Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

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

DOWNLOAD
(Mirror 1   Mirror 2)

…

Previously in A History of Country
More CD-mixes

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

DOWNLOAD
(Mirror 1 Mirror 2)

…

Previously in A History of Country
More CD-mixes

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

DOWNLOAD
(Mirror 1 Mirror 2)

…

Previously in A History of Country
More CD-mixes

…

Porter Wagoner – The First Mrs Jones (1967).mp3
Once upon a time Mr Jones fell in love with Betty. He married her in September, but by November she had left him. And as Mr Jones tells his story, we can sort of see why. When Betty (he prefers to call her The First Mrs Jones) left, Mr Jones went into überstalker mode. He followed her to Savannah, New Orleans and Atlanta, pestering her to return to him. Then the drinking started (though we have a hunch that Mr Jones was not averse to the occasional tipple before). “It was cold and dark one morning, just before the day was dawning, when I staggered from a tavern to a phone. When she picked up her receiver I said: ‘You’re gonna come back or either they’re gonna be calling you the Late Mrs Jones.” Clearly Betty made clear her intentions to decline the offer, but evidently saw no need to seek safe refuge. So, to cut a long story short, Mr Jones took a taxi, made a lot of noise outside her house. He doesn’t remember what happens next. Consciousness returned when he was burying her bones in the woods, touchingly putting flowers on the fresh grave.

So why is Mr Jones telling us his unlovely story? Well, he isn’t addressing us, which we know because now things are taking a sinister turn: he is talking to his new wife who evidently is entertaining crazy notions of leaving him. “Really now, don’t you wanna come go with me? After all, you are the Second…Mrs Jones.”

.

Rosie Thomas – Charlotte (2002).mp3
This is a gentle song in which the narrator observes her eponymous neighbour and friend suffering the treatment of an abusive drunkard husband. “Charlotte, you used to be much happier, but it’s not you that’s to blame. Charlotte, you let him push you round, and you’re falling apart at the seams.” But the bad times won’t last forever. “One day he’ll get just what he deserves, and you can be yourself once again.” Soon there’s drama again. There’s yelling and threats and, suddenly, a shot. The narrator runs over, and sees the scumbag dead in his chair. She tells Charlotte: “I’ll tell the cops everything.” But she does not mean the truth. She concocts a cover-up, so that Charlotte can start a new life somewhere else.

.

Neil Young – Down By The River (1969)
Neil Young is running a theme as old as song itself — the crime of passion; the wronged husband avenging his honour (Porter Wagoner will feature again with one of the best songs on that theme). But this being 1969, and musicians of Young’s ilk more interested in laying down guitar jams than producing lucid lyrics, we must figure out ourselves the circumstances leading to the murder, which the narrator at least admits to: “Down by the river, I shot my baby. Down by the river…Dead, oh, shot her dead.” The rest is just crazy hippie talk about rainbows. So, obviously, youngologists believe the song is about heroin.

Well, the whiny, occasional Republican clarified the meaning in 1984 at a gig in New Orleans. The narrator met his woman at the titular location. “And he told her she’d been cheatin’ on him one too many times. And he reached down in his pocket and he pulled a little revolver out. Said: ‘Honey, I hate to do this, but you pushed me too far’.” Two hours later he gets arrested at his house. Young’s full explanation can be found here. I just want to know why he didn’t say all that in the song?

* * *

More Murder Songs

.

And so I’m saying goodbye to lodging on the sofas of WordPress and Blogger, and move into my own home, with my own domain and my own armchair.  Please bookmark it and, if you are a fellow blogger, amend the link: www.halfhearteddude.com

The presentation here is a work in progress. Some of the things WordPress used to do for me automatically, I now must do myself. It’s a bit like leaving the caring landlord who painted your walls (but evicted you for putting a nail into the wall for a framed picture) and having to paint my own walls.

So, to get the housewarming going, a batch of songs on the theme of home, quickly collated by executing a couple of searches on my drives. There was enough for a hundred songs, it seems. Not of all of them are lyrically appropriate; Porter Wagoner’s song about an execution, for example. I’m pleased to have opportunity to highlight the great soul crooner Grady Tate. And the Terry Smith song…well, if anybody wants to know the sound of Cape Town, this is it, authentically.

