You couldn't get enough? Neither can I. Here's another batch of scratchy platters for you to read about.

Jimmy Bryant

Johnny Bond:
Broke Disgusted & Sad/In Old New Mexico (Columbia 20876)

I got stuck with this record when I bought a big batch of 78s as a fixed lot. I wasn't very excited to put it on, because Johnny Bond in general doesn't excite me very much. I never thought his drunk act was funny. But I make it a policy to listen to at least a few bars of every side I buy, just to make sure I don't overlook something worthwhile, so I dutifully dropped the needle down. This must have been the immediate follow-up to "Sick Sober & Sorry" cuz the a-side is pretty sorry itself, being a pointless rewrite of the aforementioned big hit. I played it once all the way through and I'll never make that mistake again. Then I flipped it over, with even lower expectations for the b-side, figuring the "New Mexico" reference to portend some dire faux-mambo nonsense. Then all of a sudden blazing out of that speaker, it's Speedy West & Jimmy Bryant! The song is an upbeat throwaway honky-tonker, but Speedy plays his ass off on a sparkling solo. Fiddle comps on the next verse and they're smokin' too, Harold Hensley mebbe? Jimmy's solo doesn't really build quite like it oughta, but is remarkable for just how long he can stretch out a rambling unbroken line, he just keeps chattering away and you wonder "when's he gonna run outta notes?" but he never really does. So it just shows to go ya, folks, listen to every side you buy. You might get a nice surprise now and then. Unless it's a Hugo Winterhaler record, in which case you have my permission to not listen to it. Ever.

Dub Dickerson

Dub Dickerson:
My Gal Gertie/Look Look Look (Capitol)

Of Dub's long and largely un-stellar career as a vocalist, this li'l two-sided champ is surely his finest hour. First off, there's the label credit, which describes Dub as "the boy with the grin in his voice." Now how could you resist that? Well, yeah, ok, easily enough if the record sucked...but it don't suck! Two sharp, witty, upbeat slabs of lusty honky-tonkin, with our man Dub singing in a loud, brash, straight-up sorta way, right on the beat. Nothin' fancy. Don't need nothin' fancy. No sir. "My Gal Gertie" sings the praises of his big ol' blonde bombshell and nothing I could say here would do justice to the description he provides us of this here gal. I wish I'd known her, that's all I can say. The flip is another lust-o-rama oggle-fest, as his gal walks down the street attracting all sorts of well-deserved attention. She's a trophy, as opposed to Gertie, who is clearly her own woman...still, Dub's appreciation of her sexiness is so enthusiastic, so red-blooded, so damn healthy that I can't take offense. "Gertie" has shown up on some rockabilly comps lately, and while that's a stylistic stretch in my book (this is stone honky-tonk, with double-stop fiddle, bluesy steel, Hank-y crack rhythm, nary a slap bass or hot-potato-in-the-mouth vocal gimmick in sight) it's good to see such a fine waxing resurface in any context whatsoever.

Dub Dickerson:
Ain't Got No Doggone Gal/Owl Hoot Blues (Imperial)

I'd come across one of Dub's great early-50s single for Capitol (see above) in a bulk lot of 45s I picked up, and man it knocked me flat out. So when I saw this I had to git it, figuring it'd have a similar hard honky-tonk sorta sound to it. Wotta surprise when I got it home and the thing was largely accordian-driven in a western sorta way, with one song being an out-and-out cowboy tale. Now, I really want to like accordians, but try as I might to overcome my deep-seated anti-accordian bigotry, my life-long aversion to the sqeeze-box remains largely intact. So the instrument's all-too-present presence on these sides does present something of a problem for me. That said, the charm of these well-written songs, combined with Dub's pleasant but not character-free voice, some sharp lap steel, and sloppy acoustic-guit boogie licks soon won me over. "Owl Hoot Blues" in particular has stood up well to repeated listening on a car tape. Kicking off with silly, lower-than-low-budget ricocheting-bullet sound effects, this one-chord wonder tells a tale of murder and a desperate flight from its hangin' tree consequences with a perky, innocuous, blithely smiling, toe-tapping, happy-go-lucky vibe that completely contradicts the blood-spattered storyline. Nice! "Ain't Got No Doggone Gal", on the other hand, worries me a little bit, as the narrator apparently prefers the company of his horse to that of any member of the fairer sex.

