Country music in the United Kingdom and Ireland part 1: 1950s-1972

Since American folk and country music, particularly that of the of the Appalachian region, had its roots in the English and Irish folk traditions, it seems only fair that the American product crossed back over the Atlantic Ocean to the home of its forbears.

The age of recorded music dates back over a century but it appears that the cross-pollination of English pop music with American Country music began in earnest in 1952 when Slim Whitman, a smooth-voiced American country singer with a wide vocal range and outstanding ability as a yodeler released “Indian Love Call” as a single. The song reached #2 on the US country charts but also got to #9 on the US pop charts and #7 on the British pop charts. Then in 1954, “Rose Marie” topped the British pop charts. While Whitman would have only one more top ten British hit, his recordings continued to chart occasionally through 1957, and received some airplay thereafter. The BBC played Slim’s 1968 single “Livin’ On Lovin’ (And Lovin’ Livin’ with You)” with some frequency.

Although no longer a pop singles charts factor, Slim’s albums would continue to sell well with the last charting album falling off the British album charts in 1978. Red River Valley charted at #1 in 1977 and Home On The Range reached #2. Slim would tour the UK and Europe for the next several decades.

Because of his highly individual style, perhaps Slim isn’t a good exemplar; however, a few years later the heavily country-influenced rockabilly artists such as Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent Craddock, Carl Perkins and Eddie Cochran began making their presence felt. Initially the presence was to be found in the work of skiffle artists such as Lonnie Donegan and the Vipers. Skiffle was an amalgam of American blues, folk and country, and would fuel the early English rock ‘n roll movement. One American act, Johnny Duncan and the Bluegrass Boys, also would thrive as skiffle artists.

While the skiffle artists were not, per se, country artists (and like rockabilly, the movement was short-lived), Nashville songwriters were beginning to have success in England with country songs, even if not necessarily performed as country music. During the 1960s artists such as Max Bygraves, Val Doonican, Ken Dodd, Des O’Connor, Englebert Humperdinck and a dynamic singer from Wales, Tom Jones, were having huge success with American Country songs.

One of the first English groups to actually feature American style country music was the Hillsiders. Signed to RCA, they found their way to Nashville to record an album with country great Bobby Bare. The album The English Countryside reached #29 on the US country album charts and spawned the single “Find Out What’s Happening” that went to #15 on the US country chart and reached #5 on the Canadian country chart. While neither the album nor the single charted in England, the album reputedly sold decently and the single received some airplay. While there were no further chart hits, the Hillsiders remained an integral part of the English country scene through the mid-1990s.

Thanks to a pair of BBC radio programs, Country Meets Folk (hosted by Wally Whyton) and Country Style (hosted initially by David Allan and later by Pat Campbell), there were weekly shows that featured country music. Country Meets Folk was a live program that was about 50-50 folk and country whereas Country Style mostly featured recorded music with an occasional live performance by a local act. Through Country Style, I became familiar with such entertaining acts as Tex Withers, Roger Knowles, Nick Strutt, Brian Golbey, Pete Stanley and a host of Irish acts such as Larry Cunningham, Big Tom & The Mainliners, Dermot O’Brien and Joe Dolan. I should mention that Irish Country music often came in the form of an Irish Showband, with the music sometimes resembling that of modern day American polka star Jimmy Sturr.

The First International Festival of County Music at Empire Pool – Wembley, was organized by Mervyn Conn and took place on April 5, 1969 and featured a number of prominent American country artists such as Conway Twitty, Bill Anderson and Loretta Lynn (my father and I both attended) and also showcased a number of fine English and Irish country acts as follows: Phil Brady & The Ranchers, Larry Cunningham and the Mighty Avons, The Hillsiders, and Orange Blossom Sound (a fine bluegrass group).

The Second International Festival of Country Music was held March 28, 1970, and my father and I again were both in attendance, to see the Roy Acuff, Tompall & The Glaser Brothers and Lynn Anderson, along with other American acts and the English acts Orange Blossom Sound, The Hillsiders, and Country Fever.

These festivals continued through 1991 and gave such fine English and Irish acts as Brian Coll, Lee Conway, Ray Lyman & The Hillbillies, Patsy Powel and The Honky Tonk Playboys, The Jonny Young Four and Frank Yoncho exposure.

