Liz Anderson:
Fairytale/The Wife Of The Party (RCA)

Sacto housefrau Liz wrote gimmick & pun songs like crazy in the 60s, pumping large amounts of fresh & clever blood into the country music assembly lines in Nashville and California. Man this lady could write 'em. Of these two I'm partial to "Fairytale." On its surface it's a silly cutesy-cute throw-away novelty, but wait a minute, there's something darker than that going on here. The song kicks off with a twinkly steel tone alternating with twinkly glockenspiel, a sonic sprinkling of fairy dust, then Liz delivers the song in her vulnerable little-girl voice with a kind of cheery lightness that makes you chuckle. The lyric is funny and clever; but think about what it's actually saying for a minute and you realize it's dripping with venomous sarcasm, fresh injury, and bitter disappointment. I get this mental picture of a scene that could have given birth to this song: two defeated, resigned 60s boufanted housewives having coffee and smoking cigarettes at the formica kitchen table, complaining about their lying, philandering husbands, bitterly decrying the "fairytales" they're handed, and voila, a song is born. Perhaps even more surpisingly, "The Wife Of The Party" doesn't suck. In lesser hands such a lame-ass pun could've led to quite a dire exercise, but Liz has the smarts to pun the word in two different senses and actually make it work, and somehow manages to make this confrontation with her man's mistress both funny and sad. Plus it's a charging shuffle with some great steel playing so I'm helpless to resist.

Dugg Collins:
Play Me Some Heart Songs/I Just Want To Be Alone (Certron)

If Johnny Bush was running around in the late 60s & early 70s sounding more like Ray Price than Ray Price was, well then Dugg Collins was running around sounding more like Johnny Bush than Johnny Bush was. Seriously, if I didn't know better, one superficial spin of this record would've convinced me they're the same guy. Dugg isn't quite as virtuosic, and there are moments where he seems ever so slightly hesitant, but if you like Bush's RCA years like I do than I reckon you'll like this too. Two shuffles with twin fiddles and that's gotta be Lloyd Green on steel playing those signature licks. This dates from 1970 or 1971, so for the players some boredom with the Ray Price formula had set in; after all, it was nearly fifteen years old by this time. So to keep it interesting they mix it up a bit, throwing in some stops and starts to the arrangements, particularly on "I Just Want To Be Alone." The material falls into the "hey that's good enough" category, these aren't the most brilliantly shining gems of songs but they say what they have to say and they say it Cherokee Cowboy style so I'm happy.

Dugg Collins:
There's No Easy Way To Die/? (Little Darlin')

You could say it's something of a credit to Dugg's dedication to the Ray Price/Johnny Bush aesthetic that I'm unable to tell by listening whether this was recorded in the late 60s or the late 70s. The release itself dates from '78, when Aubrey Mayhew revived the long-moribund LD imprint in order to cash in on Paycheck's "Take This Job And Shove It" success, but for all I know this could've been something that had been sitting in the vault for 10 + years. After all Mayhew probably had something to do with the Certron release above. Anyway, "No Easy Way" was waxed by Paycheck back in his LD glory days and I'm sorry to say that Dugg's version doesn't compare particularly well, but you can't blame Dugg, it's not his fault that from '65 to '68 Paycheck could've sung the fuggin' phone book and it would've sounded brilliant, twisted, and compelling. The highlight of the cut is actually the exciting, free-wheeling fiddling: a truly bad-ass player cutting loose and taking chances! Sounds like he (or she, I have no idea who this fiddler is) ripped it in one wild take. A few licks go slightly off-course, but that just makes it sound real. Nothing against Dugg but I put this on a car tape and I've noticed I end up tuning out the lead vocal and just listening to the fiddler go. The flip is a dull ballad.

