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

The Amber Sisters

Amber Sisters:
Lonesome Road Blues/When I Want Lovin' (Capitol)

I read about these gals in that there "Finding Her Own Voice" book about the history of women in C&W, a number of months after I'd chanced to come into possession of this here primo slab. Turns out this is an early secular waxing of the gal who eventually became gospel-belter extrordanaire Martha Carson, and her two sisters, one of whom had about a million different stage names (Mattie O"Neal, Jean Chapel, etc), was married to Salty Holmes, and made some collectible rockabilly sides later on. What we have here is a double-whammy of cheerful, upbeat stompalongs, one a funny midtempo honky-tonker and the other a rollicking workout with a mountain-music inflection. Both succeed wildly on their own terms. Normally I'm not much of a banjo fan, but I'll make an exception in this case for the relentless frailing that drives "Lonesome Ro...", simply because it kicks major ass. Martha's lead vocals are gutsy as all get-out, and the trio harmonies are a perfect blend. It's weird, I can tell their pitch isn't exactly precise but they never sound off-key or out of tune. How the hell'd they manage that? Then there's the sauntering silliness of the b-side, a good-humored take in which the gals refuse to accept anything less than what they want. The variations on the "when I want X I don't want Y" theme get further and further out as the song goes along, resulting in some pretty kooky couplets. Not your normal, predictable song by a long shot. I tellya, in those instances when I take a chance on a previously-unknown-to-me record like this, I consider myself lucky if one side of the thing is even halfway good. To have both sides be totally great, well that's the bomb.

Betty Amos (right) with Judy (left) & Jean (center)

Betty Amos with Judy & Jean:
Raven Black/Have You Ever (Starday)

Betty had a pretty good knack for a song, and Tommy Hill had a pretty good knack for a brash low-budget production, so the speedy Ray Price shuffle of the a-side comes barrelling out in memorable fashion. Crying steel guitar, prominent walking bass, a strong backbeat on the drums, you know the drill, and it sounds real good. Betty had a dry, straighforward singing voice that I find very appealing. It's got lotsa warmth, little nasality, and no warble. The black in the title refers to the color of our heroine's hair. Trouble arises when she finds a blonde hair on hubby's shirt after he claimed to be working late at the office. Oops. Was this an answer record to Frankie Miller's "Losing By a Hair" on United Artists? I dunno, but it makes a good companion piece.

Betty Amos with Judy & Jean:
Suzie Suzie/Steeplejack (Starday)

In some ways this is a more interesting record than the above, though I don't know how many times I could actually enjoy listening to it. "Suzie..." is a sing-songy composition mostly on one chord, with a very cool intricate guitar figure endlessly repeated. It's also got a spastic, hyperactive drumbeat, and a repetitive steel lick popping up before & after every verse. After about a minute the whole thing starts to take on a surreal cartoony mechanical vibe that would have pleased Raymond Scott and/or Devo. The lyrics detail Suzie's displeasure with her fella's behavior and our narrator's willingness to snap him up should Suzie give him the ol' heave ho. It must have about 8 different verses, and after a while they make the same point over and over again with slightly different words. Vaguely stunned, I flip the thing over and it's a sad tale of a gal pining away for a man who's too dedicated to his bizarre titular occupation to settle down. The steel guitarist on this side is hot, whuppin out some scorchin cool licks, but what the hell is a steeplejack anyway?

Bobby Austin

Bobby Austin:
Look Out Heart/Put Me Back Together Again (Capitol)

"Apartment #9" notwithstanding, "Look Out Heart" is one of my fave songs this fella ever wrote. I've put this tune on numerous mix tapes and I ain't tired of it yet. It's from a brief period in the early 60s when his producers talked him out of using keening west-coast style steel as the lead instrument, replacing it with a single electric guit lead and layers of backing vocals. I can't imagine how much better it would've been with the fiddle & steel in their rightful places, but it's pretty fine as is: a fast shuffle (and you know how I'm a sucker for those) with a self-reprimanding lyrical premise, nice simple changes that include a fortuitous relative minor, and a soaring melody with a great climactic build to it. Bob had one of those macho drama voices with a tremendous range and rapid vibrato, sort of akin to Johnny Bush, and this song shows it off to fine effect. An emminently coverable tune that hasn't been resurrected to my knowledge, one of these days I'll get around to correcting that sad situation and work this one up with my band. "Put Me Back Together Again" is an ok-enough Harlan Howard song in the Buck Owens two-verses-and-a-chorus vein, here given a pop arrantgement with the backup chorus taking up entirely too much sonic room. Coulda been better.

