Bobby Austin

Bobby Austin:
Tommy Jekyl and Linda Hyde/The Great Pretender (Capitol)

Late in his tenure with Capitol Bobby started working with Earl Ball as his producer, and they made a few stabs at a country/soul crossover sound (a direction Bobby carried over into his brief stay at Atlantic a bit later). Yes, it's that "Great Pretender," the one made famous by the Platters, and while Bobby's got the right kind of dramatic voice for it there's something about the groove that's all wrong. These guys could play shuffles and two-steps to knock you out of your chair, but when they try to stroll man they just don't hit it. You want proof? Flip the record over and listen to the toe-tapping cheatin' song on the other side. Tommy Jekyl marries Linda Hyde and she goes slipping around on him but he chooses to overlook it. The Jekyl & Hyde thing made me think this song was gonna be a lot stupider than it actually is. The band catches the up-midtempo and nails it hard, and Bobby turns in what may well be the single best vocal performance of his career. No joke, he sings the living sh*t out of this song. Man just listen to how he rips the bridge, both times around! Total goosebumpage.

Bill Brock:
The Wreath/I Can't Come Home (Toppa)

It takes a lot to make me, the author of a song called "I'm Damned", to say "geez louise that song is such a morbid-ass sonofabitch downer I can't even listen to it" but by golly Bill Brock went and done it with "The Wreath." It's a dead child song, and I simply can't take it. The flip is good though, a bit slim content-wise in that it consists mostly of a chorus plus one verse that's pretty much just the chorus again, coupled with a meager bridge, but it's catchy in its simplicity and has some stellar Mooney steel licks on it. Sounds like Jonie Mosby singing harmony. Holy Collector Gouging, Batman. I'm not sure this record is worth the $$$ I paid for it.

Buddy Cagle:
Honky Tonk College/Tonight I'm Coming Home (Imperial)

If his Mercury single showed Buddy mimicking Skeets McDonald, this one has him in full-on Marty Robbins mode. Note the warm, reedy tone, the shallow, rapid vibrato, the subtle downward glissandos, the little yodel on the ends of words, even the way he pronounces the letter S. Which is all well and good, I don't mind, I like Marty Robbins too. The production is your standard 60s soft-country syrup, with gently shuffling drums, layers of vocal chorus, and gut-string guitar leads. Nothing to write home about, inoffensive and innocuous. It takes good songs to make this sort of record fly and luckily Buddy got a couple. "Honky Tonk College" doesn't let up with its flow of wacky wordplay, riffing on all the typical elements of collegiate life metaphorically twisted around to describe alcoholic despondency. His eyes are always red from studying so hard, that sort of thing. "Tonight I'm Coming Home" tackles lyrical turf similar to Johnny Horton's horndog classic "I'm Coming Home" but with much less of the tongue-hanging-out-of-the-mouth salaciousness. Instead of eager burning lust we get polite cheery ebullience, which is fine too. A lot of Buddy's Imperial stuff is too wishy-washy for me, but I can recommend this pairing with no qualms.

Orville Couch

Orville Couch:
Hello Trouble/Anywhere There's A Crowd (Vee-Jay)

There's an excellent stash of 60s C&W 45s at this place in my hometown back in Illinois. There's no new stuff being added, it's just the same bunch of records sitting there year after year, remnants of a huge collection they bought out of a guy's basement long ago. They're in these dusty boxes, they used to be in a closet, now they're on the floor under a shelf. Every time I'm back there I gotta go dig through them again to find things I might have missed last time. This groovy record is one I inexplicably passed up several years in a row, until this last time when I said "hey wait this is probably cool" and yeah it's pretty cool. I was familiar with "Hello Trouble" from Buck Owens' very tasty cover version, but it's nice to hear the worthy original. It's a fast catchy two-stepper with acoustic guitar and Onie Wheeler-ish harmonica as the lead instruments, and Orville's a pleasant and assured singer. I always get a kick out of the little differences you hear between versions of a song: I like the way the chord changes on the chorus are handled here (with a turn to the relative minor that Buck dropped), but Buck phrased a few lines of the lyric in a more natural way. The flip is very listenable too, a good drown-your-sorrows waltz with the same instrumental feel of acoustic guitars and harmonica. Nice little record.