Darrell McCall:
I've Got My Baby On My Mind/I'm Keeping My Feet On The Ground (Philips)

I bought one of Darrell's earliest singles on Capitol a while back and wasn't too pleased with its teen pop sound, but this one's more like it. Solid mid-60s Nashville tonk. You can tell Darrell worked for Faron Young for a long stretch, as certain of his vocal licks are straight out of Faron's repertoire, but Darrell's working on finding his own voice here and doing a decent job of it. He's got a nice fast warble, very distinct from his mentor. Darrell eventually came to rely on his vibrato quite heavily in the 70s, but here it's used more sparingly, usually at the tail end of a few lines. The a-side is a chunky midtempo strut, written by Harlan Howard in a bluesy mood, with a nasty nasty fuzzed-out baritone or bass guitar oozing in for the instrumental hook. Grady Martin mebbe? He claimed to have invented the stuff. Whoever it is playing it, this's some serious fuzz. A real good lyric from Harlan on this one too, as our boy wanders haplessly about, too distracted with his bummed-out-ness to recognize his friends when they come up and pester him, or to put the correct change in the jukebox. The b-side is your standard 60s shuffle with another good lyric, a clever lowering-of-romantic-expectations tale from the pen of Carl Belew. Two solid sides here kids.

Diane McCall:
Ready Made Home/Shepherd Of Evil (Arnote)

This platter, tasty on the one side and bizarre on the other, certainly proves the McCall family was home to more talent than just good ol' brother Darrell. She's got a real nice voice, Diane has, and a style all her own. I can't think of anyone else in the country field who sounds quite like this. She's got a languid, relaxed quality like you might hear in a 50s pop chanteuse, intimate, quiet, never straining, and it sets her apart from the usual schools of country gal singing (brassy drama queen, gutsy hillbilly shouter, dry plainspoken girl, long-suffering backwoods nasal whiner, etc). Closest thing I can think of would be a countryfied Peggy Lee. Be that as it may, "Ready Made Home" is a stone country weeper as fine as any I've heard, the premise being that our gal goes through the blood, sweat, & tears of building a home and family, then has it all snatched away when hubby marries another gal who then moves into the "ready made home" and everyone thinks Old Mom is a slob and New Mom is perfect. The tempo crawls, the steel guitar weeps, a dobro gets all choked up on the bridge. I'm about to sob openly here just summing it up. A lot of people get into country as a roots-of-rock & roll thing but not me, no sir, I like country for being country and brother this is it. If this side is "traditional", then the other side of this record is a shot at "contemporary Christian" circa 1972. It's slow and quiet with folky singer-songwritery guitar arpeggio picking and sensitive singer-songwritery chord changes, while the lyrics describe a descent into evil that doesn't really sound all that evil to me, but what do I know? The vagueness of the lyric and the emotional reserve remind me of music that might have been played at a Presbyterian youth group. Great title, though.

Skeets McDonald:
Old Indians Never Die/It's Genuine (Uni)

Skeets' last single before his untimely passing in 1968. My expectations for this disk were very low; I bought it more out of completism than anything else. Many of his later Columbia singles are so drained of vitality that they don't warrant more than a curiosity spin or two, and this one's post-Columbia. Plus it's on a label more associated with Neil Diamond and bubblegum music than hard honky-tonk. So I was really surprised, nay shocked, to hear just how lively and fun this pairing is. Both songs are marred by the inclusion of a theme-from-the "Dating Game" style brass section, a then-contemporary sound born of Herb Alpert, but it's relatively harmless. More to the point are the strong songs ("Old Indians" is vintage drunken, chauvinistic, bluesy Skeets, while "It's Genuine" is a cute love story in a Tommy Collins vein), Skeets' vocals (lazier than some of the belting he did as a younger man, but unlike some of those Columbia things he at least sounds like he's conscious), and some very peppery, flashy, twangy lead guitar (just like Maphis & Bryant & Nichols used to cook it). Don't know what it was gave him a kick in the seat of the pants on the day they cut these but whatever it was I'm grateful. It's somehow reassuring to know Skeets still had the goods in him at this late stage of the game.