Re: "Apt #9": his name doesn't appear in the writing credits (he put his portion of the song in his wife Fern's name), but Bob claims it was mostly his song and I'm inclined to believe him. Largely remembered today as Tammy Wynette's signature tune, Bob's version was actually the first to top the charts at the time. If you're interested in reading the story behind it, check the Bobby Austin page on the Rockabilly Hall of Fame's website.

Tibby kissin' a girl

Tibby Edwards:
One More Night/Memory of a Lie (D)

Back when I lived in Des Moines I knew a guy who dated a very attractive young lady for a few months. Eventually she broke things off with him (I don't know exactly why, but knowing this guy, my guess is that she was fully justified in doing so). However, they still travelled in the same circles and crossed paths frequently. Whenever they did, he would invariably corner her and shamelessly beg her to have sex with him "just one last time." He would promise to take her out for an extravagent meal, buy her top-shelf liquor, and pay for a lavish hotel suite, if only she would sleep with him "just once more." Wisely, she always refused. I wish I'd known about this "One More Night" song back then. I could have played it for him, and maybe he could have realized he was not alone in his folly, that there were other lonely horndogs pining away for one last righteous fling with their hot ex-galpals, deperate with that cold feeling in the pit of their stomachs, the knowledge that it was never to be.

I'm guessing this one dates from after Tibby was drafted into the army (alongside Elvis) and Mercury failed to renew his contract, maybe '58 or '59. Sounds a lot like James O'Gwynn's Starday and D recordings from about the same time. It wouldn't surprise me if they were cut at the same studio with a lot of the same players. They even tacked on high harmony vocals on the choruses (is that Country Johnny Mathis I hear?), just like O'Gwynn, and which are conspicuously absent from even a single one of Tibby's Mercury sides. Other differences from his earlier recs include two fiddles 'stead of one, and parts & arrangements that stay on the quote-the-melody sweet side, whereas his earlier efforts featured a lot of hot solos and jazzy comping. The Hank Williams influence in Tibby's singing is almost gone by this time, replaced here with drunken swoops and slurs that make me think he was shootin' to be Floyd Tillman's apprentice. The low-budget production of these sides is something of a double-edged sword: it would have been nice if the vocals had been recorded with more clarity, but the record-it-in-one-take-live-to-tape-with-the-levels-cranked vibe is not without its own brand of pungent charm. You can practically hear the humid heat, the cig smoke, the cold cans of Falstaff sweating on the top of the amp as the steel keens away at a stratospheric note so high it'd start the dogs to barkin.

Ernie Lee

Ernie Lee & His Southerners:
My Home Is the Dust of the Road/When You're In Tennessee (RCA Victor)

So if you were digging through a pile of 78s and you saw a song with a title like that on the a-side here, even though you'd never heard of the artist in question, would you buy it for $3? Of course you would. And you'd be right to do so, in this case anyway, because the song in question is truly marvelous. It's a short, simple Hank-style work penned by Fred Rose, sung here by a decidedly un-Hank-like singer. Ernie's got a smooooooth soooothing baritone and a penchant for easy, relaxed behind the beat phrasing, which lands him stylistically somewhere between Bing Crosby and George Morgan, just this side of Blandsville, and way out of Hank Sr. territory. Ordinarily my appetite for such vocalizin' is pretty limited, and when applied to a run-of-the-mill dumb bouncy "I luv th' south" number like the b-side I could take it or leave it. HOWEVER give any singer who's not a total loser a song as good as "My Home Is The Dust of the Road" and put him in a room with a bunch of players as sensitively slick as those represented here, and it'd be hard for him not to knock it out of the park. The arrangement is quiet, the beat gentle, the mood warm and sad. A mandolin comes in after the bridge, picking jazzy single note runs that brighten the proceedings just so, providing a perfect foil for the understated melancholy of the cryin' steel. Then Ernie dips into his low register to sing that title line, blueing the notes, and man that's what I'm all about. Dig it, I'm solid sent.