Tibby Edwards

Tibby Edwards:
Play It Cool/Shift Gears (Mercury)

The a-side is a fine slab of proto-rockabilly from the pen of the young George Jones, who waxed his version for Starday around this same time (1956, methinks). I know it's heresy to say that anyone could outdo The Voice on anything, but you want my opinion Tibby's version comes out on top. Tibby had such an extreme way of exaggerating the tonal & timbral shifts in his voice, singing deep in the throat on a low note then straight through the nose on the following high one. It gives his vocalizin' a uniquely balls-out youthful enthusiasm that puts this silly hepcat jive number over quite convincingly. Course it don't hurt none that the musicians are all hot-shot pros, alumni of Hank's Drifting Cowboys. The fiddle & take-off guitar solos are particularly fine. The b-side is a groovy hillbilly bopper, an Edwards original that slides by at a brisk tempo. Not a particularly great piece of songsmithery, but the band's cookin, and frankly this guy coulda waxed "Jimmy Crack Corn" and I'd probably think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Tibby Edwards:
I Asked for More/But I Do (Mercury)

Bought this through the mail from a guy who maintained the condition as VG+++. It arrived cracked, scratched, and warped, with what appear to be either toothmarks or a bootprint endelibly etched in one side. Clearly none of this happened while it was in transit from him to me. I complained, but I ended up keeping the damn thing anyway, cuz where else am I ever gonna hear these tunes? As if to cruelly prove my point, the Fates have never sent so much as a whisper of another copy of this record my way. I simply vowed never to buy from the rat bastard again and tolerated the dense layer of sonic sludge that lay between me and the treasured sounds of Tibby. At least the b-side doesn't skip. If I'm ever able to get my fantasy project together (a six-song EP entitled "Tom Armstrong Sings Tibby Edwards") you can be damn sure both of these fine Tibby originals will be on it.

The Farmer Boys

Farmer Boys:
Onions, Onions/Lend A Helping Hand (Capitol)

You gotta love those dedicated people at Bear Family. They do so much to resuscitate the languishing reputations of long-forgotten C&W acts, focusing attention on under-appreciated recording artists of yesteryear with their high-quality reissue collections. But over the last few years I've come to find that their methods have an unintended side effect for guys like me: their dedication to exhaustive completism takes all the discovery and fun out of collecting. When I first take a chance & buy some single by some artist I've never heard before and I really love it, I want to find more. Sometimes it takes years to find as much as another single by that artist, and that whole time, in the background of my boring day-to-day life, I can stay really excited about that artist, because I know that somewhere out there is another record by that artist that's probably just as cool, and sooner or later I'm gonna find it, and that'll be a really exciting day. With the Bear Family CDs, you can get everything that artist ever did in one fell swoop, and maybe you'll listen to it for a few months, and some of the songs will be really great and some will kind of suck, and when someone mentions the artist in question you'll say "oh yeah, that stuff's great, I've got the Bear Family collection" and you'll be sort of bored. Which is why I won't buy the Farmer Boys collection on Bear Family. I like them too much, and I want to prolong my interest and enjoyment by buying their original singles as I find them. It ain't easy, but it can be done. I've got seven of their eight known records. It'll be a day both happy and sad when I find that last one. This one's great, by the way.

Eddie Marshall (thanks to Steve Hathaway for the pic)

Eddie Marshall & the Traildusters:
Buddy, Stay Off That Wine/I Could Lose These Blues (RCA)

Can anyone out there tell me anything about this guy? Who he was, when & where he was active, who was in his band? Never seen or heard nothing about him, yet this is top-notch hoo-ha. Don't quite know whether you'd call it honkytonk with a western swing influence, or a western swing record with a honkytonk punch...transitional twixt the two, I reckon. I picked this up just cuz the title of the a-side was kinda interesting, and fell outta my chair when I got it home and actually dropped the needle down on the shellac. What greeted my hungry ears was a witty talking blues taken at a preposterous breakneck tempo, sportin' sizzling fiddle and ferocious Porky Freeman-ish lead guitar. The relaxed blues of the b-side is a nice comedown, with a Hank-style yodel and yet another helping of fine take-off guitar, this less jaw-droppingly flashy but with elegant bluesy phrasing. I'll buy anything else I find by this guy, I tell you what.

Just as an aside, shortly after I got this I ran across the original recording of "Buddy..." by its author Bruce Culver on the King label, and much as I like to hear writers sing their own material, Eddie Marshall's version smokes it by a longshot.