Bobby George:
One Fallen Star/Nickel Or A Dime (Crest)

Records like this are a fuggin' balm for my soul. The nascent Bakersfield sound taken to a sort of echo-laden low budget extreme. No steel (this must be about the only west coast country record from 1961 that Ralph Mooney didn't play on) but it kicks ass anyway. "Nickel Or A Dime" wrings cheap chuckles out of the panhandling plight of a mushmouthed drunk as it charges ahead at a fast shuffle tempo and the gutty lead guitar plays bendy runs on the bass strings. Close duet harmonies dominate the catchy chorus just like they oughta and I'm helpless to resist. "One Fallen Star" repeats the sonic formula with similar success, this time lyrically leaping to the defense of a fallen woman. Bobby's voice is appealling in a Justin Tubb sorta way and the echo on this record is as thick as pea soup and the 2nd harmony vocals are mixed way too loud and dammit I've gotta have more more more.

Lee Harris:
When The One You Love Don't Love You/Lasting Romance (Jackpot)

I picked up this odd disk (for a whopping 35 cents it was worth the risk) because of the label. Jackpot was a short-lived subsidiary of Challenge, and put out sides by Wynn Stewart and Jan Howard so I figured maybe it'd be a country record. Well kinda but not much. It's hard to tell exactly what kind of musical scene/background this artist emerged from; country could be in there but this is more of a pop/rock record. The producers dumped the entire contents of a five-pound bag of sugar on "Lasting Romance" but it still came out bland. Thumbs down. Fortunately "When The One You Love" is more interesting. It's a fast two-beat number with a strong resemblance to the rockin' sad songs Don Gibson was coming up with around this time, right down to Lee's cool, restrained, Don-like voice. It's a nifty song with a downward melodic movement played against ascending chord changes, and a bridge given a strong country flavor by a move to the major II chord. The arrangement sets high-pitched strummed guitar chords and relentless piano triplets against a prominent snare drum that plays a martial roll throughout the song instead of whacks on the backbeat. Odd but interesting. As listenable as the arrangement may be, ultimately it's the sweet logic of the melody and wordflow that really make this song a keeper.

Curtis Leach:
Highway Man/Oklahoma, Queen Of My Heart (Fabor)

Shoo-wee did I have to rush for the volume & treble knobs first time I threw "Highway Man" on the ol' turntable. There's one hell of a rickety-tickety, whacking-on-a-tin-pie-plate percussion sound going on here, to the point where it nearly obfuscates the vocal and obliterates the rest of the band. Once I got a handle on the sonic spectrum, I realized it was a combo of an amateurish slugger of a drummer and someone raking a pick over the choked, dampened strings of (or maybe even over the metal surface of the pickup of) an electric guitar with all the bass & mids dialed out, both recorded really hot & trebly and mixed way up front. Whew! It's the defining element of this record and falls just shy of dooming it to unlistenability. Now that we've got that issue dealt with, let's move on. This is a truck-drivin' saga about a driver losing his airbrakes on a long downhill, and a highway patrol man who braves the danger and goes screaming down the hill ahead of him clearing the road for him. It's a good plotline as these things go (nice to hear one where the driver doesn't have to sacrifice himself to avoid hitting a schoolbus full of kids), and it's well-written, with the setting, characters, and events all coming to life (that is, after a few listens, when you've trained your ear to blot out the pain-threshold percussion frequencies enough that you can actually make out the words). The flip is a syrupy love song that rattles off many of the Sooner state's finest qualities, such as the presence of Chickasa and Muskogee, in a crude latter-day western swing kinda way. All in all this little platter is quite the bargain-basement charmer.

Curtis Leach:
Wheelin' & Dealin'/Lightning Struck Twice (Longhorn)

You gotta love Longhorn's gimmick of printing grainy little pictures of their artists on the label. You've also gotta love the crude-but-effective C&W primitivism of Curtis Leach. Not by a long stretch could you call this guy a great singer, but he gets by, he puts it over, he gets his message across. It helps that he's a good writer, if the material blew he wouldn't stand a chance. "Wheelin'…" paints a picture of a hustling independent trucker, taking gamble after gamble buying loads of miscellaneous goods then hauling them someplace to sell them. It's funny and has the unmistakable whiff of real life experience underneath its surface tall tales, plus it's taken at a lively clip and has some pretty sharp fuzzed-out lead guitar. This is a much more together-sounding band than the one on the Fabor single. I'll be keeping my eyes open for an upgrade copy of this groovy little tune (mine is trashed but who's complaining, it was cheap). The flip is a religious recitation about a backslider's offhand deal with God that unexpectedly comes true after years of living as a wastrel. Not something I'd listen to very often but the story is oddball enough, and the telling suspenseful enough, that it held my attention for a spin.

