris Kristofferson, sang the praises of Hank Williams).

A few bluegrass musicians kept the flame of that genre alive: here we have veterans Jim & Jesse and, with a view to the future, Boone Creek, which included Ricky Skaggs, one of the country superstars of the 1980s who would later return to bluegrass.

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-baked front and back covers.

TRACKLISTING
1. Kris Kristofferson – If You Don’t Like Hank Williams
2. Jerry Jeff Walker – Standing At The Big Hotel
3. John Anderson – Country Comfort
4. Funky Kings – Slow Dancing
5. Guy Clark – Anyhow I Love You
6. Mickey Gilley – Bring It On Home To Me
7. Herb Pederson – Can’t You Hear Me Calling
8. Jim & Jesse – Ashes Of Love
9. Johnny Cash – One Piece At A Time
10. Skeeter Davis – Homebreaker
11. Razzy Bailey – She’s Anybody’s Darling
12. The Statler Brothers – Your Picture In The Paper
13. Emmylou Harris – Pancho & Lefty
14. Larry Jon Wilson – In My Song
15. Merle Haggard – Ramblin’ Fever
16. Charlie Rich – Rolling With The Flow
17. Bellamy Brothers – Crossfire
18. O.B. McClinton – Talk To My Childrens’ Mama
19. Johnny Paycheck – Take This Job And Shove It
20. Crystal Gayle – Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue
21. Boone Creek – Dark Is The Night
22. Tom T. Hall – Come On Back To Nashville (Ode To The Outlaws)
23. John Prine – Sabu Visits The Twin Cities Alone
24. Billie Jo Spears – It Should Have Been Easy
25. Moe Bandy – I Cheated Me Right Out Of You

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Seeing as the History of Country series is proving so popular, let us put on a Santa-red Stetson and have a country Christmas. This lot is old-skool: Ernest Tubb riffs (badly) on his 1941 honky tonk classic, Loretta Lynn socks it to it disagreeable Santa, while Brenda Lee aims to lassoo him, yee ha. George Jones goes X-Mas twisting, and Buck Jones provides some serious pathos. And if you had to choose one man to sing Little Drummer Boy, it would have to be Johnny Cash, right? Hey, even horrid old Jingle bloody Bells sounds good here!

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, and it comes with homebaked front and back covers.

TRACKLISTING
1. Loretta Lynn – To Heck With Ole Santa Claus
2. Skeeter Davis – Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town
3. George Jones – My Mom And Santa Claus
4. Jim Reeves – An Old Christmas Carol
5. Marty Robbins – One Of Your (In Every Size)
6. Buck Owens – All I Want For Christmas Is My Daddy
7. Red Simpson – Truckin’ Trees For Christmas
8. The Everly Brothers – Christmas Eve Can Kill You
9. The Louvin Brothers – It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
10. The Statler Brothers – Mary’s Sweet Smile
11. Johnny Cash – The Little Drummer Boy
12. Merle Haggard – Santa Claus And Popcorn
13. Emmylou Harris – Christmas Time’s A-Coming
14. John Prine – Christmas In Prison
15. Willie Nelson – Pretty Paper
16. Dolly Parton – Hard Candy Christmas
17. Crystal Gayle – Hallelujah
18. Lynn Anderson – Joy The World
19. Charley Pride – Santa and the Kids
20. Brenda Lee – I’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus
21. The Maddox Brothers & Rose – Jingle Bells
22. Johnny Horton – They Shined Up Rudolph’s Nose
23. Faron Young – I’m Gonna Tell Santa On You
24. Hank Snow – Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
25. Ernest Tubb – I’ll Be Walkin’ The Floor This Christmas
26. Chet Atkins – Jolly Old St Nicholas
27. Bob Atcher and the Dinning Sisters – Christmas Island
28. Dottie West – Blue Christmas
29. Roger Miller – Old Toy Trains
30. Eddy Arnold – I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
31. Waylon Jennings – Away In A Manger

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CHRISTMAS MIXES WITH WORKING LINKS:
Any Major Christmas Soul Vol. 1
Any Major Christmas Soul Vol. 2
Any Major Christmas Soul Vol. 3
Any Major Smooth Christmas (2010)
Christmas In Black & White
More Christmas In Black & White
Christmas Mix, Not For Mother
Any Major X-Mas Mix
PLUS: Rudolph, a victim of prejudice

More Christmas Mixes
More Mixes

The traditional country stars — Conway Twitty, George Jones, Tammy Wynette Charlie Rich, Dolly Parton, Charley Pride — were still selling many records in the 1970s, and periodically crossed over to the pop charts. Singers like Donna Fargo evoked the good old days with happy songs like The Happiest Girl In The Whole USA.  These were still the Opry years — in fact, in 1972 the Grand Ole Opry opened a theme park called Opryland, and wo years later moved out of its long-time home, the Ryman Theatre, to Opryland.

But the Nashville scene no longer monopolised country, nor did it define it. In the introduction to his live recording of Me And Bobby McGee, Kris Kristofferson deadpans: “If it sounds country, man, then that’s what it is: a country song.”  So John Denver, with his songs about the Rocky Mountains, was regarded as a country singer, and even won the 1975 Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award (Australian-born songbird Olivia Newton-John had won the female award in 1974). At the ceremony, the battle lines were drawn. Presenting Denver with his CMA award, 1974 winner Charlie Rich — the Silverfox who had started his career as a rockabilly singer on Sun Records and now crooned his way through chart fodder —  set fire to the card announcing Denver’s name, holding it up for the TV cameras. The act, which Rich attributed to medication and Gin & Tonics, all but killed his career.