Jimmy Littlejohn:
Walking the Streets/Never Never Never (Columbia)

Ever get to know a particular song from a cover version, then years later you hear the original and you get sorta excited because you're a big nerd who cares about such things? Case in point: "Walking the Streets" which Webb Pierce made into a hit and used as a title track on an LP in the late 50s or early 60s, and if you know this song at all it's probably from that version. Webb cut it in the Nashville Sound era as a midtempo Ray Price shuffle. So it's a bit of a surprise to hear how the song's co-author worked it up at the time of its initial waxing, much faster with a clipped two-beat on the prominent drums and a sweet, polished twin fiddle arrangement. Sounds a lot like Bob Wills' late 40s work with less of the jazzy jamming and more emphasis on the singer & the song. Something of that western-swing-pollinating-with-honky-tonk quality puts me in mind of the early Bakersfield boys too, particularly Tommy Collins, to whom Jimmy bears a strong vocal resemblance, what with his similar dry tone and boyish innocence and all. The hardest thing for me to get used to on this version is Jimmy's phrasing of the lyrics; the faster tempo and different rhythmic feel means that the words flow very differently from the way Webb sang 'em. The fine flip is a litany of pathetic insecurities expressed via a happy melody set to a peppy polka beat. Sports a mean takeoff guitar too, with a hot doubletime run strategically inserted into the finely tooled solo. I must admit I'm endlessly fascinated by the essential contradiction of songs like this, downbeat tales of heartbreak and woe played with a broad grin and happy-go-lucky exuberance.

Eddie Marshall

Eddie Marshall & the Trail Dusters:
Coffee Cigarettes and Tears/Lovin You Continu'ly Blues (RCA)

Not that I've really tried all that hard, but after asking around a bit to people who maybe would know, I still haven't gleaned one whit of info about this guy or his career in country music. A virtual unknown, even amongst the reissue-compiling, book-and-liner-note-writing cogniscenti. He doesn't appear to have been much of a songwriter, so you can't tag him as "the guy that wrote 'blah blah blah'," and as far as I know he never had any big chart hits or national touring base. So you gotta figure there's simply not a lot for people to remember him by. That particular state of affairs, however, doesn't change the fact that he made some super kickass records. Marshall excelled at two distinctly different kinds of songs: speedy, witty, slick, hot swing numbers like the a-side, and sauntering, slow-to-midtempo blues numbers like the b-side. And though he may not have written them himself, he was as adept as Webb Pierce at picking A-1 material perfectly suited to his skillset. As a singer he had a casual charm and an effortless yodel that won me over instantly, and his easygoingness obscures just how challenging some of the material actually is. He's sorta reminiscent of Tommy Duncan in that regard, like he'd make the gig, toss back a few cold ones, and offhandedly sing for hours straight without breaking a sweat. A very, very different approach from balls-out bulging-eyeball singers like the Louvins or the above-mentioned Webb, though of course I respect both approaches equally. Special props must also be given to the anonymous players on these sides, particularly the take-off guitar man, whose brief solo on the b-side is remarkable for its skillful ping-ponging combination of slow soulful melody and fast flashy impress-the-other-guitarists-who-may-be-in-the-room-ness.

Eddie Marshall & the Trail Dusters:
Honky Tonk Blues/A Hundred Ways to Break A Heart (RCA)