Joe Canonball Lewis

Joe Cannonball Lewis:
I'd Be Sweet Talkin' You/Only In Dreams (MGM)

I first heard Lewis on one of those Boppin' Hillbilly comps on White Label and was very impressed with his forthright bellow, so when I had the opportunity to pick up a few of his MGM sides I jumped at it. Lewis' stylistic turf was an Acuff-inspired brand of trad hillbilly Southeastern string band music (hot mandolin and fiddle are the lead instruments, electric guit and steel are noticibly absent), but there's still a pinch of the honky-tonk cowboy stomp style that Hank & Lefty popularized, in the material and rhythms. Joe was of the rear-back-and-shout school of hillbilly singing, and he had the kind of clarion baritone to pull it off. Imagine a male equivalent of Wilma Lee Cooper and you'll be in the ballpark. Lewis often worked with Jimmie Skinner, who's got a co-write credit on the rollicking "Sweet Talkin", and like Skinner there's a lingering whiff of the 1930s in this music, something bluesy and rugged and undiluted that you can't quite put your finger on. "Only In Dreams" is a not-half-bad stab at a ballad in the mid-tempo Hank Sr. tearpuller style.

Joe Cannonball Lewis:
Train Whistle Nightmare/Trust Me Again (MGM)

The title's more intriguing than the song turns out to be, but this is still a fun record. I'm not a big fan of the country song about being sick of other country songs (i.e. Merle Travis' "I'm Sick & Tired Of You Little Darlin'" or Gene O'Quin's "Joe Joe Joe") but this pastiche/critique of classic train tunes isn't totally stupid, and it's set to a propulsive, barrelling beat, plus it has top-notch breakdown fiddling, all of which adds up to an entertaining lightweight listen. The flip is a pleasant pleading bopper.

l to r: Buddy Emmons, Darrell McCall, Ray Price

Darrell McCall:
A Stranger Was Here/I'm A Little Bit Lonely (Philips)

A nice Willie Nelson-ish gimmick song in which the various parts of the house/items of furniture talk to Darrell about the sleazy cheatin' goings-on that occurred while he was out (the door tells him a stranger knocked on it, the floor tells him the guy walked in, the window-shade says she pulled it down, etc.). The arrangement is too sugary by far, with the steel and fiddle eliminated and the goddamn Merry Melody Singers wasting a lot of breath (and even getting label credit), but it's a good, unabashedly country, song nonetheless. He later re-recorded it for his debut LP on Wayside with all the hard country elements put back into it. I think I prefer that later Wayside one, but both versions have their charms. Redeeming elements on this one include strong up-front vanilla guitar leads and Darrell's voice, which has a youthful fresh-faced quality to it here. "I'm A Little Bit Lonely" is a peppy two-beat come-on number with a decent hooky refrain, sort of in the Don Gibson ballpark, and once again you can hear the influence Faron Young had on Darrell's vocal approach.

Darrell McCall:
I Can Take His Baby Away/A Man Can Change (Philips)

This 1962 effort is a pop record with a little bit of a country accent. News for all of us Shania-haters, the oft-reviled Nashville crossover music has been going on a long long time. Darrell redeemed his rep by returning to hard country later in his career, maybe some of today's egregious New Country pariahs will do the same? Not likely. Anyway, "I Can Take His Baby Away" is pretty charming, as long as you're not expecting unapologetic honky-tonk music. It comes barrelling out with a clunky, whacking beat, wailing harmonica, and chunky rhythm guitars, then segues into a hook-laden Everly-ish double-tracked Darrell duet vocal. The lyric is a bit teeny-bopper, as our boy learns a lesson in love the hard way and seeks revenge against some hapless nameless dumb dude. I do find myself thinking "begone ye foul Merry Melody Singers" every time I spin this, but it doesn't do much good; I spin it up again and they're still there. The flip..well, the flip pretty much sucks.