Gil Scott-Heron – Back Home (1974).mp3
Grady Tate – After The Long Drive Home (1974).mp3
Porter Wagoner – Sing Me Back Home (1969).mp3
Sammy Davis Jr – Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home (live, 1967).mp3
Charlie Sexton – Bring It Home Again (2005).mp3
Bo Diddley – Down Home Special (1956).mp3
Terry Smith – Take Me Home (The Cape Town Song).mp3

Last time on our American Toad Trip, we were pausing for a beer in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, before planning to cross into Kentucky en route to Ohio. Soon after, we were detained in another Tennessee town to testify at a murder trial. Oh dear…

*   *   *

Knoxville, Tennessee

We were about a mile outside Knoxville when we chanced upon a grisly scene: a young man repeatedly beating a young, blonde woman with a rock, then dragging her away. Being responsible tourists, we immediately reported the act of violence to the local sheriff. Turns out the man’s name was Willy, and the young woman was his girlfriend, whose lifeless body he threw in the river. Turns out that Willy was a popular guy around town; apparently his many friends tried their best to raise bail for him. We were pleased they didn’t succeed, because we had seen what Willy dun’ to the poor girl. The trial heard that the girl had hopes of marrying Willy, probably the reason why he killed her. We are on our way to cross the Appalachian mountains now, leaving Willy behind to waste his life away down in his dirty old jail.
The Louvin Brothers – Knoxville Girl (1956).mp3

…

Kentucky

Having been waylaid in Knoxville, we quickly cross Kentucky, a state that has lent its name to many song titles, yet I cannot think of any song about a city from the state. Not even about Lexington. So we won’t even stop for Colonel Sanders’ artery-hardening fried battery chickens, and quickly we bid farewell to ol’ Kentucky. The song here was originally recorded in 1913 as Farewell Song by Dick Burnett, who had adapted it from a folk song. The version featured here, from 1928, seems to be the first recording under the present title.
Emry Arthur – I’m The Man Of Constant Sorrow (1928).mp3
.

Cincinnati, Ohio

Yes, as soon as we arrive on the outskirts of Ohio’s third-biggest (with a population if 330,000) and its most famous metropole (it was the USA’s first major inland city), we tune the radio to hear the dulcet tones of Dr Johnny Fever — and we can do so because, since our road trip is entirely notional, we can traverse time and reality. If we had a time machine, we might even travel back to 1977 to observe a council meeting chaired by the city’s mayor at the time — Jerry Springer.

Just before arriving in Cincinatti, we crossed the Ohio river, as once did many a slave seeking freedom. Being located on the border of slavery-state Kentucky, Cincinnati was the first stop for many escaping slaves. With the changing demographics and proximity to the South before the American Civil War, the city experienced much racial tension, and conflict between those for and against slavery.

The most famous song about the river which gives the state its name must be The Banks Of The Ohio, which is a variation on the theme explored in Knoxville Girl (itself adapted from an Irish murder ballad called Wexford Girl). Its oddest version is probably that which became a hit for Olivia Newton-John, a singer so wholesome that she is not an automatic murder suspect. Instead we shall go with the heavily rhinestoned Porter Wagoner (I think Johnny Cash has far too many murder raps on his sheet already).
Steve Carlisle – WKRP In Cincinnati (full version, 1978).mp3
Porter Wagoner – The Banks Of The Ohio (1969).mp3

.

In case anyone really wants to know why I am dispensing with pics of the cities I am visiting, it is because I am getting too many hits via Google image searches. It does boost my stats, but artificially so. I doubt many people who arrive here for a graphic of Tuscaloosa stick around to read the rest of the blog.

Shuggie Otis – Strawberry Letter 23.mp3
Brothers Johnson – Strawberrry Letter 23.mp3
Quentin Tarantino had a good line in compiling soundtracks. Among the nearly forgotten numbers he resurrected was the Brothers Johnson’s catchy Strawberry Letter 23. I loathe the use of it in Jackie Brown though – scoring a vicious scene with a cute song is so Clockwork Orange. The soundtrack for Jackie Brown surely sold very well. All the more the pity that the author and original performer of the song is now reportedly eking out a decaying existence in Oakland. Shuggie Otis, a gifted guitarist, indeed multi-instrumentalist, and son of R&B legend John Otis (Shuggie’s real name is John Otis Jr), released his ode of appreciation for the 22th love letter on strawberry-scented paper in 1971. The song was intended to represent a response to letter 22, hence the numbering. Six years after Otis recorded the track, Brothers Johnson recorded it in a more upbeat mood, produced by Quincy Jones (who, happily, amplified the opening hook) with Lee Ritenour taking over the guitar solo duties so integral to the song.
Also recorded by: Tevin Campbell (1991)
Best version: Much as I like the brothers’ take.and without wishing to come over all purist, I prefer Otis’ original. The clarity of his less lushly produced instrumental part can do your head in.