Lattie Moore:
Lonesome Man Blues/Honky Tonk Heaven (King)

Wow, "Lonesome Man Blues" is a killer! A Hank Sr-style hillbilly blues vocal and pain-threshold keening steel get mixed together with a sluggish, echoey, minimalist groove and Luther Perkins-ish lead guitar to excellent effect. The first phrase of the melody grabs you by the front of your shirt and you can't help but stare lonesome-hood in the face, as it starts on a gravelly low note held for a couple beats that then rapidly climbs up to a shouted blue note. Mr. Moore chugs a glassful of bitter tears and brings it on home to you, the happy listener, for your drinkin' & cryin' pleasure. The other side is a wash, a stab at a lush Ray Price/Nashville Sound production number that hits way wide of the mark, but who cares? A song this cool doesn't need a b-side.

Bob Morris:
See The Monkey Walk Through The Door/I Tried To Make You Over (Challenge)

One of the things that continually impresses me about Bob's 60s output is that his novelties are actually funny, and his heart songs are actually moving. How often does that happen? Here we have one of each. The chorus of the Baker Knight-penned "Monkey" gets in my head and stays there and it cracks me up pert near every time. I like the arrangement too, the instrumental hooks delivered by acoustic 12-string licks alternating with a nasty distorted electric bass note bend, and a big goofy singalong on the chorus. Flip it over and you are treated to a primo regretful tearpuller, sounding like slowed-down Buck Owens with the toe-tappin' bounciness replaced by downbeat soul. It's resplendent with the weepiest steel you've ever heard in your life, a perfect high harmony on the chorus, and great lyrics. One of Bob's finest.

Norm Owens:
City Living/I Won't Say I Told You So (Crosby)

I consider myself lucky to have stumbled across a copy of this, as I can't imagine there were a whole lot of copies pressed and it kicks my ass. Norm was part of the SoCal/Vegas axis in the 60s, leading his own bands and doing a long stint as Judy Lynn's bass player. This waxing probably comes from around the time he was playing the second shift after Wynn Stewart's band at the Nashville Nevada Club, as the band's sound is almost identical to Wynn's and the label has a Vegas address. If you're a fan of Wynn's Challenge sides or the low-budget west coast tonk cranked out by labels like Toppa, I guarantee you'll flip for this. "City Livin'" is a Wynn/Bobby Austin co-write, and while it may not be the strongest composition either of them talented fellers ever conceived of, the style & delivery make it totally compelling. An aggressive guitar & steel intro that's a dead ringer for Nichols & Mooney combines with an assertive drummer whacking the bell on the ride cymbal to set the tone, and when Norm's vocal comes in I find myself going "oh yeah!" Quite a talented singer of the George Jones ilk, at times also very reminiscent of the young Johnny Paycheck in his Donny Young days. The self-penned flip is just as good if it's not even better, as our jilted lover blatantly gloats over his ex's failed new romance while denying he's gloating at all. It's funny, it's pathetic, it's heartfelt. My only complaints are the production and pressing quality; they musta did this on a slim budget. Sounds like they might have recorded the backing track, then played it back on an inferior machine through a buttload of compression and dubbed the vocal on top, as the backing sounds distorted at times while the vocal sounds clear, and the vocal sits a little too far on top of the backing track. A minor quibble really, because this thing sounds awful damn real-deal and provides another compelling argument for the supremacy of the West Coast sound.

Chuck Reed & Chuck Reed:
It's Better To Be A Has Been/The End Of My Stairway (Mercury)

Hey no kidding, that's the way the label credit on this one reads. "Has Been" features Chuck singing overdubbed harmony with his own lead vocal, common enough now but quite a novelty in 1954 or 55 or whenever this came out. Made for a good marketing angle I reckon. So how I came across this was I read a posting on an internet list about this guy that mentioned his strong 50s honky tonk releases for Mercury, then two days later found this one of 'em in a junk store in Livermore. Coincidence? You tell me. Certainly serendipitous, as this 78 is right up my alley. "Has Been" is a JD Miller-penned stomper, taken at a real fast oompah two-step tempo and it's catchy as all get-out. Reed has a great tenor voice and belts it out with vigor & enthusiasm while the band tears it up with thwacking snare and romping piano. Because it's so fast it ends up being awful short, less than two minutes long, but let's just say it's pithy that way. The stairway in question on the ballad side leads to heaven, which makes this the long-lost predecesor of the wave-a-lighter-in-the-air Led Zep chestnut. Personally I'd take Chuck over ol' Bob Plant any day. This little champ of a tune is an over the top, overwrought, drama-queen of a waltz, and Chuck sings his butt off, no two ways about it, hitting impossibly pleading notes on the bridge and bringing them down with a Ferlin Husky-like sob. Real goosebumpy stuff. I'm very taken with the bass pattern on this tune too. It's all about hitting the one on the one, with a little walk thrown in at just one or two key moments. Simple but oh so perfect. I realize the odds are against me, but I'm hoping I stumble on some more Mercury waxings by this fine, fine singer, and soon.