Not the Hank Williams tune, but another variation on the same theme. Features a Hank-style yodel, and remarkablly long stretches where Eddie sings word after word after word without taking a breath, something you wouldn't even notice because he makes it sound so easy and effortless, until you attempted, like I did, to sing the song yourself. It really made me sit up and say "damn, good breath control there Eddie." Also sports considerably more chords than any of Hank Sr's compositions, including a (gasp) diminished. So that gives it a bit of a cornball jazz/western swing flavor. It's taken at a more relaxed tempo than Eddie's other barn-burning numbers, but it's far perkier than his other slow blues, so it occupies a comfortable spot right in between his two stylistic fortes. It's a fine song, simple, catchy, and coverable, just like a good C&W tune oughta be; the instrumental arrangement is great, with twin guitar lines giving way to spare, clunky piano breaks; and per the usual with this fella his band plays the hell out of it with skill, precision, slickness, and enthusiasm. For the life of me I don't get why it didn't sell a few hundred-thou, but what do I know? The b-side is the first serious stumble I've come across in Marshall's catalog, a forgettably limp, lugubrious ballad soaked through with a wheezy organ and syrupy steel. If this example is to be believed, he was simply not equipped to put over straight-up weepy heartache. He sings it half-heartedly light-heartedly, like he was secretly wishin' it was a fun song like all them others.

The Champs of "Tequila" fame, 1959: (clockwise from top left) Bob Morris, Dash Crofts, Glen Campbell, Jerry Cole, Jimmy Seals

Bob Morris:
Fool Enough/Something To Think About (Challenge)

It's the sideman's dilemma: you're out there every night, playing bass behind stars like Buck Owens and Dick Curless; your skills as a writer are finely honed, and you've written hit songs for Buck, Rose Maddox, Merle Haggard, Skeets McDonald, Wynn Stewart; you've even sat in the producer's chair, cranking out mega-sellers for Freddie Hart; all this, and still John Q. Public doesn't know your name. How do you get a little of that glory for yourself? Well, I reckon you record an occasional single under your own name for year after year and hope one hits. Too bad none ever really did for Bob Morris, one of my fave under appreciated west coast talents of the 60s & 70s. True, much of his stuff exists under the shadow of the mighty Buck. Witness his clear tenor voice, dry diction, catchy upbeat songs, close two-part harmonies, and no-muss, no-fuss arrangements. But Bob had enough on the ball that he impresses me as more of a fellow traveler than a slavish imitator. This record, fer instance, boasts one of the simplest, catchiest, best-est choruses I've heard in many moons, of which Buck would surely have been jealous. Had Bob matched it with pithier and/or more memorable verses, this thing could've been a monster hit. Whatever slight shortcomings may exist in the material, there's no mistaking that this record sounds amazing. The guy knew his way around a microphone, no bones about it. This particular example is dense and jangly, like a wall-of-Bakersfield-sound, like the signals were all running a shade shy of too hot; the result is loud and slightly compressed, but still real clean, with a lot of echo on the voices and the acoustic rhythm guitars pushed up front in the mix. Man! Where can I get me some of that? They b-side is nice too, an effective "what about the kids" guilt-trip in song.

Bob Morris:
Don't Underestimate Me/Walking Talking Living Doll (Challenge)

As with the above, Bob had to know he'd be inviting comparisons to Buck with this puppy: two catchy, charging, upbeat, rockin' country songs with high harmony vocals and loud telecasters. Of the two, I prefer "Don't Underestimate Me," largely for its lyrical premise; vaguely threatening, it's fashioned on an unforgiving rhyme scheme which pushes him to incorporate unusual fiscal language like "calculate" and "depreciate." At first it sounds sorta wrong, but after a couple listens my ear adjusted and I found it made the song cool and different, oddball and charming but still dark around the edges. The guitar playing on this side is 100% bitchin, cranked-up open-string telecaster, tube-driven to just the tastiest edge of distortion, with loads of reverb ladled on top. Wish I knew who that was man-handling that axe, I'd like to give him or her a medal. As far as the other side goes, well I am a country music fan after all, so I have a high tolerance for silly chauvinism; but the idea of a walking, talking, living doll not only bothers me as an empty male fantasy that allows no room for the woman-in-question's personhood, it actually fills me with terror, as I alternately picture a Chucky-like knife-wielding monstrosity or a rigidly waddling inflatable love toy with glued-on eyelashes. Either way it's not a pretty picture. However, on those occasions when I'm able to blithely block out the lyrics I can still enjoy the singing, playing, and production here; in its own misguided way it's a great-sounding example of its particular sub-sub-sub-sub-genre.