Rich and his Nashville cohorts had no trouble crossing over to the pop charts with their housewife-friendly formula, which they shared with Denver. But a different constituency was now claiming the soul of country. The Outlaw Movement hit its stride in the 1970s, led by Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kristofferson. It was Jennings’ song Ladies Love Outlaws, also the name of his 1972 album, that gave the movement its official name (some say it was invented by Tompal Glaser’s publicist, Hazel Smith). While traditional Nashville was suffocating from a lack of new ideas (and even Johnny Cash’s output was suffering), it was the Outlaws, many with contractual links to Nashville, that kept the genre going.

While the Nashville production line kept on churning out mostly uninteresting music (occasionally producing gems, such as George Jones’ 1980 hit He Stopped Loving Her Today), the Outlaws insisted on exercising artistic control, with Bobby Bare being the first to negotiate his freedom from the Nashville formula, shortly followed by fellow RCA artists Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.  Their freedom would create a new process of making country music, one that would give an answer to Jennings’ question, You Sure Hank Done It This Way?

Other artists, well out of the Nashville mainstream, began to record country music, often fused with folk. The likes of Gram Parsons, Townes van Zandt (who died in 1974 and 1997 respectively), and John Prine would have massive influence further down the line, on people like Steve Earle and Lyle Lovett in the 1980s, and on the alt-country scene that sprung up in the 1990s.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Bobby Bare – Music City USA
2. Skeeter Davis – My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You
3. Faron Young – It’s Four In The Morning
4. George Jones – A Picture Of Me (Without You)
5. Charlie Rich – I Take It On Home
6. Tom T Hall – Old Dogs Children And Watermelon Wine
7. The Flatlanders – Dallas
8. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Dark As A Dungeon
9. John Denver – Goodbye Again
10. Kris Kristofferson – Josie
11. Tony Joe White – I’ve Got A Thing About You Baby
12. Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn – Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man
13. Dolly Parton – Daddy’s Working Boots
14. John Prine – A Good Time
15. B. W. Stevenson – Shambala
16. Barbara Mandrell – The Midnight Oil
17. Lynn Anderson – Keep Me In Mind
18. Don Williams – I Wouldn’t Want To Live If You Didn’t Love Me
19. Johnny Cash – Oney
20. Gram Parsons – She
21. Tanya Tucker – Would You Lay With Me (In A Field Of Stone)
22. The Statler Brothers – Whatever Happened To Randolph Scott
23. Merle Haggard – If We Make It Through December
24. Stoney Edwards – Honkey Tonk Heaven
25. Willie Nelson – Undo The Right
26. Porter Wagoner – Lonelyville
27. Barbi Benton – The Teddy Bear Song

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It was the age of the country songwriter, with people such as Harlan Howard (Heartaches By The Number), Hank Cochran (I Fall To Pieces), Roger Miller (Billy Bayou), Willie Nelson (Crazy), Mel Tillis (Detroit City), Tom T Hall (Harper Valley PTA) and the Bryants (Love Hurts) creating many classics. Some of them would become stars in their own right. None maybe more so than Kris Kristofferson, a man whose early biography reads like a far-fetched penny novel. Many of the songs he is known for were first recorded by others, sometimes several times. With the arguable exception of Me And Bobby McGee, Kristofferson eclipsed them all. One need just compare the Kristofferson version of For The Good Time with the song’s first incarnation as Ray Price’s hit.

Kristofferson had a rock attitude which didn’t always go down well with the country establishment. The establishment of the genre that helped give birth to rock & roll seemed to prefer distancing itself from the long-haired hedonism of rock. But rock wanted a bit of country.

In the 1960s, The Beatles would cover Buck Owens, Dylan record a couple of pure country albums, and The Byrds (in the incarnation featuring Parsons, Roger McGuinn and bluegrass veteran Chris Hillman) would help inaugurate what would become known as country rock — The Grateful Dead, Poco, The Eagles et al — with their LP of country covers, 1968’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The Byrds even performed at the Grand Ole Opry, but the response was hostile, inspiring the acerbic Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man. Some country acts will have dug that. In 1972, the strands came together when the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded their Will The Circle Be Unbroken album which featured legends from the repository of country music such as Roy Acuff, Maybelle Carter, Merle Travis, Doc Watson, Jimmy Martin and Earl Scruggs.

With civil rights and social integration defining American politics for much of the 1960s and early ’70s, large portions of the country scene (but by no means all) flew the Confederate flag. Most disgusting were the pure racist records of Louisiana’s Johnny Rebel (the coward declined to make known his name), whom the Internet sometimes confuses with the much more likable, and tragic, Johnny Horton. Tammy Wynette, George Morgan and Grandpa Jones were among the country stars who endorsed Alabama’s segregationist governor George Wallace.

