Showing posts with label bob wills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bob wills. Show all posts

Thursday, September 26, 2019

What I Learned From The First Three Episodes of "Country Music"


Somebody in those first episodes uttered something like, "Country music is about looking back...to a better time..." I thought, yes, that's very astute. I wasn't looking back in 1968 or 1974, but I have devoted an entire blog to looking back. Partly it's reminiscence, but it's also my attempt to ensure that certain artists and influences are not forgotten. Pop culture forges ahead, relentlessly; but to truly understand music, one should steep themselves in what came before. All music, whether artists realize it or not, is stirred by those who plowed the road.

I'm no expert ~ there's lots I learned from Ken Burns' series I didn't know. I knew how Ralph Peer ventured into Appalachia with his rudimentary equipment and found The Carter Family. And I know that country music had to start somewhere ~ thus The Carters. I didn't know, but I suspected The Carters didn't exactly write all those songs they recorded, and they didn't. Copyright was a foreign concept in the nineteen thirties. I also learned that melodies were exchanged like candy drops back then, and no one seemed to mind. It was just the way of music. Woody Guthrie stole the melody to This Land Is Your Land from The Carters' "When The World's On Fire", which was no doubt stolen from some unsuspecting hillbilly's lost-forever original composition. The Carters weren't "all that", except for Maybelle, who could definitely pick a mean acoustic guitar. They were, however, one of the very first.

I learned that hillbillies can call each other hillbillies, but otherwise it's an epithet. It's sort of how I feel when somebody says, "country and western music". It's like nails on a chalkboard.

I learned that Bob Wills had a keen eye for talent, but a bad eye for wives (which numbered about five). It would have been nice had Ken featured some of Bob's music. Whoever authored the episode, it seems, had a distinct preference for Gene Autry, and therefore, an inordinate number of minutes were devoted to this singing cowboy who was apparently as influential to kids in the thirties as Elvis movies were to me in the early sixties (that is to say, we just didn't know any better).

I gained a grudging respect for Roy Acuff, who I'd always viewed with a modicum of disdain. Turns out, Roy was a record-selling phenomenon; and even he admitted he wasn't the world's greatest singer. He was the best ambassador country music ever had, according to the series; and I now get that.

Ernest Tubb was bigger than I realized. I saw Tubb in concert; one of those one-offs that my best friend Alice and I bought tickets for sometime around 1967 because it was the only game in town.

I knew that Merle Haggard idolized Jimmie Rodgers ~ he did record a tribute album, after all. I was of a mind that all Rodgers' songs basically sounded the same (they did), but my husband pointed out that he was actually doing the blues. All the stars from that era, just like Merle, worshiped Rodgers. I do like California Blues (as performed by Merle), but all that yodeling can only be tolerated for so long. It was a different time.

I learned that Bill Monroe was a first-class asshole; but I rather respect that. He had high standards, but mostly he was just an asshole. There was a time I detested bluegrass music ~ now I like some. And Monroe invented it. How many people can claim to have invented a genre of music?

The Maddox Brothers and Rose were simply a name to me before I watched this series. I still don't get the attraction ~ I guess you had to be there ~ but if they helped to influence the Bakersfield Sound, many many kudos to them.

Kitty Wells got a mini-shout-out, even though she deserved more. She was the first mainstream female country star. (Alice and I also saw a Kitty Wells concert ~ again, we saw anyone who came to town, truly.)

The biggest impact for me of the first three episodes was the story of Hank Williams. I knew that Hank wrote some elegant country songs, plus some awesome up-tempo giddy ones, like "Settin' The Woods On Fire" and "Jambalaya". I knew that the end was tragic. I didn't know what a sad soul Hank was. When I watched the clips of Williams performing, all I saw was sorrow. Maybe the best songs are written from pain ~ if that's true, no wonder we have so many Williams classics. Hank was a "hillbilly" and a poet, even if that flummoxes certain culture snobs.

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry
 
I've never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind the clouds
To hide its face and cry
 
Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to die
That means he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry
 
The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry






Yes, I'm watching somewhat out of order ~ I have watched half of Episode Five now and I'm anxious. I hope they got it right. That was my era; I'll know if they messed it up. I don't recall ever watching a series and being half-fascinated, half on-edge; hungry for new knowledge, ready to pounce when they botch it.

I forgive Ken for his obsession with Johnny Cash, as long as he gets the rest right.