Chuck Reed:
Love Love Love/I Think I'll Go Home And Cry (Mercury)

Well pardon my french but this little fugger could sing his ass off. The a-side is an excellent version of a song made famous by Webb Pierce, though I believe Chuck actually waxed it first. Reed's version owes nothing to Webb's in the way he handles the vocals or in arrangement. Chuck phrases it differently and pulls out the full range of dynamics inherent in the melody, quietly sighing some lines and fiercely belting others. It's also more rhythmically varied, switching back & forth from a straight one-and-three plod to a jumping 4/4 shuffle. All in all a very impressive cut. Equally impressive are the melodramatics of the ballad side, as Chuck throws an all out hillbilly hissy fit. Sort of a girly-man singer in a way, working those high notes for every little bit of whining pathos he can wring out of them. But man you just gotta hand it to him because he never puts a foot wrong, and has the kind of control that only the true singers' singers have. I'd go so far as to assert that for sheer ability he's in a league with Patsy Cline, Wynn Stewart, and Faron Young. Again Ferlin Husky comes to mind as a singer in the same ballpark too, but I find Chuck more believable somehow. Either way it's high time someone put out a CD collection of these Mercury sides cuz I've only heard these two singles and so far we're batting 1000 over here.

Lee Ross:
The Town Crier/Dry Your Darlin's Eyes (Sims)

For seventy cents a pop, the Sims label is always worth checking out. Some of their stuff is real good and even their questionable stuff is usually bad in some sort of interesting way. In this instance I was scared of the "Town Crier" title, as it conjured up images of a Johnny Horton saga song type of thing, so I threw on the other side first. Pee-yoo, a boring ballad and what a stinky lead vocal. So painfully off-key it boggles the mind that they deemed this take a keeper. So I flip it over and it turns out I misjudged "Town Crier" by its title. Not a saga song, but a weepy shuffling pun song. Our man is the town crier because he walks around the town square crying all night missing his gal, and his fellow townsfolk are ridiculing him as "the saddest guy in town." Yeah baby! That's a good one. I musta played it three or four times in a row that first night, and I've spun it a lot since. The production/arrangement is a bit sugary with layers of acoustic guitars, slip-note piano, and backup singers, Lee's vocal is just sorta there, but it's all ok because the brilliantly silly/weepy song itself is the star of the show. I'd guess they spent all their time at the session getting this one right, as it's clearly the moneymaker, and they waxed the lame ballad as an afterthought in one or two lousy takes just cuz they needed to put something on the other side.

Earl Scott:
Restless River/The Best I Can Give Her (Mercury)

Elsewhere in these pages I said some things about Earl's technical abilities as a vocalist that were not particularly kind, and while I don't really take 'em back, I'd like to think that my readers will find it instructive that here I am buying more of of his 45s whenever I chance across them. So yeah OK, Earl pretty much sucked as a balladeer, as his take on the Roger Miller composition "The Best I Can Giver Her" illustrates. Unsteady pitch and stiff phrasing effectively kick the legs out from under a song that wasn't so great to begin with. But Earl's rough-hewn style stood him in good stead when he had the right material to work with, and I dig "Restless River" a lot. The theme of the song is rural, telling the story of a poor dirt farmer's struggles to grow a patch of cotton in a flood plain. The lyric details the story with a believable mix of humor and pathos, and Scott's dry croak, plain as it is, puts it over quite rightly. The second verse is delivered as a monologue, which isn't my favorite thing, but it works well enough in this particular instance, with his voice cracking on the word "kids." He sounds just like the sweaty, parched farmer he's supposed to be. The only thing that bugs me is this: they decided to squeeze out any instrumental spaces in the arrangement, apart from the intro; but the way the verses end doesn't leave much room for the singer to get to the first line of the chorus comfortably. They solved this dilemma by having the backup chorus sing the first line of the chorus without Earl each time, and then he comes in on the second line. It's not horrible, but it's not ideal either. Would it really have been so hard to make a little space and let Earl sing it himself? Ah, whatever, I like it anyway. My copy is a DJ promo and whichever DJ it was who got it back in the day wrote a great big NO on this side, but dammit I say YES.