The fissure ran deeper with the Vietnam War. On the one hand, Mel Tillis in his Ruby Don’t Take Your Love To Town sang about that “crazy Asian war” (even if that line referred to the Korean war), and Willie Nelson, not yet famous, weighed in with Jimmy’s Road, but the pro-war sentiment was more voluble. Apart from Haggard’s Okie From Muskogee, Marty Robbins called anti-war protesters communists, Stonewall Jackson and Ernest Tubb made their flag-waving views known as well. And bluegrass legend Lester Flatt, always more conservative than Earl Scruggs, complained about men with long hair, whom he could not distinguish from women.

TRACKLISTING
1. Bonnie Owens – My Hi-Fi To Cry By
2. Conway Twitty – Hello Darlin’
3. Porter Wagoner – The Carroll County Accident
4. Marty Robbins – Hello Daily News
5. Elvis Presley – I’m Movin’ On
6. Bob Dylan – Country Pie
7. Poco - Pickin’ Up The Pieces
8. The Byrds - Hickory Wind
9. Johnny Darrell - Why You Been Gone So Long
10. Tom T. Hall - That’s How I Got To Memphis
11. Johnny Cash – Cocaine Blues
12. Jim & Jesse – When I Stop Dreaming
13. George Jones – A Good Year For The Roses
14. Ray Price – For The Good Times
15. Kris Kristofferson – To Beat The Devil
16. R. Dean Taylor – Indiana Wants Me
17. Kenny Rogers and The First Edition – Shine On Ruby Mountain
18. The Statler Brothers – Bed of Rose’s
19. Loretta Lynn - Coal Miner’s Daughter
20. Dolly Parton – Coat Of Many Colors
21. John Prine – Donald And Lydia
22. Country - Man From Alabama
23. New Riders Of The Purple Sage – Glendale Train
24. Johnny Paycheck – She’s All I Got
25. Charley Pride – Kiss An Angel Good Morning
26. Sandy Posey – Bring Him Home Safely To Me
27. Lester Flatt – I Can’t Tell The Boys From The Girls

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The two most notable deaths in August happened on the same day: the 22nd. I’ve already paid tribute to Nick Ashford (HERE); on the same day that great songwriter passed away, Jerry Leiber died. I don’t think it’s necessary to go into detail about the Leiber & Stoller story other than to say that they had a crucial impact on the development of rock & roll. Leiber was the lyricist, and as such got Elvis Presley to sing the great line in Jailhouse Rock: “Number 47 said to number 3,’You’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see. I
sure would be delighted with your company, come on and do the Jailhouse Rock with me.’”

Billy Grammer died at 85. Fans of The Originals will appreciate the song in this mix: Grammer’s I Wanna Go Home later became a hit for Bobby Bare as Detroit City. Grammer played at the rally during which the racist Alabama governor and presidential hopeful George Wallace was shot. Grammer apparently wept after the incident, suggesting that his views on race relations were less than entirely endearing.

Akiko Futaba, one of Japan’s most popular singers, had a lucky break in utter tragedy on 6 August 1945. Just as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the train she was travelling in entered a tunnel. The singer, who had started recording in 1936, lived to the age of 96.

In May, we lost Bob Flanigan of the pioneering vocal group The Four Freshmen; this month the last surviving member of the original line-up, Ross Barbour, died at the age of 82. Through many changes in the line-up, Flanigan and Barbour remained Freshmen until the latter’s retirement in 1977.

I don’t often include recored executives in the In Memoriam series, but there are two this month who qualfy. Rich Fitzgerald, who has died at 64, had a massive influence on pop music. In the 1970s he worked for RSO, with whom he helped spearheaded the massively-selling Saturday Night Fever and Grease soundtracks (and, later, that of Fame). After RSO, he ended up via a handful of record companies as vice-chairman of Warner Bros. Along the way, he helped give artists such as The Pretenders, Prince, Madonna and Green Day achieve their breakthrough.

Frank DiLeo was a executive at Epic Records where he nurtured the careers of acts like Meat Loaf, Luther Vandross, Gloria Estefan, Cyndi Lauper, REO Speedwagon and Quiet Riot, as well as the US success of The Clash and Culture Club. He was twice Michael Jackson’s manager, in the late 1980s and at the time of Jackson’s death. And he played Tuddy Cicero in GoodFellas, impressing as Paulie’s brother who executes Joe Pesci’s obnoxious Tommy character. He also appeared in Wayne’s World.

Finally, it’s not at all usual to include non-musicians on account of their being the subject of a song. But in the case of William ‘Stetson’ Kennedy I must make an exception. The human rights activist’s infiltration of the Ku Klax Klan helped bring down the racist organisation and made it his mission to expose racists. Woody Guthrie wrote a song named after Kennedy.