Stay tuned (or, I guess I should. You've no doubt already watched it.)


















Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Old...I Mean, Old Music



A guy at work posted a classified ad, looking for old 45's; specifically country singles from the 1940's through the 1960's.  I contacted him, because I have a trunk of old singles, for which I have no use.  I told him, though, that the oldest singles I have are most likely from the seventies.

He responded with an odd (to me) statement:  The 1940's through the 1960's were the best times for country music.  Really?  This guy is younger than me!  I can get on board with the sixties.  After all, that was my time ~ you know, Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, Loretta, to some extent.  But that's as far back as I go.  I didn't even know they made 45 rpm records in the nineteen forties!

It got me to thinking ~ was there actually good country music in the nineteen forties?  Yes, I am familiar with Hank Williams; thank you.  I mean, besides Hank.

Wikipedia to the rescue!

Off the bat, I will admit to having a sonic bias.  While I detest the current trend of recording songs "hot"; I also do not like "tinny".  I'm sure Hank and the boys sounded great at the barn dance, but, had the technology been available at the time, it would have jazzed things up a bit.

(Also, I do not understand how they made do, mostly, without drums.  Apparently, the Opry, at the time, banned them; because I guess they were the devil's handiwork or something.  Ahhh, times were different....)

Nevertheless, let's travel back about seventy (!) years and see what was hot in country when my mom and dad got married.

This video is apparently a mash-up of news footage and random Hank mutterings and/or singings (sort of like when Hank, Jr. did the Tear in My Beer video).  I am assuming that there is little actual film documentation of Hank, Sr. performing.  Shame.

1949: 





Wikipedia is rapidly teaching me that there were but a handful of big country stars in the 1940's.  One of them was obviously Eddy Arnold, because he seems to pop up all over the '40's record scene.

My dad was a big fan of "Make the World Go Away", but that song was recorded in the sixties.

This is 1948:



In 1947, Merle Travis had a hit record with Steel Guitar Rag.  Astonishingly (to me) this song actually has lyrics!  The only version of Steel Guitar Rag that I knew was an instrumental.  It really was an old standby for any guy (and later for Barbara Mandrell) who could play the steel guitar.  My friend Alice's band's steel guitar player did this number for a statewide competition and won first prize for instrumentalist.

This video is not the Merle Travis version, but it is from the 1940's.  In all honesty, it was the only song title I recognized from the list for 1947.  This is Leon McAuliffe and the Cimmaron Boys, YouTube tells me:



1946 seems to be the year of Bob Wills.  Now, I wouldn't really know anything about Bob Wills (and his Texas Playboys) if it wasn't for Merle Haggard and Asleep at the Wheel introducing them to me.  But make no mistake; this guy and his band were huge in the forties, especially in Texas; which to Texans is the be-all and end-all of the world.  Just ask them.

In this video, we apparently find Bob and the boys setting up to play a concert in the county jail.  I do not know why ~ perhaps they didn't have money for bail, so they had to work it off.  I'm just conjecturing.  The ways of the world in 1946 are foreign to me.



Interestingly, a big, big hit in 1945 was a song called, Smoke on the Water.  I'm guessing it was a different song from the Deep Purple hit, but I would be flabbergasted if it had a guitar intro as memorable.  Nevertheless, I don't know that song, so I have to pick one that I've actually heard of.

In the 1940's, too, covering other artists' records ran rampant.  My Wikipedia list shows hits of the same name by two, and sometimes three different artists.  Which leads me to ask, were songwriters not yet invented?  You know, songwriting isn't rocket science.  Seems like pretty much anyone could have done it; had they put their mind to it.  

This song was written by Woody Guthrie, and became a hit for his cousin, Jack.  But I remember the Hank Thompson version (also a big star in the nineteen forties), so I'll go with that one:

 

Cindy Walker wrote tons (by which I mean about 400) top hits.  So, Ah Ha!  There was a songwriter in the 1940's!  But just one.  I only learned a bit about Cindy Walker through an album of her songs that Willie Nelson later recorded.  It's good that guys like Willie and Merle educate people like me; or we'd be musical imbeciles.  

Cindy had a top hit in 1944 with this song:




1943 found a man named Jimmie Davis topping the charts with a song that we all, unfortunately, had to stand up on risers in the second grade and sing, as an ensemble.  (Thanks, Jimmie!)

Jimmie Davis later became the governor of Louisiana, solely because Louisiana voters really liked sunshine.  No, I'm sure there were other reasons.