Bob Newman:
One & One Is Two, Baby/Crybaby Blues (King)

Allow me to start by advocating in the strongest possible terms that you immediately run right out and track down a copy of Bear Family's mid-80s LP reissue of Bob Newman's King sides. It's absolutely stellar stuff, one of my fave records in my whole collection, and I never tire of it. I guarantee you will not be disappointed. So I was surely excited when I found this single, recorded at Bob's first solo session for King, sporting two songs that were inexplicably left off of that LP. "Crybaby Blues" is a jaunty yet melancholy honkytonker with fine fiddling and a relentlessly yodelled chorus. Newman was an absolutely marvelous singer, with impeccably swinging time, and a unique blend of passion and ease. He could really put the song over with utterly convincing feeling, but never sounded like he was knocking himself out in the process. "One and One Is Two, Baby" is more on the swinging novelty side of the fence, which he could walk with the best of 'em (this is the man, after all, who penned "Phhhppptt You Were Gone". Remember Hee Haw?). It's got a crisp plod to it, with a muted plinky-plink twin guitar hook, and tossed-off "if you cheat on me, I'm gonna cheat back" lyrics that are surprisingly memorable after just a couple of listens. A little bit silly but a whole lot of fun, and if Bear Family ever get around to putting together a CD package on Bob, they'd be doing him a disservice by omitting these highly entertaining tracks a second time around.

Bob Newman:
Tonight's the Night/Strange Love (King)

I was exactly one-half as excited when I found this record as I was when I found the one above. I already knew "Tonight's the Night" from the above-mentioned LP, but "Strange Love" was new to me, as it had been left off that particular re-ish. But there the comparison ends. I strongly dispute BF's dismissal of "Cry Baby..." and "One & One..." as inferior and not worthy of re-release; but "Strange Love" could have remained in the can for all of eternity, and my life would not have been any less rich. It's a stab at a Hank-ish rip-your-guts-out weeper, but the lyrical premise is so garbled that it packs all the emotional wallop of a boiled turnip. Bob gamely does his best with it, singing beautifully as always, but the song is such a murky turgid stinker that not even our man Newman can pull it out. The a-side is great though! Also quite Hank-y, but closer in spirit to the fun-loving come-on of "Hey Good Lookin" than to one of Hank's melancholy brooding moods, and so more in line with Bob's upbeat forte. As with most of Bob's sides, it's got a loose-jointed honky-tonk swing to it, with shuffling drums and on-the-money hokum piano, that add immensely to the already-appealing appeal. If you've got the BF LP (or if you're really really lucky, the Audio Lab LP from the 50s), you've got my permission to pass on this; but if you've never heard Bob and you find a cheap copy of this and you have something to play it on, well then snatch it and grab it!

One of the greatest ever, Wynn Stewart

Wynn Stewart:
You Took Her Off My Hands/That Just Kills Me (Capitol)

The second of Wynn's five singles he cut for Capitol in the mid-50s, before they dropped him and he went on to make all those great sides for Challenge. "You Took Her..." is one of the first compositions Harlan Howard ever got cut, but somehow in the process Wynn and Skeets McDonald received co-writing credit. Hmmmm. Anyway, Capitol re-signed Wynn in the mid-60s and he recut the song for his "Songs of Wynn Stewart" LP. Try listening to the two recordings back to back to hear very clearly how his style evolved over the nine or ten intervening years. Here he sings loud & clear, holds notes for a long time without much vibrato, and struggles a little for the climactic high notes on the bridge. By 1965 he's singing like a real viruoso: softer, kinda breathy, great vibrato control, glissing & slurring, phrasing all around the beat, hitting his high and low registers effortlessly. This guy shoulda been a megastar, I'm telling you. Then again, perhaps it was recordings like "That Just Kills Me" that impeded his ascendancy. A silly T. Texas Tyler composition that probably worked very well for its author's manly pipes, the young Wynn is too squeaky put it over. Clearly intended to leave 'em laughing, it only leaves me feeling vaguely embarassed. Which is not to say that you should pass on this record should you ever find a copy. Nay, pay what you must. And click on this link to help get Wynn into the Country Music Hall of Fame: www.wynnstewart.com. His sales numbers might not be the most impressive, but the depth of his talent ensures that his ouevre will be continually rediscovered by generations to come. And I ain't just whistlin' dixie over here.