Trudy Stamper, 94, Grand Ole Opry artist relations manager and first female presenter on US radio, on July 30
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Grand Ole Opry Song (1972)
Grand Ole Opry Intro (Prince Albert Theme) (1940)

DeLois Barrett Campbell, 85, singer with gospel group The Barrett Sisters, on August 2

Andrew McDermott, 45, singer of English metal group Threshold, on August 3

Conrad Schnitzler, 74, German musician (Tangerine Dream, Kluster), on August 4

Marshall Grant, 83, country bassist (in the Tennessee Two/Three with Johnny Cash) and manager (Cash, Statler Brothers), on August 6
Johnny Cash & the Tennessee Two – Cry Cry Cry (1955)
Leo Mattioli, 39, Argentine cumbia singer, on August 7
Leo Mattioli – Despues de ti (2006)

Joe Yamanaka, 64, Japanese rock singer, on August 7
Joe Yamanaka – Mama Do You Remember

Billy Grammer, 85, country singer-songwriter and guitarist, on August 10
Billy Grammer – I Wanna Go Home (1963)

Jani Lane (born John Kennedy Oswald), 47, frontman of US glam-metal band Warrant, on August 11
Warrant – Cherry Pie (1990)

Richard Turner, 27, British jazz trumpeter (Round House), on August 11
Rich Fitzgerald, 64, record executive, on August 15
Frankie Valli – Grease (1978)

Akiko Futaba, 96, Japanese singer, on August 16

Kampane, 33, New York rapper, murdered on August 16

Ross Barbour, 82, last original member of barbershop band The Four Freshmen,
The Four Freshmen – It Happened Once Before (1953), on August 20
Jerry Leiber, 78, legendary songwriter and producer, on August 22
Elvis Presley – I Want To Be Free (1957, as lyricist)
The Clovers – Love Potion Number 9 (1959, as lyricist and co-producer)
The Exciters – Tell Him (1962, as co-producer)
Donald Fagen – Ruby Baby (1982, as lyricist)

Nickolas Ashford, 70, soul singer, songwriter and producer as Ashford & Simpson, on August 22
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell – You’re All I Need To Get By (1968, as songwriter)
Ashford & Simpson – Street Corner (1982)

Glen Croker, 77, singer and lead guitarist of honky tonk band The Hackberry Ramblers (joined in 1959), on August 23

Cephas Mashakada, 51, Zimbabwean sungura musician, on August 23
Esther Gordy Edwards, 91, Motown executive who lent brother Berry Gordy the money to start Motown, and founder of the Hitsville USA museum, on August 24
Rod Stewart – The Motown Song (1990)

Frank DiLeo, 63, music executive, ex-manager of Michael Jackson and actor (GoodFellas, Wayne’s World), on August 24

Laurie McAllister, 53, bassist in The Runaways (post-1978) and founder of The Orchids, on August 25

Liz Meyer, 59, US-born and Netherlands-based blugrass singer, on August 26

William Stetson Kennedy, 94, author who helped bring down the KKK and subject of a Woody Guthrie song, on August 27
Billy Bragg & Wilco – Stetson Kennedy (2000)
Johnny Giosa, 42, drummer of hard rock band BulletBoys, on August 28
BulletBoys – For The Love Of Money (1988)

George Green, 59, songwriter (especially with John Cougar Mellencamp), on August 28
John Cougar – Hurts So Good (1982, as co-writer)

David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards, 96, Delta blues guitarist and singer, on August 29
David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards – West Helena Blues (1988)

Alla Bayanova, 97, Russian singer, on August 30
Alla Bayanova – Wolga
Alla Bayanova – Romance Ya ehala domo

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In the slipstream of Johnny Cash came what would become known as the Outlaw Movement, an informal response to Nashville’s easy listening, corporate and safe style, often recorded in Texas, reviving the honky tonk sounds of Hank Williams with strong lyrical content. Starting in the mid-’60s with singers like Bobby Bare, Tompall Glaser and Johnny Darrell, the sub-genre’s standard bearers would include Waylon Jennings and his wife Jessi Colter, Willie Nelson (after he grew his hair), Kris Kristofferson, Leon Russell, Billy Joe Shaver, Hank Williams Jr, Jerry Jeff Walker and Gram Parsons.

More traditionally-minded country stars, many mentored by the great RCA producer and guitarist Chet Atkins,  still broke through — Loretta Lynn, Roger Miller, Charley Pride (the first black mainstream country singer), Tammy Wynette, Porter Wagoner (on whose TV show Dolly Parton began her iconic career),  or Conway Twitty, hitherto a rock & roll singer. And some straddled the mainstream/Outlaw divide. Merle Haggard, though not part of the Nashville establishment, sang about social issues, but had much success with hippie-bashing, hyper-patriotic songs such as Okie From Muskogee, which won him the greatest establishment accolade, the Country Music Association’ Entertainer of the Year award. Haggard was in fact satirising small-town values, though he didn’t advertise that too loudly. Whatever the case, the counter-culture liked the song because they thought they got the joke, and those who didn’t get the joke loved it because it articulated their feelings accurately. In that way, Okie is the first postmodern country hit. The follow-up, The Fightin’ Side Of Me, was more angry-American fodder, entrenching Haggard in the public imagination as a right-wing spokesman, a position he resented.

Haggard, an ex-convict, came from the country scene in Bakersfield in California, where the sounds of the South where brought by Dust Bowl migrants, like his parents, in the late 1930s. While Haggard was actually born there, the king of Bakersfield doubtless was Texas-born Buck Owens, whose long career was influential (and whose names Beatles fans will recognise as the original singer of Ringo’s Act Naturally). He was preceded by the Ferlin Husky, an innovator and creator of some of the worst records ever made. And Bakersfield gave rise to Gram Parsons, whose brief but eventful career continues to influence music today. And up the road, in Los Angeles, Arkansas-born Glen Campbell was enjoying great success with a slicker brand of country.