Skeets McDonald

Skeets McDonald:
I Got A New Field To Plow/Baby, I'm Lost Without You (Capitol)

Skeets really hit his stride in the mid-50s. This typically terrific 1956 pairing matches a spiteful double-entendre kiss-off song with a lowdown bluesy lost-love lament, and they complement each other nicely. The band gets a badass groove going on "Baby I'm Lost," really loose and hard-swinging with a lazy behind-the-beat thwack. All the lead instruments go at it in a sort of everyone-blows-at-once free-for-all. I can't get enough of the mush-mouthed way Skeets says "baby", sorta like "bee-ay-buh," with the last syllable reduced to a gutteral exhalation. This guy was a rockin' from-the-gut singer and one of the best white bluesmen ever. The second verse is perfunctory, but otherwise this's a really good'n. Flip it over, and you'll be treated to one of Skeets' best upraised-middle-finger fussin' & fightin' songs, the upbeat stompalong "New Field." It combines the fun-loving "oh well, life goes on" carefree spirit of a lot of western swing songs with a more wicked, mean-spirited put-down, resulting in tough, aggro, 100-proof honky-tonk guaranteed to make any girlfriend's blood boil. The piano work on both cuts is exemplary. I can't recommend this disk highly enough for the tonk-lover in your life.

Bob Morris:
Silly Willy/Put Your Arms Around Him (Challenge 59215)

Country music has long been viewed by other segments of musical culture/show biz as a poor retarded stepchild. Consequently there's an element of defensiveness that crops up now and again, in anecdotes and song lyrics: Merle Travis parrying jabs from Stan Kenton while recording at the Capitol tower, Hank Sr. waving a wad of cash in a snob's face in the corridors of WSM, Fred Maddox rebuffing a student of the classics who insulted his bass playing technique, and Bob Morris' song "Silly Willy," in which a ridiculed guitar-pickin' bumpkin gets the last laugh by hitting the C&W big time and coming back to town in a Caddy with fine threads, hot chicks, more cash than he can spend, and even ownership of a baseball team (a reference to Challenge Records founding partner Gene Autry?). It's a nice energetic take on a goofy number, with a fast driving beat, slippery harmonies, a throwback hillbilly dobro, and tricky acoustic 12-string leads. The lyrical topic of the flip may not be as unique (cuckolded man throws in the towell) but for my money it's the standout of the two. A sense of struggling-to-keep-chin-up defeat permeates every facet of the tune, from the loping shuffle tempo to the high-register steel to the knockout duet harmonies, which sound like they might be by Buck Owens his own bad self (not out of the realm of possibility given Bob's close relationship to the Buck machine; it's definitely another person's voice, not Bob overdubbing; Bob's gone from this mortal coil so we can't ask him who it is). Norma Jean waxed a worthy cover version of this tune for RCA, but this original is not to be missed.

Faye Hardin & Bob Morris:
Together We Stand, Divided We Fall/Love's Been Good To Me (Challenge)

One of only two pairings Bob cut in a duet format with his wife Faye. Too bad they didn't have the opportunity to cut a few more, as together they sound at least as good, if not better, then long-running acts like Johnny & Jonie Mosby. Both tunes here are Carl Belew compositions, sorta surprising because Bob usually had a hand in writing his own material, but not that surprising because Belew was in the 4-Star stable of writers alongside Bob, Baker Knight, Dave Burgess, Clyde Pitts, etc. "Together" is the less compelling cut, a stiff, pokey waltz. It's OK but the melody dips down kinda low in a few spots and Bob's & Faye's harmonies wobble on those low notes. "Love's Been Good" is the real keeper, an upbeat shuffle with screaming cool steel mixed way up front. Bob & Faye both sing hard, alternating lines near the tops of their registers, coming together on the refrains and nailing the harmonies dead on. Terrific stuff. It's also worth noting as an example of how lyrical themes can get religion-neutralized over time; I've heard a few earlier hillbilly tunes with lines similar to this tune's title, only with the word "God" substituted for "love." Witness the process of secularization.