Earl Scott:
Save A Minute (Lose A Wife)/? (Kapp)

To my knowledge, this is the absolute nadir of Earl's recording career. Two awful, awful songs that not even a great vocal could have saved, and Earl's vocals on these are pretty fuggin' feeble in an overwrought way. A must to avoid, unless you collect songs written around awful puns and played for weeps anyway, which I guess I sorta do, but even I have to draw the line somewhere.

Earl Scott:
I'll Wander Back To You/Kiss My Love Goodbye (Decca)

Appropriate material and sympathetic production go a long way toward bringing out the best in an artist, and it helps explain why Earl's tenure at Decca in the late 60s yielded what are probably his most consistent recordings. Suddenly the low end of his register started sounding really good instead of sorta half-assed, as his pipes matured and Decca's engineers figured out how to mic him right. This is one of his strongest pairings for the label, with both songs working well on their own terms. "I'll Wander Back To You" is a slow, regretful Mel Tillis-penned ballad about a fella reluctantly following in his father's footsteps, rambling around for work and missing his homelife. It's in the ballpark of the above-praised "Restless River" in tempo, rural theme, and presence of a monologue verse, and allows Earl to show off both his now-resonant low register and his falsetto yodel to fine effect. "Kiss My Love Goodbye" is in a Johnny Cash mode, and Earl handles it with the appropriate deep-voiced matter-of-factness. The vocals on both tunes have in common a flat, deadpan, macho reserve. Funny how the less Earl sounded like he was exerting himself, the more emotionally effective his singing got.

Spence Spencer:
Bus Driven' Man (sic)/Guilty On Paper (SOS)

Where I found it: Alameda Antique Faire. How much it cost: 50 cents. Why I bought it: the song titles had the whiff of C&W about them, the indie label looked 60s, the address was in Fresno, and the artist obscure. C'mon, indie label 60s country from Fresno? You would've bought it too. Is it any good: depends on what you mean by "good." The band is real solid, they sound seasoned and professional, proficient at the classic Bakersfield sound, with fine steel & tele; but the self-penned material is merely passable. The novelty "Bus Driven' Man" (sic) is a dopey stab at making the titular occupation as songworthy as truck driving, hoping to ride coattails to fame by mentioning contemporaries Dave Dudley and Red Sovine by name, bragging about all the hot chicks that ride his bus (of course). But y'know, somehow it just doesn't make it. For ineffable reasons that can't be explained easily, bus drivers don't have the mystique of truckers, and it'll take better songs than this to reverse that situation. The ballad side is one of those sorta funny/pathetic you-don't-really-think-saying-that-will-win-her-back-do-you things ("I'm guilty on paper/but I'm innocent in my heart"). And as a vocalist, lemme tell you what, Buck & Merle & Wynn were not in any danger of being dethroned. Spence valiantly tries to make up what he lacks in talent with stylistic panache: deliberate phrasing, exaggerated exhalations at the end of words, a sort of trying-too-hard enthusiasm; but to no avail, as his raspy singspeak falls pretty fuggin' flat. Imagine what Dub Dickerson might have sounded like had he smoked four packs of Pall Malls a day for forty years and you'll be in the ballpark. Will I listen to this more than twice: hmmmmmm…

Wynn Stewart:
I Wish I Could Say The Same/A Night To Remember (Capitol)