The counter-culture touched Country in a time of change.  The Fraternity Of Man, for example, recorded the drug anthem Don’t Bogart That Joint in 1968, helping to ring in a fusion of country music and rock which would locate its spearhead in The Byrd’s collection of country covers, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and which saw a member of bluegrass outfit The Dillards record a couple of duet albums with a member of The Byrds.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Lefty Frizzell – She’s Gone, Gone, Gone
2. Ernest Tubb – Waltz Across Texas
3. Eddy Arnold – Make The World Go Away
4. Justin Tubb - Take A Letter Miss Gray
5. Chet Atkins - Back Up And Push
6. Don Bowman – Dear Harlan Howard
7. Dane Stinit – Don’t Knock What You Don’t Understand
8. Hank Thompson – A Six Pack To Go
9. Flatt &  Scruggs with Doc Watson – Pick Along
10. Willie Nelson – Three Days
11. Hank Locklin – The Girls Get Prettier (Every Day)
12. Kitty Wells – Crying Time
13. Merle Haggard – Life In Prison
14. Johnny Paycheck – Pride Covered Ears
15. Statler Brothers - Flowers On The Wall
16. Johnny Cash & June Carter – Long-Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man
17. Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner – The Last Thing On My Mind
18. Faron Young - Unmitigated Gall
19. George Jones – Walk Through This World With Me
20. Mel Tillis – Life Turned Her That Way
21. Skeeter Davis – Precious Memories
22. Red Sovine – Phantom 309
23. B.J. Thomas – Hooked On A Feeling
24. The Dillards – Nobody Knows
25. Fraternity of Man – Don’t Bogart Me
26. Bobbie Gentry – Louisiana Man
27. Glen Campbell - Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife
28. The Everly Brothers – Less Of Me
29. Loretta Lynn – Fist City
30. Dillard & Clark – Train Leaves Here This Mornin’
31. Townes Van Zandt – Tecumseh Valley
BONUS TRACKS:
Waylon Jennings – Destiny’s Child
The Byrds – You’re Still On My Mind

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In the late 1950s and early ’60s country was in a good shape. The likes of Johnny Cash, George Jones,  Jim Reeves, Patsy Cline (who like Reeves would die in a plane crash), Don Gibson, Kitty Wells, Marty Robbins, Skeeter Davis, Ray Price, Faron Young, Ernest Tubb, ex-boxer Lefty Frizzell and Wanda Jackson were recording prodigious success, even in rivalry with its progeny, rock & roll.These were the comfort years before the social upheaval of the 1960s put into question old certainties, even in the world of country music.

By now, country was no longer confined to the South. In some ways, country influenced the English 1950s skiffle genre, particularly via rockabilly and western swing. In London, a young Keith Richards was obsessed with country even more than he was with the blues (and his love for the genre would return with force when he became friends with Gram Parsons in the late 1960s). In Liverpool, young George Harrison was obsessed with Carl Perkins. And a young Jewish songwriter from Minnesota based his sound on the folk music of Woody Guthrie –  who once was regarded a member of the country camp (which then was called folk, just to confused matters) – and the entire repository of country music. That singer caught the Zeitgeist of the 1960s when he announced that the times were a-changing. Country was not immune from a shifting society.

Spearheading that new age was Johnny Cash, who attracted audiences well beyond the traditional country set without compromising his sound. Outspoken on social rights issues — Cash recorded an album, Bitter Tears, bemoaning the treatment of Native Americans in 1964 — he also performed for President Richard Nixon (he refused to sing Nixon’s requests of right-wing songs, instead singing a defence of the counterculture which Tricky Dick so despised). A hellraiser in classic and acceptable country mode, he broke taboos — such as divorcing and then marrying June Carter — which scandalised the country set.

Yet, Cash also represented traditional values, particularly his deeply-held Christian faith. Cash was so mainstream that he hosted a TV show, and so alternative that he would invite acts that otherwise would never get an airing. And Cash stood with the downtrodden, performing in prisons (one such gig persuaded the inmate Merle Haggard to forego a life of crime in favour of making music), in the United States and outside. Cash was the first country singer to really provoke (and then stare down) the Ku Klax Klan, which once burnt a cross on his lawn.

Other musical forms were influenced by country, in turn influenced country and even fused with country. In 1962 Ray Charles released his Modern Sounds In Country And Western (employing a terminology for the genre that had no currency in country circles), a collection of shrewdly selected country songs. Around the same time, R&B artists were recording in the country medium, though not exclusively, as Charley Pride later would. These include Solomon Burke, Arthur Alexander, Clarence Frogman Henry, Stoney Edwards, Clarence Gatemouth Brown and even Joe Tex.

Before we get to the business end of this post, a little factoid: Anita Wood at one point was Elvis Presley’s girlfriend, and she recorded on the label which first launched Elvis, Sun Records.

