Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Thanks in large part to country-influenced acts like The Byrds, The Grateful Dead and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, rock fans were starting to dig the country scene — not Nashville’s crooners or John Denver, of course, but the Outlaws, Gram Parsons and some of the old pioneers.  Some of California rock’s great names had their roots in playing bluegrass; people like Eagles co-founder and Flying Burrito Brother Bernie Leadon, the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia and the singer-songwriter J.D. Souther, who wrote for the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, the Texan “Queen of Rock” who made her start as a country performer before going the folk-rock route (she would later return to country, particularly in her collaborations with Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton).

The convergence of rock and country found concrete expression on 17 March 1972 at a country festival in Dripping Springs, Texas. Long-haired rock people and tidy country fans — spliffs and stetsons — gathered to watch a bill that included the Outlaws-in-chief plus Tom T Hall as well as the classic artists Roy Acuff, Tex Ritter and Kitty Wells. Outlaw country crossed over to the rock market at the latest with the 1975 release of Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger album. A year later, an album of older tracks by Jennings, Nelson, Tompall Glaser and Jessi Colter, was released as Wanted! The Outlaws. It became the first country album to sell more than a million. Jennings’ subsequent Greatest Hits album topped that, going triple platinum. The Outlaws — well, Jennings and Nelson — and acts that followed the path of credibility they had beaten, such as Emmylou Harris and Rosanne Cash, were now mainstream, and many of the old guard disappeared.

Some of the old acts survived, if only for a while. Only a few, such as Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard, recorded into the new millennium. But new country-pop acts appeared, benefiting from the blurring between country, rock and pop; artists such as Crystal Gayle and Kenny Rogers (coming in from the cold). Their long-term impact would not be profound (has anyone listed Ronnie Milsap as an inspiration?), while Emmylou Harris became perhaps the most influential woman ever in country. A close collaborator with Parsons on his two solo albums before his death in 1974, Harris created a sub-genre of her own with her amalgamation of country-rock, bluegrass and honky tonk. Some important people emerged from Harris’ band, chiefly singer-songwriters Rodney Crowell (who’d become Rosanne Cash’s husband) and Ricky Skaggs, who played a crucial role in 1980s country, and a clutch of future producers.

TRACKLISTING
1. Charlie McCoy – Silver Thread & Golden Needle
2. Asleep At The Wheel – Ch’oo Choo Ch’ Boogie
3. Dolly Parton – I Will Always Love You
4. George Jones – The Grand Tour
5. Rusty Wier – Texas Morning
6. Gram Parsons – Hearts On Fire
7. Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge – Dakota (The Dancing Bear)
8. David Wills – There’s A Song On The Jukebox
9. Ronnie Milsap – Pure Love
10. B. J. Thomas – Hey Won’t You Play Another Done Somebody Wrong Song
11. Glen Campbell – Country Boy
12. Ed Bruce – Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys
13. Waylon Jennings – Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way
14. Tompall Glaser – I Can’t Remember
15. Jessi Colter – I’m Not Lisa
16. John Prine – He Was in Heaven Before He Died
17. Emmylou Harris – Sin City
18. Willie Nelson – Bandera
19. Clarence Gatemouth Brown – Amos Moses
20. Moe Bandy – Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life
21. Billie Jo Spears – Blanket On The Ground
22. Merle Haggard – The Roots Of My Raising
23. Gene Watson – Love In The Hot Afternoon
24. Michael Martin Murphey – Wildfire
25. T.G. Sheppard – Devil In The Bottle

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Previously in A History of Country
More CD-mixes

About the only reason why I still bother to watch awards shows is to catch the sequence of people who have died since the last show (and of late successive shows have contrived to fuck that up by going for “artistic” camera angles which don’t hep the TV viewer in identifying dead people). Here is my In Memoriam section, with mix-tapes, for 2009, including only musicians, in three parts. The second will run next week, and the third early in the new year to accommodate late entries. so please don’t shout at me for having failed to pick up that the little singer of the Jackson 5 has died; he’ll feature in the second instalment. Feel free, however, to shout at the Grammys for omitting many of the departed musicians I will highlight.

The order of musicians does not run in the chronology of death, but is dictated randomly by the requirements of mix-tape sequencing — and the total aptness of leading with the Jim Carroll song as the theme of the mix. The songs featured on the mix should remind us what a debt we owe to those who have gone, and in some cases how much we are going to miss them, or cause us regret that we did not get to know them better.

Rest in Peace, y’all.

*  *  *

Jim Carroll, 60, post-punk musician and writer of The Basketball Diaries, on September 11.
The Jim Carroll Band – People Who Died (1980)

Willy DeVille, 58, punk musician, on August 6
Mink DeVille – Just To Walk That Little Girl Home (1980)

Al Martino, 82, crooner and actor (Johnny Fontane in The Godfather), on October 13
Al Martino – To The Door Of The Sun (1974)

Ellie Greenwich, 68, Brill Building songwriter and occasional singer, on August 26
Ellie Greenwich – I Can Hear Music (1973)

Rusty Wier, 65, country singer and songwriter, on October 9
Rusty Wier – High Road, Low Road (1976)

John Martyn, 60, singer-songwriter, on January 29
John Martyn – Ways To Cry (1973)

Jay Bennett, 45, multi-instrumentalist, engineer, ex-Wilco member, on May 25
Jay Bennett & Edward Burch – Forgiven (2002)

Taylor Mitchell, 19, Canadian singer-songwriter, killed by coyotes on October 28
Taylor Mitchell – Don’t Know How I Got Here (2009)

Mary Travers, 72, folk singer and a third of Peter, Paul & Mary, on September 16
Mary Travers – Five Hundred Miles (1973)

Gordon Waller, 64, half of ’60s duo Peter & Gordon (represented here with a Lennon/McCartney composition), on July 17
Peter & Gordon – I Don’t Want To See You Again (1964)

Estelle Bennett, 67, member of The Ronettes and sister of Ronnie Spector, on February 11
The Ronettes – Silhouettes (1962)

Dewey Martin, 68, Buffalo Springfield drummer, on January 31
Buffalo Springfield – Sit Down, I Think I Love You (1966)

Billy Lee Riley, 75, rockabilly singer on Sun Records (sometimes backed by Jerry Lee Lewis on piano, as on this song), on August 2
Billy Riley – Pearly Lee (1957)

Gale Storm, 87, actress and singer born Josephine Owaissa Cottle, on June 27
Gale Storm – Dark Moon (1957)

Huey Long, 105, last surviving member of the Ink Spots (whom he joined in 1944), on June 10
Ink Spots – To Each His Own (1946)

Chris Connor, 81, jazz singer born Mary Coutsenhizer, on August 29
Chris Connor – They All Laughed (1957)

Kenny Rankin, 69, pop and jazz singer, on June 7
Kenny Rankin – Sunday Kind Of Love (1975)

Koko Taylor, 80, blues singer, on June 3
Koko Taylor – I Don’t Care No More (1985)

Johnny Carter, 75, R&B singer with The Flamingos and The Dells, on August 21
The Dells – The Love We Had (Stays On My Mind) (1971)

Leroy Smith, 56, founder and keyboardist of UK soul group Sweet Sensation, on January 15
Sweet Sensation – Sad Sweet Dreamer (1975)

Viola Wills, 69, soul singer who made a comeback as disco diva, on May 6
Viola Wills – Gonna Get Along Without You Now (1979)

Eddie Bo, 79, funky blues legend, on March 18
Eddie Bo – We’re Doing It (The Thang Pt1) (1970)

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\In Memoriam Vol. 1

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