Let me say, off the bat, that 1942 was a very patriotic year, judging by the list of hit records.  I like patriotic.  Too bad we lost that somewhere.  Titles like "Goodbye Mama, I'm Off to Yokohama", "I'm a Prisoner of War", "Mussolini's Letter to Hitler" (bet that was a bouncy tune), "Remember Pearl Harbor", "There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere", etc.; dominated the charts.

I'm not going to feature any of those songs.  Because Texans TOTALLY RULE! ~ I wanted to showcase this song by Gene Autry.  I do know that Gene Autry was a Hollywood cowboy.  His horse was named Champion (I looked up), but the only famous Hollywood horse I am familiar with (besides Mr. Ed) is Trigger, because I once saw some black and white episodes of Roy Rogers' TV show, featuring his wife with a man's name, Dale Evans.  (I really wasn't into TV westerns at all as a kid).   



Patsy Montana, I've read, was considered the first female country singer.  In reading her Wikipedia page, I learned that she grew up near Hope, Arkansas (I think there was some guy who also grew up there ~ can't put my finger on his name, though).  She went out to Hollywood and worked with those famous pseudo-cowboys, Gene Autry and Pat Buttram; and also with Red Foley (another huge country star of the forties).

I like this song from 1941.  Yodeling really is a lost art, isn't it?  Remember those TV commercials with Slim Whitman, hawking his album of yodeling songs?  



He yodeled every song!  And yet, he sold more records than the Beatles and Elvis combined!  (they said).  When you think about it, though, it's quite a feat to turn every song into a yodel.  I would love to hear his yodeling version of something like Norwegian Wood or Jailhouse Rock (speaking of the Beatles and Elvis combined).

Yes, I have digressed.  Sorry.

But back to Patsy Montana, Suzy Bogguss also did a great version of this song on one of her albums.   



1940 found the charts being topped by that good ol' country boy, Bing Crosby (?)   Here was another guy who bugged the hell out of me.  He was always walking around with his stupid pipe and his stupid golf club; wearing his stupid Scottish hat.  My sum total of knowledge regarding Bing Crosby:  He played a priest in some movie; he had some kind of vocal tic that made him pronounce "B" words as ba-ba-ba.  Or maybe that was SCTV.  I get my history mixed up sometimes.  

Regardless, he, like singers who came after him, such as Pat Boone, liked to appropriate other artists' songs and turn them into bland cocktail-party hits.

The most famous version, though, of Tumbling Tumbleweeds was recorded by the Sons of the Pioneers, who were also apparently featured in TV westerns; understandable since Roy Rogers was a prominent member of the group.



For someone like me, who loves to blog about music, this was certainly the most excruciating exercise I have ever done.

I don't want to offend anyone who may still be alive from that time period, but aside from Hank Williams and maybe Bob Wills, the music was....let's just say, "not good".

I would imagine that people like my mom and dad probably preferred listening to the Glenn Miller Orchestra, but I may just be projecting my own tastes onto them.  I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that if I have good taste in music, I must have gotten it from them.

Too, there was no differentiation in music back then.  Much like the early sixties, one heard ~ maybe not on the radio, but let's say, on the juke box ~ both b-b-b-Bing Crosby and Hank Thompson.  And people accepted what they liked, and discarded what they didn't.

In a future post, I will explore the nineteen fifties in country music.  You and I both know that the fifties will be better.

But that guy who told me the '40's totally rocked?  I guess we'll just agree to disagree on that.








 














 









Thursday, September 25, 2008

The CMA Awards - 1968

1968 was the first year that the CMA awards were televised; on CBS, I think.

I remember these awards, for their low point in cutting off Bob Wills, as he was starting to make his speech, after being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He got to the stage, opened his mouth to speak, and suddenly we were "joining our regularly scheduled news broadcast, already in progress."

Even at my young age, I knew that was just rude. And disrespectful.

I don't care who you are or how young you may be. If you like George Strait, even a little bit (?), you need to know about Bob Wills. Watch this:



So, Bob Wills was disrespected in 1968. Hold on. It gets worse.

SONG OF THE YEAR

Honey - recorded by Bobby Goldsboro, written by Bobby Russell



Okay, it's a difficult choice, but I would have to say that this is my MOST HATED SONG OF ALL TIME.