Bob Morris:
I Knew I'd Lose Again/Each Time They Call Your Name (Capitol)

Awwww man. Bob was capable of a lot better than this. The info I have dates this disk to 1963, which is the same year he started recording for Challenge, so this may very well be his first 45 as a lead vocalist. I'd guess this was a one-off for the major, who sent him packing and he headed over to the semi-indie, for whom he'd already recorded as a member of the Champs. Thank heavens. There's no production credit on this single but whoever A&R'ed it shoehorned Bob into an overblown countrypolitan production context and it doesn't do any of us a damn bit of good. No cryin' Mooney-style steel on a Bob Morris record? What kinda sh*t is that? They filled the void with slip-note piano, tremmed-out EZ listening guit twang, and the inevitable overbearing vocal chorus. I can dig that sound when it suits the singer (Jan Howard, Bobby Austin, Don Deal, & Buddy Cagle all cut some good sides in this mode for Capitol in '63), but it's a poor fit for Bob. His vocal performances here are among the least assured of his entire ouvre, particularly on the ballad "Each Time They Call Your Name", a knock-off of "I Fall To Pieces" penned by Bob's frequent collaborator Eddie Miller. Cringe as Bob fishes around for the right notes on the first verse, attempting to croon. Ouch! Morris' own upbeat "I Knew I'd Lose Again" fares quite a bit better but it still sounds soggy compared to what he would go on to do at Challenge. And what's up with that title, it seems like a careless administrative error to me because the line in the song all the way through is delivered in the present/future tense as "I know I'll lose again." I'll eventually put this on a tape and listen to it a lot, just because I'm Bob's biggest fan, but thank heavens this record flopped and he went back to Challenge, where they gave him free reign to cut awesome hard country records his own way.

Curtis Potter:
It's My Day/My First Stop Is Omaha (Dot)

Have a child and I bet you'll start hearing weepy country songs about little kids differently. "It's My Day" is a tear-puller about a divorced dad who only gets one visitation day a month. Yeah it's about as subtle as a sledgehammer but gee whiz, now that I know what it's like to love those little girls of mine, the pain in this song tugs at my heartstrings every time. Sentimental me. Curtis is of the Ray Price/Johnny Bush/Darrell McCall school of operatic bellowers, so you know he can really put this kind of thing over with twenty-hankies-worth of teardrops in his voice. "Omaha" is one of those early-70s fancy songs, like I don't remember if it's got a harpsichord on it but it could, a knockoff of the Glen Campbell/Jimmy Webb aesthetic and it's a dead ringer for Charlie Rich's Billy Sherill-produced recording of "San Francisco Is A Lonely Town." It's alright but gimme that stone country crying on the a-side daddy-o.

Lewis Pruett:
Timbrook/You'll Make A Fool Of Me (Decca)

Originally released on Slim Williamson's Peach label, this rec did well enough that Decca picked it up and pressed it. I must confess I haven't even listened to the a-side all the way through. First impression was it's a low-budget knockoff of those Columbia saga song records from 1959 set to a cheap Johnny Cash beat and I just wasn't in the mood for it. I did put the ballad b-side on a mix tape though, it's a decent song with a nice melody to it, with Lewis singing sorta Carl Smith-y, but what's most striking is the incredible amatuer-hour piano extravaganza going on behind him. Relentlessly bold, florid flourishes abound, played with little regard for the vocal or other instruments, all with the grace of a hippo in a ballerina's tutu. Can you say "showmanship"? The take-off guitar is generally more suited to the tune but even this guy gets in on the act by the end, going off on tangential improvisations with meandering phrases that bear little relation to the song's key or tempo. Through the chaos Lewis holds steady to the course and delivers a solid impassioned hillbilly plea without missing a beat, which is quite a feat in and of itself. Had it been me at the mic I would have had a very hard time restraining myself from whirling around midsong and firing the pianist's ass on the spot. I know this is a leased indie side, but it still blows my mind that such a disasterous train-wreck of a take came out on a major label.