Country Johnny Mathis:
Thinking Too Far Behind/Wouldn't That Be Something (United Artists 396)

This guy's nasal voice could peel paint at 50 paces. He's one loud-ass singer. You'll never mistake him for the "Chances Are" guy once you've heard him. "Thinking Too Far Behind" is an early 60s kickin uptempo twin-fiddle shuffle with fantastic production and a great melody, while the lyrical premise leaves me scratchin my head a little bit...I think he's trying to say he's stuck living in the past and can't quite get with the "now", but it ain't too clear...not that it matters any really, cuz man those fiddles come out blazin, and the steel pulls this one high note three or four times just before the vocal kicks in. He does a few tricky glissando licks with his voice on the title line, in overdubbed harmony to boot, that makes for a killer hook. Clocks in at under two minutes, but oh what a joyous 1:45 it is. The other side of the record is a run-of-the-mill ballad, kinda whiny.

Vernon Oxford

Vernon Oxford :
Little Sister Throw Your Red Shoes Away/Old Folks Home (RCA 47-9306)

You'd have to look around pretty hard to find a song about the shame a brother feels when his younger sister is a slut/stripper/prostitute/whatever. There are lots from the point of view of a husband/boyfriend/lover/whatever, but name me another singer who's got one from the brother's POV. Well damn sam, Vernon's got two! "Little Sister Throw Your Red Shoes Away" is one of 'em, and man this stuff is dark, especially in Mr. Oxford's capable hands. This guy's voice is like some sort of long, bony, chilly finger reaching into my soul and pushing the "shed tears now" button. Notions of sin & filial piety start swirling around with guilt & shame and the next thing I know I'm a blubbering baby. He holds a note with that thin, shallow, wavering vibrato of his, and all the sadness I've ever known hangs over my head in a dense weighty black cloud, and I love every minute of it. The b-side, a spoken naration song about Momma being shunted off into the old folk's home cuz her ingrate kids are too lame to live up to their family duty, loses me pretty quick. I dunno, seems to me Vernon is much more affecting when he's singing than when he's talking.

Vernon Oxford :
This Woman Is Mine/Touch of God's Hands (RCA 47-9467)

A-side is a droopy honky-tonk waltz about a poor sucker come to the bar to defend his dipso wife's honor. She's a loose juicehead and this guy is lookin' to punch anyone who might try to pick her up. Woe is me! My first impression of this rec was that it's sorta limp. Vernon sings it very well, especially the second verse, but the tempo is slow & uncompelling, and overall the song lacks the kind of melodic build that brings out the best in him. That's what I was thinking anyway, when it dawned on me that the low-key melody offers Vernon a rare opportunity to understate the drama in one of these tear-pullers. Whereas he usually goes at a song full-bore, holding long dramatic notes with a desperate tone, here he shows a warmer side of his voice, as he phrases & bends notes ala Lefty. So as a single, it's not real exciting, but on a comp tape in between a couple of his high-drama workouts it's very satisfying. Would have made a better LP cut than a single. B-side is a droopy gospel waltz about touching God's hands, with a vocal trio arrangement. Penned by the talented Hazel Houser, which got my hopes up; but while the a-side can be construed as understated, this one's downright somnambulant. I like my country gospel with some fervency, dammit, not laying half-asleep on the floor.

Vernon Oxford :
Wine, Women, and Songs/I'd Rather See You Wave Goodbye (Stop 205)

This is more like it...the kind of weepy self-defeating drama I love. "Wine..." is one of those I'm-a-drunk-skid-row-bum-full-of-self-loathing type of songs like Porter Wagonner used to do, but if Porter sang a line describing himself with "eyes bloody red/face puffy white" I'd have a hard time getting to the pathos of it. Maybe as a consequence of having listened to his immortal "Rubber Room" so many times, I can't take Porter seriously. But Vernon sings it and I'm chilled, I see it in clear, sharp relief in all its squalor and sorrow. I'll gladly waltz through that misery with you for 2:17, Mr. Oxford, sir. Even better is "I'd Rather See You Wave Goodbye", another waltz with a more brisk tempo and yet another sad premise, easily gleaned from the title. Sports a mature, "let's go our separate ways" kind of lyric that would have easily fit on one of Ray Price's early to mid-60s records. Least that's what I thought at first, on second thought it's really a more cowardly statement of not wanting the face the unpleasant emotional consequences for his gal-pal of his own actions. Either way, this kind of melody is perfectly suited to Vernon's vocal strengths, plus it's got a bitchin fiddle growl on the intro, played in an unusually low register (viola 'stead of violin mebbe?), that makes the otherwise standard stripped-down honky-tonk arrangement shine with a touch of uniqueness.

Al Rogers (2nd from left) with Hank Williams

Al Rogers & the Rocky Mountain Boys:
All Alone, All Alone/Too Blue to Care (Capitol); Shuffle Boogie Bellhop/It Wouldn't Be the Same (MGM)

You'd reckon from the artist's name that these records would be by the same band, but spin 'em up and you'd be hard pressed to hear many aural similarities. It's as if this guy made a record, then sold his band name to a completely different bunch of guys who went and made another record.