…

Smiley Lewis – I Hear You Knocking.mp3
Dave Edmunds – I Hear You Knocking.mp3
Smiley Lewis will feature again with another song when we visit the Elvis originals. Here he provided the original for an early ’70s hit. Lewis, a New Orleans musician nicknamed for his missing front teeth, recorded I Hear You Knocking in 1955. The song was written by Dave Bartholomew and Pearl King, and the former was Fats Domino’s writing partner. Fats naturally later recorded the song. At a time when US radio and charts were subject to much racial segregation, Lewis’ record made little impact outside the black charts, where it peaked at #2, and Lewis’ career never really took off. Instead the song enjoyed commercial success in its version by Gale Storm in 1956. Lewis died of stomach cancer in 1966.

Four years later, he would be remembered by the Welsh singer Dave Edmunds, whose cover of I Hear You Knocking reached #1 in Britain and #4 in the US with slightly altered lyrics which name checked Lewis, among others (including Huey Smith, who played on Lewis’ version). Edmunds himself hadn’t known the song until he produced a version of it for the young Shakin’ Stevens – a decade away from fame as a revivalist rock ‘n roller and Christmas #1 hunter. In fact, Edmunds almost didn’t record what would become his biggest hit. He had planned to find stardom with a cover of Wilbert Harrison’s Let’s Work Together, but was scooped in that endeavour by Canned Heat (as we’ll see below). So he adapted the arrangement he had in mind for Let’s Work Together to create a truly original cover.
Also recorded by: Fats Domino (1955 & 1961), Jill Day (1956), Gale Storm (1956), Connie Francis (1959), Shakin’ Stevens (1970), Andy Fairweather-Low (1976), Kingfish (1976), Orion (1979), The Fabulous Thunderbirds (1981), Rocking Dopsie & the Cajun Twisters (1988), Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (1991), Quicksilver Messenger Service (1991), Bart Herman (1993), Alvin Lee (1994), Yockamo All-Stars (1998), Tom Principato (2003) a.o.
Best version: I do like the original better than Edmunds’, but I suspect that Fats Domino would trump either.

…

Wilbert Harrison – Let’s Work Together.mp3
Canned Heat – Let’s Work Together.mp3
Bryan Ferry – Let’s Stick Together.mp3
When Wilbert Harrison released Let’s Work Together in 1969, it was a slightly customised take on his 1961 song Let’s Stick Together. For all intents and purposes, it is the same song. Where “Stick Together” failed to make an impression, its reworked version was a minor US hit. Canned Heat, who were canny in their selection of obscure songs to cover, recorded their version soon after and scored a hit with it in 1970 (the same year their hitherto unreleased album produced by John Otis – Shuggie’s dad – was released). To their credit, Canned Heat delayed the US release of the single to let Harrison’s single run its course first. In 1976 Bryan Ferry took the song to #4 on the UK charts, having reverted to the original title, introduced some thumping saxophone and applied the suave working-class-boy-gone-posh vocals. Outside Roxy Music, everybody’s favourite fox-hunting Tory never did anything better. Thanks to Wilbert Harrison’s retitling, it is now evident which version – Canned Heat’s or Ferry’s – has inspired subsequent covers.
Also recorded by: Climax Blues Band (Work, 1973), Raful Neal (Work, 1987), Bob Dylan (Stick, 1988), Dwight Yoakam (Work, 1990), Status Quo (Work, 1991), George Thorogood & The Destroyers (Work, 1995), Francine Reed (Work, 1996), Paper Parrot (Stick, 1999), Kt Tunstall (Stick, 2007)
Best version: Thanks to the sax, Ferry’s. Marginally.

…

Sonny Dae & His Knights – Rock Around The Clock.mp3
Hank Williams – Move It On Over.mp3
Bill Haley & his Comets – Rock Around The Clock.mp3
It is indisputable that Bill Haley was a key figure in converting rock ’n roll into the mainstream – or, if we prefer to stray from euphemistic rationalisation, make a black genre infused with some country sensibility palatable to white audiences (so that’s a doctoral thesis delivered in 13 glib words). The notion of Haley as the father of rock ’n roll is about as plausible as describing the Bee Gees as the “Kings of Disco”. Rock Around The Clock most certainly wasn’t the first rock ’n roll single either (on the original label it is categorised as a foxtrot), or even Haley’s first rock ’n roll song. It was the first rock ’n roll #1 hit, though, and the song’s pivotal influence is undeniable, even if it ripped off a 1947 hit, Hank Williams’ Move It On Over (which Chuck Berry also seems to have borrowed from for Roll Over Beethoven).