TRACKLISTING:
1. The Louvin Brothers – Red Hen Hop
2. Don Gibson – Lonesome Number One
3. Hank Locklin – Happy Journey
4. Bill Anderson – Po’ Folks
5. Anita Wood – I’ll Wait Forever
6. Hank Snow – Conscience I’m Guilty
7. Patsy Cline – She’s Got You
8. Claude King – Wolverton Mountain
9. Freddy Fender – Wasted Days And Wasted Nights
10. Arthur Alexander – I Hang My Head And Cry
11. John D Loudermilk – Road Hog
12. Skeeter Davis – Don’t Let Me Cross Over
13. Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs – Fiddle And Banjo
14. Charlie Rich – Sittin’ And Thinkin’
15. Ray Charles – You Win Again
16. Jean Shepard – Jealous Heart
17. Carl Smith – Air Mail To Heaven
18. Lefty Frizzell – Saginaw, Michigan
19. Willie Nelson – Half A Man
20. Sam McGee – Sam McGee Stomp
21. Buck Owens – Hello Trouble
22. Johnny Cash - Custer
23. Doc Watson – Born About Six Thousand Years Ago
24. George Jones – The Race Is On
25. Kitty Wells – Password
26. Tammy Wynette – I Don’t Wanna Play House
27. Faron Young - My Dream
28. Chet Atkins - Guitar Country

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The world is ending today. In fact, it might end before I get to post this, or before you get to download these five songs. It’s the day of Rapture. And we tend to get a lot of those these days. Yesterday Any Minor Dude said to me: “You can’t predict the end of the world.” Like the pedantic shit that I am, I reponded: “Oh, you can predict. You can always make a prediction, but most likely you’ll be wrong if you try and predict the last day of the world.” So whichever crazy cult said the world would end on 21 May will probably have made a wrong prediction. They’ll certainly feel pretty stupid if the world ends on Monday.

In any case, if the world were to end, it would be the Good News, because Jesus would come to save the righteous — and by mere dint of reading this blog, you are righteous. The Rapture thing is really what others call Judgment Day. So here are a few songs riffing on that theme, in lieue of Blondie and Anita Baker.

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The Rance Allen Group – There’s Gonna Be A Showdown (1972)
Great stomper by gospel-soul/funk guys who turned The Temptations Just My Imagination into Just My Salvation on Covered With Soul Vol. 5.

Johnny Cash – Redemption Day (released 2010)
Recorded shortly before his death, the devout Christian Cash gets ready for the Judgment. “There is a train that’s heading straight to heaven’s gate… And on the way, child and man and woman wait, watch and wait, for redemption day.”

Over The Rhine – The Trumpet Child (2007)
“The trumpet child will blow his horn, will blast the sky till it’s reborn. With Gabriel’s power and Satchmo’s grace, he will surprise the human race.”

The Carter Family – When Our Lord Shall Come Again (1939)
The original Carter Family turn up on radio in 1939 to sing a hymn by Johnson Oatman Jr.(1856-1922) with music by R.L. Ferguson. “When upon the clouds of heaven Christ shall come to earth again; will the world be glad to see Him, when our Lord shall come again?”

Arizona Dranes – He’s Coming Soon (late 1920s)
Early gospel-blues legend makes a prediction. If the world ends today, she’ll be just 80-something years late.

In Volume 9 of the country history series, we look at the glory years of country, a time when the genre was at its most self-confident and profitable. It was still a vibrant genre, as this collection shows, though the crooners were already beginning to define the genre, a situation that would give rise to the outlaw movement, the protagonists of which were inspired by several of the artists on this mix.

It’s difficult to say who was the biggest star in 1950s country. The crooner likes of Eddy Arnold were immensely successful, but in terms of sales and influence, the biggest names were Left Frizzell and Webb Pierce, rival kings of honky tonk music. Pierce notched up more country #1s than any other in the 1950s, having in the late ’40s gained recognition by placing girls in the frontrow of his gigs and paying them to scream at him, bobbysoxer style.

Pierce was famous for his Nudie suits – the ornately decorated outfits country singers used to be associated with, if they didn’t wear cowboy hats. Indeed, Pierce did much to popularise the suits made by Nudie Cohn, the Hollywood tailor who got his start from Tex Williams (whom we met in Volume 7). After a row over money, Pierce resigned from the Grand Ole Opry in 1957. The move coincided with the decline of Pierce’s career, though he continued to record until 1982. He died in 1991 at the age of 69.

Marty Robbins was a prolific songwriter and versatile performer. In Volume 8, he covered Chuck Berry’s Maybelline; here he sings his own composition El Paso, a cowboy song from his hugely successful 1959 album, Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. Robbins also wrote one of the Lefty Frizzell songs featured here, Cigarette And Coffee Blues.  From the time of his first hit in 1952 till the year after his death at 57 in 1982, Robbins was never off the country charts. He did a cover of Arthur Crudup’s That’s Alright Mama before Elvis’ recorded his version. Who knows what might happened had Robbins’ single been a huge hit? He also scored a batch of pop hits, most famously A White Sports Coat (And A Pink Carnation), a US #2. He might have had another massive pop hit; he was the first to record Singing The Blues, written by Melvin Endsley, but his label, Columbia, pushed the version by Guy Mitchell, recorded almost two months later. Robbins’ version sold 750,000 copies; Mitchell’s 3 million. Robbins was also a skilled NASCAR racing driver, notching up six top ten finishes (he played himself in the NASCAR film Hell on Wheels).

