Happy Birthday, Blind Willie and Tammy! Blind Willie McTell (5/5/1898-8/19/59), “Dying Crapshooter’s Blues” (1940) ***** Tammy Wynette (5/5/42-4/6/98), medley (“Apartment No. 9,” “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” “Stand By Your Man”), TV show ********** lagniappe musical thoughts Imagine what this country would be like if everything were as fine as the music.
Archive for the ‘country’ category
Saturday, 5/5/12
05/04/2012Wednesday, 5/2/12
05/02/2012Nothing hits the spot, sometimes, like a homicidal love song. The Handsome Family, “My Beautiful Bride” Live, Australia (Sydney), 2010 More? Here. ********** lagniappe art beat: Monday at the Art Institute of Chicago Utagawe Hiroshige, Autumn Moon over Tama River (from the series Eight Views of the Environs of Edo), 1837-38
Sunday, 4/22/12
04/22/2012two takes “Feel Like Going Home” (C. Rich) Charlie Rich (vocals & piano), demo, 1973 ***** Tom Jones with Mark Knopfler (guitar), TV performance, 1996 ********** lagniappe musical thoughts I don’t think I ever recorded anyone who was better as a singer, writer, and player than Charlie Rich. It is all so effortless, the way [...]
Monday, 4/16/12
04/16/2012two takes “Honky Tonk Man” (J. Horton, et al.) Dwight Yoakam Live, mid-1980s ***** Johnny Horton Recording (Billboard Hot Country Singles, #9), 1956 ********** lagniappe reading table Hank Williams . . . was essentially the first rock star. He was a hillbilly singer, but he was a rock star. As Chet Atkins said, the year that [...]
Saturday, 4/7/12
04/07/2012The tree of country music has lots of eccentric branches. The Handsome Family, “My Friend” (2009) ********** lagniappe reading table The Everyday Enchantment of Music by Mark Strand (Almost Invisible [2012]) A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music. Then the music was polished until it [...]
Friday, 4/6/12
04/06/2012Happy (75th) Birthday, Merle! Merle Haggard, live “Lonesome Fugitive,” Buck Owens Ranch Show, 1966 *** “Working Man Blues,” Austin City Limits, 1978 *** “Today I Started Loving You Again,” with Tammy Wynette, England (Wemberly), 1988
Thursday, 4/5/12
04/04/2012passings Earl Scruggs, banjo player, January 6, 1924-March 28, 2012 With Doc Watson (vocals, guitar) and their sons (Merle Watson, Randy & Steve Scruggs), live, 1971, Deep Gap, North Carolina (Doc’s home)
Sunday, 9/18/11
09/18/2011passings Wade Mainer, singer, banjo player, April 21, 1907-September 12, 2011 “I’ll Be a Friend to Jesus” (1936) ***** Singing, playing, talking (c. 2004) Part 1 *** Part 2 *** Part 3 ***** lagniappe What we was playin’ in the ’30s was true country music—no electric instruments, no copyrights. Something’d happen and someone’d write a [...]
Sunday, 5/15/11
05/15/2011White folks got soul, too. Brother Claude Ely, singer, songwriter, preacher July 22, 1922-May 7, 1978 Ain’t No Grave: The Life and Legacy of Brother Claude Ely (Dust-to-Digital 2011) *** “There Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down” (King 1954 [recorded 1953]) *** “Cryin’ Holy Unto the Lord” (recorded 1953)