Shall we count the ways in which this song is PUTRID? Sappy, yes. But more than that. Words really cannot describe. Suffice it to say that I was SO GLAD that Honey hit that tree with her car. Had she not, I would have had to take matters into my own hands. Honey was a bimbo. She deserved to die. I mean, if you can't even drive your car to the market without ramming into a tree, then your existence is some stupid freak of nature, and yet, some clueless poor sap is now SINGING about you and eulogizing your rank stupidity, and we all have to suffer the consequences.

But knowing Bobby Goldsboro, he also loved his bowl of Rice Krispies (remember the story told, ad nauseum, about how he stepped on a Rice Krispie kernel, and hurt his foot? I think he told Merv, Johnny, Joey, and any local-cable access guy who would listen about his stupid Rice Krispie incident, and it didn't even have a punch line!)

So now, Bobby's mourning the loss of his Rice Krispies, which, sadly had more intelligence in their individual kernels than HONEY had in her vast wasteland of a brain pan.

Moving on (while monitoring my blood pressure), let's look at the:

SINGLE OF THE YEAR

Harper Valley PTA - Jeannie C. Riley




This song was written by Tom T. Hall, so basically any connection to this song has to be limited to someone with a middle initial prominently displayed.

I don't have any quibbles with this song, except for the fact that it was played over and over and over....and over.

This style of song would never make it nowadays. It really is all verses. There's no chorus. Certainly there's no bridge. Tom was lucky that he was writing at a time when one didn't need to conform to a standard pattern of songwriting. He would just be poor and working at a 7-11, moaning about the fact that nobody will listen to his songs. Join the club, Tom.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash




Again, not to come off as being a chronic bitcher, but how many damn times do we need to hear this song? Yea, I know. Key of E. I played it, too. Didn't you? Didn't everyone?

Again, do you think in your wildest dreams that a song like this would make it nowadays? Ha! (as Johnny would say). You'd be patted on the head and sent off on your way back to your factory job, shame nipping at your heels. You'd join old Tom T. Hall, working at the 7-11 and bitching about how A&R guys have no taste; no taste at all, in music.

FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR

Tammy Wynette


Whew! Something I can get behind, finally! What can I say about Tammy Wynette? I am just in awe of her talent. I miss Tammy. We'll not see the likes of Tammy again, well, probably never. Like Patsy, someone like Tammy comes along once in, what, 50 years?

Here's the song that probably won her the award in 1968:



MALE VOCALIST
OF THE YEAR

Glen Campbell

This single was released in 1967, so it probably played a major role in Glen winning the male vocalist award in 1968. It was written by John Hartford.



I like this one. I know that Glen tended to record Jimmy Webb songs, and I like some of those. But this is just a nice, folky kind of song (that has a lot of verses, if you study it) and it has a banjo! And didn't Glen use this as his theme song for his show on CBS? So, I guess he liked it, too.

VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton


Okay, I wouldn't technically call Porter and Dolly a "group", but there wasn't a "duo" category back then, so there you go.

Porter and Dolly went on to win this award countless times, deservedly so. Their major competition, at least for awhile, was Conway and Loretta, so I think there might have been some knock-down, drag-out fights in the alley of the Ryman Auditorium, over who was the better duo. But alas, Conway didn't want to muss up his oily slicked-back "coiff", so Porter won.

Here's a 1967 song, that probably garnered this duo their first (of many) awards:



COMEDIAN OF THE YEAR

Ben Colder

Okay, it's maybe an acquired taste. Maybe you had to be there. But I frankly find Ben Colder (Sheb Wooley) funny. "Ben Colder here". She said, "It ain't been no colder here than anyplace else".

What Ben (Sheb) did was take-off's on popular songs, in a drunken, debauched kind of way. So here's "Almost Persuaded # 2 1/2":



The INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR and INSTRUMENTAL GROUP OF THE YEAR repeated from 1967: Chet Atkins and The Buckaroos. Take a look back at my previous post to see a sampling of their wonderful performances.

ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR

Glen Campbell


Yes, Glen was at his peak in 1968. I like Glen better now than I did back then. It was, to be honest, a stretch to call what he was doing "country". Jimmy Webb is a wildly successful songwriter, and I love his song, "Galveston". I just don't really like this one. But it put Glen in the catbird seat, and made him entertainer of the year for 1968.



Are we having fun yet? I am. I like this retrospective of the CMA awards, year by year.

And if 1968 sucked, and you know it did, just hold on. It starts to get better, as the years go by.