For a long time, country music was not a place for women. Sporadically, one or two would have big hits, of course, but it was a solidly male world. Rose Maddox was among the pioneering women in country, even if she, as the frontwoman, still had to take second billing behind her brothers (they featured in Volume 8). The Maddox family had migrated from Alabama to California, a couple of years before the dustbowl sharecroppers from Oklahoma made their exodus there. Living in Modesto, the Maddox kids quickly established a reputation as California’s best hillbilly band (in the days before the term hillbilly was a slur), specializing in what then passed for racy lyrics. Their country boogie won the Maddox Brothers & Rose a recording contract in 1946. They made their breakthrough in 1949 with a song written by Woody Guthrie, Philadelphia Lawyer. It is said that Fred Maddox’s style of slap bass playing was central in the development of rockabilly, and therefore rock & roll. Only one of the six Maddox siblings – Don, 88, – is still alive. Fred died in 1992 at 73; Rose in 1998 at 72.

R&B musicians had an affinity with country music. Hank Ballard adopted his first name in tribute to Hank Williams, and Chuck Berry reworked a Bob Wills song from the 1930s, Ida Red, to create the seminal Maybelline. Over the years several R&B singers would sing country. Among them was Clarence Frogman Henry, a Louisiana musician in the mould of Fats Domino, who is a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, and includes covers.

TRACKLISTING
1. Don Gibson - Blue Blue Day
2. Hank Locklin – Geisha Girl
3. Buddy Holly – An Empty Cup (And A Broken Date)
4. Barbara Pittman – Two Young Fools In Love
5. Patsy Cline – Three Cigarettes In The Ashtray
6. Webb Pierce – There Stands The Glass
7. Hank Snow – Tangled Mind
8. Leroy Van Dyke – The Auctioneer
9. Ferlin Husky - Gone
10. Tommy Collins – You Better Not Do That
11. Jack Clement - The Black Haired Man
12. Lefty Frizell – Cigarettes and Coffee Blues
13. Charlie Walker – Pick Me Up On Your Way Down
14. Little Jimmy Dickens - Me And My Big Loud Mouth
15. Billy Brown - High Heels But No Soul
16. Cowboy Copas – Circle Rock
17. Clarence Frogman Henry – I Told My Pillow
18. Wes Holly – Shufflin’ Shoes
19. Johnny Cash – Guess Things Happen That Way
20. Patsy Cline – A Stranger In My Arms
21. Hank Locklin – Send Me The Pillow You Dream On
22. Marty Robbins – El Paso
23. Eddy Arnold – Tennessee Stud
24. George Jones – White Lightning
25. Lefty Frizzell – Long Black Veil
26. Skeeter Davis – Set Him Free
27. Brenda Lee – I’m Sorry
28. Wanda Jackson – Tweedie Dee
29. Jim Ed and the Browns - Who’s Gonna Buy You Ribbons
30. The Stanley Brothers – Rank Stranger
31. Johnny Horton – Johnny Freedom (Freedomland)

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Some years ago, the brains at Rolling Stone grappled to identify the first ever rock & roll record. In the final face-off, they picked Elvis Presley’s debut single That’s All Right, a cover of R&B singer Arthur Crudup’s song, over Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock (itself a cover, though the song was actually written for the former western swing singer).

It is, of course, a fruitless mission to identify a “first” rock & roll song, because the genre is a jumble of diverse influences that convened, not always simultaneously, in an untidy evolution. One might as well seek to pinpoint the first piece of classical music or identify the inventor of the wheel. There is no single originator; there cannot be, because rock & roll is not a recipe consisting of essential ingredients. The genre has always been diffuse, subject to a broad sweep of influences.

Rock & roll grew from various strands of what we broadly term R&B, gospel and country. Alas, the latter influences are often relegated to the incidental. Rock & roll might have received its name from Cleveland DJ Allan Freed as a crossover term for black music, but what the genre became is not what Freed had in mind in 1951, at least not musically.

Indeed, it could (and, indeed, should) be argued that more than a genre of music, rock & roll was an attitude, a new ethos, a response to the times. Rock & roll was an assertive posture, a rejection of prescribed inhibition and the formulae of social expectations. It was a cultural insurrection, and politically helped nudge America towards racial integration. A social (and sexual) revolt, and, briefly, a musical uprising.

A bid to emphasise the contribution of country music to the rock & roll revolution must not be seen as diminishing the absolute centrality of black musical genres in the narrative. Almost all American music, save perhaps for Appalachian broadside ballads, has its roots in black sounds. But country and R&B were not driving on so segregated tracks that there was no cross-pollination before rock & roll. The reality is that in the South, where the roots of rock & roll are so deeply embedded, the social boundaries always were crossed when it came to music. The notion of white and black workers singing together in the cotton fields (proverbial and otherwise) is documented fact.  Some blues of the 1920s or ’30s sounds much like some of what would come to be called country, and vice versa. Early country produced a huge number of songs with the word “blues” in the title, and these were indeed blues songs; not because these singers were consciously imitating black musicians (though they were profoundly influenced by them), but because the blues cut across the races. The father of country music, Jimmy Rodgers, had a catalogue full of blues songs. In short, as we saw in the first instalment of this series, early country owed a debt to black music, perhaps above all in the songs’ authenticity. The late soul singer Brook Benton once described country music as a form of gospel music, “the soul of the country”.