Wynn Stewart:
Hold Back Tomorrow/A New Love (Capitol)

I put this li'l puppy on and my breast swells with pride for my adopted homeland of California, home of much of the best country music ever. Here is the quintessence of the West Coast sound, just a hair on the adolescent side of its full maturity. Witness the big, full band sound with drums whacking away, the unapologeticly large doses of double-stop fiddles, close two-part vocal harmonies on the choruses, sharp electric guitars, and best of all Ralph Mooney's rolling chord pedal steel style, here still a shade rudimentary but identifiably unique nonetheless. Also of note is the great two-verses-with-a-catchy-chorus-and-no-bridge songwriting that eventually became a Buck Owens trademark, and the pairing of a weepy midtempo heart song ("...Tomorrow") with a fast & happy dance number ("A New Love"). Wynn's singing at this early stage was still in a youthful loud & proud vein, revealling the sturdy foundation upon which his later craftier singing would be built. His pitch was already dead-on for damn sure. Arrangement-wise, "Tomorrow" has an almost Hank Sr.-like heart-rending plod to it with a crack rhythm thing on the electric guit, while "A New Love" is greatly enhanced by twin fiddles doing a call & response routine with the steel. If, like me, you can't get enough of Wynn's amazing Challenge sides, dig dig dig until you find yourself a copy of this'n. You won't regret it.

Wynn Stewart with Skeets McDonald and His Orchestra:
Keeper of the Key/Slowly But Surely (Capitol)

Great label credit on this one. It don't sound like no orchestra I ever heard tell of before, but if more orchestras consisted of telecaster, doghouse bass, snare drum, steel, and twin fiddle I might actually turn into a classical music fan. True to form we got us a tearful-earful backed with a toe-tapper, and I'll swear by 'em both. "Keeper" is the weeper, a tale of lost love done up in a prison metaphor, played with a gentle 50s stroll beat similar to that found on many Louvins recordings. A whammy-bar guitar intro (courtesy Eddie Cochran) starts things off before Wynn steps in to deliver one of the best vocal performances of his early career. He breaks words into falsetto, nails the climactic high notes with clarity and volume, and tapers off his lines with gently pleading puppy-dog sincerity. A real tour de force, folks. The title of the b-side led me to expect a midtempo Webb Pierce knockoff ballad, but instead it's a perky two-steppin' tale of lost love done up without any metaphor whatsoever, and prominently features a "ka-thump-thump" drum stop, variations of which were destined to grace Buck Owens records for years after. Not a particularly noteworthy piece of songwriting, but it's catchy enough, and a lively arrangement and enthusiastic performance make up in flavor what's lacking in compositional meat. A high harmony vocal would have really put this one over the top, but you'll just have to use your imagination to hear it. The fiddling on this side is particularly great, it sounds thick enough to be triple fiddles, in place of the more customary two. However many there are they sure sound good & ballsy. Yet another "wynner" here folks (sorry about that but I just had to).

Texas Ruby & Curly Fox

Texas Ruby & Zeke:
T For Texas/Pride of the Prairie (Coral)

This came in a big stack of crusty 78s I bought offa Lloyd Tripp out at the Alemany Flea Market one fine sunny day. Can't imagine why he'd wanna part with it myself, because I surely don't plan to anytime soon, 'cepting for the fact that the record itself is indeed cracked and about to fall apart into two big chunks. Ruby is one of my all-time faves in the C&W pantheon, for the power of her booming voice and her unique ability to be hot-swinging and heart-rending at the same time. Course her status as an underappreciated forgotten soul don't hurt none with me neither, seeing as how I love to root for the underdog. My theory on this particular record, and of course I could be wrong cuz I don't have a durn shred of tangible evidence to back it up, is that it's a 50s reissue of songs recorded in the 30s. I read somewhere that she was partners with Zeke Clements before she hooked up w/ Curly Fox in 1939 or so, and Zeke's got label credit here. Then there's the murky fidelity (that ineffable quality redolent of one crude mic in the middle of a wood-floor hotel room), the minimal accompaniment (two voices, two guits, maybe a string bass, it's hard to tell), and the choice of Western fantasy material to contend with. All would seem to indicate a 30s vintage to me. "Pride..." whizes by at a speedy clip, detailing an escapist cowboy/cowgirl romance with close harmony yodelling. The change to the flat fifth on the yodel makes for a killer hook. Then there's the Jimmie Rodgers cover: Ruby sings it solo and doesn't change any of the gender references, so she's going out to shoot her faithless lover Thelma just the same as Jimmie would. Cool! Admittedly, in the pre-war era the singer was not so heavily identified with the song as we expect today, so you can't read too much into it. Still, something in Ruby's voice sounds like she had an independent streak a mile wide.