Rock Around The Clock was written for Haley, but due to various complications involving a feud between record company and authors, it was recorded first by Sonny Dae and His Knights, an Italian-American band, released on a label co-owned by Haley. The original version – quite distinct from the more famous version – made no impression, and there is no evidence that Haley referred to it in his interpretation – indeed Haley and his Comets played it frequently on stage before recording it. Haley’s Rock Around The Clock (recorded on 12 April 1954 as Sammy Davis Jr sat outside the studio awaiting his turn to record) features one of the great guitar solos of the era, by session musician Benny Cedrone. Alas, Cedrone didn’t live to see his work become a seminal moment in music history – he died on 17 June 1954 in a fall, three days short of his 34rd birthday. Perhaps Cedrone might be regarded as the first rock ’n roll death. Which would give the Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame two reasons to admit him.
Also recorded by: Sam ‘The Man’ Taylor and Alan Freed’s Rock ‘n Roll Band and The Modernaires (1956), Eddie Cochran and Gary Lambert (1956), Royale Orchestra (1956), Noe Fajardo (1956), Macky Kasper (1956), Renato Carosone (1956), Max Greger Orchestra (1956), Pat Boone (1957), Marimba Chiapas (1957), Winifred Atwell (1957), Isley Brothers (1959), Ray Martin Marching Band (1961), Meyer Davis Orchestra (1961), Sandy Nelson (1962), The Platters (1962), Frank Zappa (1964), Peter Kraus (1964), Jumpin’ Gene Simmons (1964), Mike Rios (1965), Bill Haley (1968), The Troublemakers (1968), Wild Angels (1970), Mae West (1972), Tritons (1973), Sha Na Na (1973), Harry Nilsson (1974), Peter Horton (1976), Jack Scott (1979), Telex (1979), Sex Pistols (1979), Les Humphries Singers (1982), The Housemartins (1986), Ty Tender (1987), Smurfarna (1993), Starlite Orchestra (1995), Ernie from Sesame Street (1999) and a few thousand others.
Best version: Haley’s. The guitar, the drums!

…

Johnny Darrell – Green Green Grass Of Home.mp3
Porter Wagoner – Green, Green Grass Of Home.mp3
Tom Jones – Green, Green Grass Of Home.mp3
I make no secret of it: I think Tom Jones is a hack. I’ll cheerfully concede that his delivery on Bacharach’s What’s New Pussycat is amusingly over the top, and It’s Not Unusual is a fine song sung well. But look at what Jones did to Green Green Grass Of Home. He robbed it of its pathos and lent it as much depth as his contemporary panty recipient Engelbert Humperdinck invested in his material. The spoken bit is droll, but inappropriately delivered to the point of creating a template for generations of hammy karaoke singers. And the cheesy backing vocals. Much better then to return to the song’s roots in country music.

Written by Claude “Curly” Putman Jr, it was first recorded by Johnny Darrell, the ill-fated associate of the Outlaw Country movement which also included the likes of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson. In other words, country music that was cool. Darrell’s 1965 version failed to make much of a splash, but Porter Wagoner – who was cool but dressed like an overdone Nashville cliché – did gain some attention with his recording made in June 1965. Both versions communicate empathy with the protagonist, a dead man walking awakening from a dream of being reunited in freedom with the scenes of his childhood but in fact is awaiting his execution in the presence of the “sad old padre” (not “peartree” or “partridge”).

Jones was introduced to the song through Jerry Lee Lewis’ version, also a country affair recorded a few months after Wagoner, and proceeded to turn it into hackneyed easy listening, selling more than a million records of it in 1966. Who said pop was fair?
Also recorded by: Bobby Bare (1965), Jerry Lee Lewis (1965), Leonardo (L’erba verde di casa mia, 1966), Conway Twitty (1966), The Statler Brothers (1967), Dean Martin (1967), Hootenanny Singers (as En sång en gång för längese’n, 1967), Jan Malmsjö (as En sång en gång för längese’n, 1967), Agnaldo Timóteo (as Os Verdes Campos da Minha Terra, 1967), Dallas Frazier (1967), Trini Lopez (1968), Skitch Henderson (1968), Merle Haggard and The Strangers (1968), Belmonte and Amaraí (as Os Verdes Campos da Minha Terra, 1968), Joan Baez (1969), Stompin’ Tom Connors (1971), The Fatback Band (1972), The Flying Burrito Brothers (1973), Elvis Presley (1975), Kenny Rogers (1977), John Otway (1980), Jetsurfers (2000)
Best version: I am most partial to Porter Wagoner’s interpretation, which Jones might have consulted concerning the spoken bit.

…

More Originals