Jazz also influenced some country. Bob Wills, the biggest name in western swing, commented in the 1950s that he was doing rock & roll already 25 years earlier: “Rock & Roll? Why, man, that’s the same kind of music we’ve been playin’ since 1928! [...] But it’s just basic rhythm and has gone by a lot of different names in my time. It’s the same, whether you just follow a drum beat like in Africa or surround it with a lot of instruments. The rhythm’s what’s important.” Wills also provided a prototype for one of rock & roll’s most pivotal songs. Chuck Berry’s Maybelline, another perennial contender for the first rock & roll song, was a reworking of Bob Wills version of the fiddle number Ida Red (as featured in Copy Borrow Steal Vol 4).

It is striking that Rolling Stone named as the “first” rock & roll records those by singers whose roots were in country (if I had been asked, I’d have nominated any number of songs by the jump blues and jazzman Louis Jordan, who sounded and acted rock & roll long before it became a thing). Bill Haley was a western swing musician, and Elvis might have grown up in a small white enclave in Tupelo’s black ghetto and hung out in Memphis’ Beale Street, but his roots were in country. The first song Elvis ever sung in public, at 14, was Red Foley’s Old Shep.  After his handful of recordings at Sun, Elvis was signed to RCA by the label’s head of the country division, Steve Sholes; was often produced by country guitarist and producer Chet Atkins with legendary country pianist Floyd Cramer occasionally on the ivories and country harmonising quartet The Jordanaires on backing vocals.  And the b-side of That’s All Right was, of course, a country song, Bill Monroe’s Blue Moon Of Kentucky).

And surely there can be no denying the importance of rockabilly – a sub-genre of country that did not really sell well – in the rise of rock & roll. The most notable exponent of rockabilly was Carl Perkins, who was taught the guitar by bluesmen, but the musical styles rockabilly drew from had been around since the late 1930s. Buddy Jones’ 1939 song Rockin’ Rollin’ Mama (featured in A History Of Country Vol. 3) is generally regarded as the first rockabilly record.

Likewise, rock & roll would not have been quite the same without the “hillbilly boogie” of Moon Mullican, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Cliffie Stone, the Delmore Brothers, Speedy West & Jimmy Bryant, Merril Moore or The Maddox Brothers & Rose (who drew also from rockabilly). The slap bass, so integral to early rock & roll (imagine Elvis’ singles without Bill Black’s bass!), was standard in boogie, rockabilly and western swing.

Many leading rock & roll stars crossed over from country: Jerry Lee Lewis (whose piano style borrowed heavily from Merril Moore’s), Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Eddy Cochran, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, Del Shannon, Ricky Nelson, Wanda Jackson and so on. Many of them intermittently returned to their country roots.

Several R&B performers were at home with country. Ike Turner (another regular “first” rock & roll song nominee) could do a mean country song, as could deep soul men Joe Tex and Solomon Burke. Ray Charles recorded a whole collection of country songs. Arthur Alexander, a massive influence on The Beatles, was known for his country-soul. Hank Ballard, another black rock & roll legend, identified as his most pivotal influence the singing cowboys, led by Gene Autry (of course, Hank was not his real name).

The mutual respect and shared sources of rock & roll may be summed up well by Carl Perkins. When he first heard Chuck Berry’s Maybelline, he recalled thinking: “Here is a man who likes country” – just as Carl loved the blues.

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And so on to the country songs of the incipient years of the rock & roll era, itself a golden age for the genre.Some of these songs are country classics, some a relatively obscure (especially a handful of rockabilly tunes). There is a symbolism in my choice of opening and closing track: Jerry Lee Lewis covering Ray Price’s big hit.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Ray Price – I’ll Be There If You Want Me
2. Webb Pierce – More And More
3. Rudy Gray – Hearts Made Of Stone
4. Lefty Frizzell – I Love You Mostly
5. Hank Snow - The Next Voice You Hear
6. Kitty Wells – Making Believe
7. Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters – You’re Nothing But A Nothing
8. Doug Poindexter & the Starlite Ramblers – My Kind Of Carrying On
9. The Davis Sisters – Fiddle Diddle Boogie
10. Charlie Feathers – Peepin’ Eyes
11. Johnny Cash – Hey Porter
12. Carl Perkins – Movie Magg
13. Jess Hooper – Sleepy Time Blues
14. Tennessee Ernie Ford – Sixteen Tons
15. Eddie Bond – Double Duty Lovin’
16. Hank Locklin – Love Or Spite
17. Werly Fairburn – I Guess I’m Crazy (For Loving You)
18. Terry Fell – That’s What I Like
19. Merrill Moore – Rock-Rockola
20. Speedy West & Jimmy Bryant – Caffeine Patrol
21. Maddox Brothers & Rosie – I Gotta Go Get My Baby
22. The Farmer Boys - It Pays To Advertise
23. Jimmy Newman – Teardrops In My Heart
24. Marty Robbins – Maybelline
25. Cliffie Stone – The Popcorn Song
26. Bonnie Lou – Daddy-O
27. Buck Owens – Down On The Corner Of Love
28. Kitty Wells – I Don’t Claim To Be An Angel
29. Johnny Horton – Honky Tonk Man
30. Elvis Presley – How Do You Think I Feel
31. Eddy Arnold – I Wouldn’t Know Where To Begin
32. The Louvin Brothers – Kentucky
33. Jerry Lee Lewis & his Pumping Piano – Crazy Arms

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