Sorry to say that Wynn's initial tenure with Capitol petered out in 1957 not with a big Bakersfield bang, but with this candy-coated pop whimper. This record isn't awful, but it's not the straight-up aggressive honky tonk Wynn excelled at either. It reminds me a lot of Buck Owens first single for Capitol, "Come Back," which Buck in his wisdom more or less disowned as soon as it was issued. This was recorded probably within hours or days of Buck's session, or so the master numbers would indicate, and I'm guessing here now, but they sound so much alike that it could be much the same crew playing on the two records. Sharp twangy lead guitar is present, which is good, but Ralph Mooney is not and that's bad. Thwacky reverbed drums are here, which is fine, but twin fiddles are not, which is sucky. An all-male vocal quartet overbearingly colors the proceedings with schlock, and that's the worst. Why did producers back then think this was a good idea? "I Wish" is actually a decent enough teary toe-tapper, cowritten by Wynn and Bobby Bare, here impaired by the arrangement & production but if you use your imagination you can still tell how it would've sounded with Mooney, Nichols, Price, Austin, & French in a smokey Vegas nightclub, so it's ok. However "Night" is a real cheesefest that borders on unlistenable. As fine as Wynn's pipes are (and it's amazing how quickly his craft matured over the course of these five singles) they simply can't pull the weight of this soggy pop ballad, a surprisingly atypical Buck composition. As bad as this is, Wynn's next effort was the unfortunate "School Bus Love Affair" for Challenge, a stylistic misstep so egregious as to make this single seem like an all-time champ.

Smokey Stover:
One Thing In Common/When The Sun Goes Down (Sims)

There were more than a few wannabe country singers in the 50s & 60s who made such big names for themselves as DJs or radio personalities that they could swing deals to get themselves waxed. Jimmie Dolan, Bill Mack, and Slim Willet come immediately to mind; all have their charm as vocalists, and Mack & Slim could write too, but you can't really call them great singers. Smokey doesn't make it into the upper echelon of distinctive stylists either, but he tops those other guys, with full command of his pipes and an aura of confidence. "One Thing" is a super kick-ass hard-nosed Texas shuffle. Great head arrangement as the twin fiddles do a couple of abrupt stops in a call & response bit with a harmonic chime note on the steel. Then Smokey's lead vocal comes in and takes full command of the song, detailing the travails of bein' in love with a raging narcissist. High harmony on the chorus, and three verses so it's nice & fleshed out with a storytelling arc to the lyric. A fine example of the form. The flip is a Bill Mack song that Mack first waxed for Imperial in the early 50s. It's a weepy waltz with acoustic guitar leads that stick close to classic Jimmie Rodgers licks. Again Smokey's vocal is assertive and assured, forthright in that Texas way that yielded singers like Sonny Burns and James O'Gwynn. The lyric is a bit run of the mill but the refrain line and bridge are catchy.

Tex Williams & The Western Caravan:
The Men Who Know Tobacco Best/Three Little Girls (Capitol)

A witless, pointless carbon-copy rewrite of "Smoke Smoke Smoke" backed with an extry-sentimental waltz so sugary my teeth started hurting after two or three bars. Tex made some nifty sides in his day but these ain't them. Save your money boys.

Don Windle:
My Baby Don't Care/When Friends Are Few (RCA)

A very nice mid-50s two-sider by a more-or-less total unknown. The a-side is a jaunty honky-tonk brag about all the crap this guy's girlfriend will take from him. I particularly like the second verse detailing his wisecracks at the hot dog stand. Good clear hillbilly vocal and cool arrangement, shifting back & forth from R&B shuffle to hillbilly two-beat, kinda like Chuck Reed's version of "Love Love Love" reviewed elsewhere in these pages. That musta been the arrangement idea of the week. The b-side is a fast gospel-ish number that flays away on one dominant chord for most of its duration with a relentless freight-train driving momentum. I say gospel-ish because the lyrics never mention God or Jesus explicity by name, so it could be construed as a pledge of earthly love & loyalty, but the message of steadfastness and a rock to lean on sounds an awful lot like religious faith to my ears. A cool trad-sounding tune that when coupled with the strong a-side produces yet another one of those "why didn't this do better" reactions in this here listener.