The Capitol sides have a raw, sorta rockin' honky-tonk sound, with the standout "All Alone" sounding a bit like "Don't Let the Stars Get In Your Eyes" in its fast two-beat tempo, hot fiddling, bluesy steel, and longwinded hillbilly moans. The singer (is it Al himself?) has a high, pleading, full-throated tenor with a tendency toward the overwrought. The overall thwack this record sports allows it to sit right beside other Capitol artists of the time like Gene O'Quin, Chester Smith, and Skeets McDonald quite nicely.

Which brings us to the MGM sides. First thing you notice is the vocals: it's not the same guy. This other fella fancies himself some sorta hillbilly Bing Crosby, with an uptown baritone voice that shoots for rich & chocolatey but can only hit boring & bland. Then there's the material: while the Capitol sides are both self-penned in the frank, confessional Hank Sr. style, the MGM sides are undistinguished Fred Rose songs. "Shuffle Boogie Bellhop" sports a good title, but it turns out to be a feeble knockoff of Red Foley's "Chatanoogie Shoeshine Boy." Then there's the band: a tepid piano and a goddamn organ replace the hot vigorous fiddle and loud crack rhythm guitar of the Capitol sides. This has to be one of the most listless hillbilly boogie recs I've ever stumbled across.

All grousing aside, "It Wouldn't Be the Same" is actually a well-written song with some nice changes, reminiscent of Floyd Tillman's pop/jazz/country hybrids. If you ignore the wheezing organ and Lawrence Welk-like rhythms, and imagine it's being sung by a voice with some character to it instead of El Blando over there, you might be able to wring a little enjoyment out of it like I did, but only because you just wasted a damn dollar on the thing and you're really, really determined to. Which is not to say that I have any regrets. I'd do it all over again if I thought it might net me another side or two as good as "All Alone."

Chester Smith:
Cold Grey Dawn/No Wonder(Capitol)

A while back a pal of mine rescued a truckload of old promo 78s from his parents garage (his uncle had owned a small radio station in Oklahoma) and we went digging through them to see if there were any gems amidst all this dusty & drear shellac. Dropped the needle down on this puppy and it shone like a diamond, I'll tell you what. The sad tale of woe that is "Cold Gray Dawn" immediately elicited an "oo, that's a nice one" response from all present, and of course a "how can I get a copy of this record and every other one like it" response from yours truly. Chester's voice is very distinctive, baritone with ocasional forays into tenor territory, a little nasal-ness and a sorta rasp to it, and his delivery is quite passionate. Clunky church-lady piano playing and lead mandolin are the signature sound here, with some simple Billy Byrd-style guitar licks thrown in for balance. Only point that initially gave me pause in a full-on endorsement of this side was the fairy-tale metaphor tossed into the lyric at the end, but I got over it quickly and now embrace it fully. "No Wonder" is less immediately striking as the words are less memorable, but the melody is as good a one as you're gonna find. Had this been covered by Webb Pierce like it ought to have been, it might have made a decent-sized hit. Listen to the way he phrases the word "wonder", holding out the "n" and the "r", dragging it behind the beat...tailor-made for Webb. Damn! And lastly: these tunes were penned by Olan Hicks and Tommy Rieff respectively, any clues as to who these two fine songsmiths were? If so, please email me.

Bobbi Staff :
I Didn't Cry Today/Chicken Feed (RCA 47-8833)

I've never had much interest in digging into the Danny Davis & Nashville Brass ouvre. I guess I carried around something of the traditionalist's contempt for such shenanigans (and largely still do). But this little record has got my curiosity aroused. Leastaways I'm guessing that's Mr. Davis & co. on this platter. Initially it was the title "Chicken Feed" that clinched my decision to pick this up, but it didn't stick with me. The keeper here is "I Didn't Cry", a very well-written (by Skeeter Davis) so-60s gogo tune with a boppin beat, brassy arrangement, and great lyrics. One listen and I was walking around dying to do the Pony (or some such dance) as the four-syllable word "today-yay-yay" bounced around inside my cranium. This song immediately went on a car tape and is good enough that I'd pick up something else by Bobbi, were Lady Fortune kind enough to place such an item in my flea market path.

PS: Pat Nanney contacted me with some info about Bobbi Staff, ne Barbara Grindstaff. He knew her growing up in Forest City, North Carolina, where she lived next door to his cousin. She was married to a fellow who wound up playing piano on Ralph Emery's TV show. Thanks Pat for the inside scoop.