Chuck Reed

Chuck Reed:
Cry Like A Baby/I'm Gonna Get Some Sleep Tonight (Mercury)

The winner and still champ'een! This is the third Reed release on Mercury I've found and it's yet another fine effort. I'm particularly partial to "I'm Gonna Get Some Sleep Tonight", a witty Fred Rose song with great my-baby-took-me-back lyrics. Based on the corny ol' IV-I diminished-V-I change, taken at a gently swinging easy midtempo, there's something sorta Tin Pan Alley about it. Were it not for the instrumental lineup of steel, fiddle, 'lectric guit, and pianer playing it as straight-up tonk, this could be taken for a hillbilly-accented 20s pop tune. Chuck sings it hard & loud, then at the end of the bridge the band stops for a bar and he drops his volume way down and puts the last line over with a soft muttering groan. Simple trick, but hoo boy he hits it out of the park with that lick. "Cry Like A Baby" is not as outstanding a composition, but it's taken at a snappy toe-tappin' clip, the comping is great (hot guit picking, and the steel does some wah-wah licks in a good-humored imitation of a squallin' tot), and Chuck's got them golden pipes going for him so a song would have to be worse than this to come out not smellin' like a rose.

Chuck Reed:
You're Out Of My Sight/I'm Saving All My Love For You (Mercury)

This pairing of two slow, limping ballads is a bit on the dull side, but "You're Out Of My Sight" still made it onto one of my car tapes. It's a tear-filled ode to insecurity without a whole lot to recommend it hook-wise, but the production and arrangement make hay anyway. The steel and electric guitar do real clean twin lines in call & response with Chuck's passionate vocal, and they're recorded off-mic with a lot of echoing room sound around them. It's a technique that became commonplace in the 60s but it was unusual for this era, and it sounds amazing, natural as breathing. Chuck sings both these sorta mundane tunes with all the moxie he can muster, but the material is like a ball and chain. He can't really make these flat, forgettable turds sparkle brightly no matter how much he polishes 'em with his matchless vocal prowess; as a result this is for sure a listenable disk, but not essential.

Robbi Shawn

Robbi Shawn with Wynn Stewart Band:
Don't Ever Doubt Me/? (Linde-Jo)

The combo of Wynn Stewart in the label credit, the indie label's Covina address (hometown of the Toppa label), and the $2 sale price got me to pick this up. I paid to satisfy my curiosity, and for that I have no regret, but rewarding-listening-wise this is merely OK. Robbi's voice is palatable, with a noticeable Patsy Cline influence; and the band sounds fine (how wrong can you go with Mooney/Nichols/Austin/Price/French in the house?). On the downside, the material is generic and the tempos are pokey. Of the two cuts the self-penned "Don't Ever Doubt Me" has grown on me to the point where I've included it on some homemade comps, but the Rusty Nail song on the flip doesn't make any dent in my memory banks at all; as you can see I can't even remember the name of it and I'm too lazy to go dig the thing out & look it up. Not a bad record, but not as exciting as I had hoped it would be.

Don Winters

The Winters Bros, Don & Floyd:
No One But You/What Do You See In Him (Columbia)

I've pretty much given up on finding decent records at thrift stores in San Francisco. Country has never sold real big here, so not much trickles down to the Sal Army floor in the first place, and the little that does gets snatched up by resellers & hipsters within seconds, so what's the use? But the other day I had some time to kill after lunch so I poked around at a thrift in the Mission for a little while and lo & behold, found this little-seen hillbilly rec in perfect shape for 35 cents. How cool is that? Columbia must've thought they'd found their answer to the Louvins with this duet. One of these boys can turn on an uncanny vocal resemblance to Ira at will, and it's got Chet Atkins/Paul Yandell style pickin' all over it. Sources tell me this is yodellin' king Don Winters with a fella named Floyd Robinson, which makes 'em not really bros but their vocal sympathy is way bro-like; they have an exceptionally lovely two-tenor blend. "No One But You" is a fast two-beat with just a hint of a latin beat to it reminiscent of "I Don't Believe You've Met My Baby." It also brings to mind some of Slim Willet's signature tunes like "Don't Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes" in the way phrases end with a note being held for a long long time, then they let the groove carry it for a few measures and let it breathe a little before delivering the next line. "What Do You See In Him" is a midtempo self-pitying wounded lover ballad, dripping with just as much Louvins-y goodness as you can handle. Ver' ver' nice, mmm hmmm.