Texas Ruby & Curly Fox:
Ain't You Sorry That You Lied/Nobody Else But You (Columbia)

I used to really love rock & roll. I liked it loud and lascivious, stupid or smart, tightly wound or barely in control. I liked it arty and I liked it fun. But above all I loved the juice of it, the sense of life force that can't be faked or denied. From Carl Perkins to the Sonics to the Butthole Surfers, it would rear its ugly/beautiful head. But somewhere along the line I tired of so many of the other trappings of rock & roll that I gave up on the form almost completely. C&W looked more and more attractive to me, for its simplicity, sincerity, songcraft, musicianship, wit, and embrace of adult concerns. Yet sometimes I missed that juiciness, that aliveness, because you've got to admit that C&W hasn't always excelled at it. Freeze-dried "perfection" and tried & true formulas have often been valued over inspiration and spontaneity. But halleluiah such was not the case the day this band cut these two sides. You want juice? Life force? Spontaneity? This thing has got it in spades. Which is not to say that this record is in any way a rock & roll record. What it is, is hot two-beat swing played with a hellhound nipping at its heels, a roaring good time party captured on shellac. The guitar playing (probably by Mose Roeger) is raw, distorted, chunky and loud. The fiddling is fierce and independent, phrasing in whines and squeals that don't stick strictly to the beat but go ahead, behind, and all around it. The drummer bashes his cymbals, the piano player plunks and plinks, the bass player slaps like Fred Maddox on amphetamines. This is C&W reveling in Saturday Night Sin, without much thought of Sunday Morning Sorry hanging over its head. Then to top it all off you've got Ruby's lyrics and vocals, full of hurt & yearning, sadness and sorrow, and yet so strong and lusty and full of piss & vinegar too. It's a prime example of that time-tested method of transmuting pain into joy by turning it into music. And then there's the moment during one of the guitar solos when Mose is cooking so hard that Curly yells out "git it son!" and you feel all the excitement that they generated that day in the recording studio back in nineteen-forty-whenever and you thank your lucky stars that this brittle 78 managed to survive all those years to wind up on your turntable on this, the most beautiful of all days.

Earl Scott

Earl Scott:
Loose Lips/Guess I'll Never Learn (Mercury)

With a Groovy Joe Poovey composition on one side and a Fred Carter tune on the other, how wrong can you go for 80 cents? This Earl Scott ain't that hot of a singer, I'll grant you that. His pitch is pretty good, but his phrasing is a little stiff, and his attempts to dip into lower-register groans lack resonance. And yet this li'l disk is a top 10 hit in my house these days. Shows to go you how top-flight material, good arrangements, fine musicianship, and classic early-60s echo-y production can compensate for a less-than-spectacular lead vocal presence. "Loose Lips" in particular is a grabber, a fast shuffle with a great hook ("loosa loosa loosa loose lips"). Lyrically it's a knock-off of Freddie Hart's classic "Loose Talk" but it's given fresh blood here with an extra dab of contemptuous disdain for the blabbermouths. I also love the way the bass backup vocalist sings unison walking lines with the bass guitar. Earl's weaknesses as a singer are more apparent on the flipside weeper, what with the slower tempo and quieter mood. But the song is about being weak and pathetic, so if the singer actually sounds a little weak and sorta pathetic, well there you have it.