Meanwhile Lucky Records was formed to provide an outlet for local artists. One of my most treasured albums was by acoustic country artist Brian Golbey titled The Old & The New Brian Golbey.

At about the same time The Nashville Room opened in Kensington, which featured music by local country acts with an occasional Nashville star such a Hank Locklin dropping in.

I moved away from England in 1971 and lost track of the English and Irish country music scenes. In the days before the internet it was difficult to keep up with what was going on across the sea.

Album Review: The Mavericks – ‘Brand New Day’

Lawrence Welk, Flaco Jimenez, Jimmy Sturr, Gene Pitney, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Marty Robbins, Louis Prima, Charles Magnante, Jacques Brel, Earl Scruggs, Tito Puente, Perez Prado and countless others inhabit the music on this album. None of them actually appear on this album, but all of them are among the influences apparent in the newest Mavericks album Brand New Day, the group’s first album to be released on their own Mono Mundo label.

[Note: Unfortunately the digital download of the album did not come with songwriter or musician credits, although I think Max Abrams handles the saxophone throughout the album and Michael Guerra is on the accordion. Malo usually writes most of his own material, so I would assume that he wrote most of this album.]

The album opens with the upbeat “Rolling Along”. Like polka band leader Jimmy Sturr, Mavericks lead singer and guiding force Raul Malo discovered long ago that Polka, Tejano, Cajun and Western Swing are essentially the same music, just played on different instruments. This basically falls within that group of genres with banjo, accordion, fiddle and trumpets all featured within the mix.

Life isn’t easy, it’s uphill, believe me
Whether you’re weak or you’re strong
Sometimes you feel like you’re back on your heels
And everything’s going all wrong

Through the confusion and all disillusion
Somehow life still goes on
I found a cure I know works for sure
And we just keep rolling along

So bring on the trouble and burst every bubble
I promise it won’t change a thing
I always find that my peace of mind
Still flies like a bird on the wing
What’s going to happen is still going to happen
The one thing that you can count on
Don’t fix what ain’t broken while Willie’s still smoking
We’ll just keep rolling along

Next up is the title track “Brand New Day” written by Raul Malo and Allen Miller, a big rock ballad love song of the kind that greats Gene Pitney might have recorded in the 1960s or Roy Orbison in the 1980s. It is derivative but gives Malo a chance to show that he is one of the few singers who should be allowed anywhere near this material.

Baby tomorrow’s a brand new day
We’re gonna love all our troubles away
I don’t wanna live like a ghost from the past
You’re not the first but you will be my last

There’ll come a time when all of your dreams
Will all disappear like a thief in the night
(A thief in the night)
It’s never too dark to keep out the light
There’s never a wrong that you couldn’t make right
(You couldn’t make right)

Baby tomorrow’s a brand new day
We’re gonna love all our troubles away

“Easy As It Seems” has a bossa nova arrangement with a lyric that one of Motown’s fine staff writers could have written:

Things are getting crazy, I beg to understand
The more I think I know, the more I know I can’t
So tell me what the point is with everything you say
Nowhere near the truth almighty a bunch of nothing said

Do you want to get mean?
Do you want to get cruel?
Do you think it’s wise
To play the fool?

I can mentally hear either Louis Prima or Dean Martin singing “I Think of You”, the arrangement and saxophones saying Prima but the actual lyric screaming Dino. Since I am a huge fan of both Louis Prima and Dean Martin, I would probably single this song out as my favorite track on the album.

“Goodnight Waltz” evokes the images of Parisian Café Society. Sung softly and taken at a slow waltz tempo, the lyric can be taken several ways, depending upon the frame of mind of the listener.

Here I stand before your eyes
I’m just a man who’s realized
Another dream has come to light
So I’ll say goodnight

I’ll say goodnight to you
I’ll say goodnight to you
So farewell but not goodbye
So I’ll say goodnight

Time has come and gone too soon
Tomorrow brings another tune
I’ll sing them all ’til the day I die
So I’ll say goodnight

“Damned (If You Do)” reminds me of a lot of other songs I’ve heard over the years, both lyrically and melodically (the first few bars had me wondering if I was about to hear the theme from the Munsters television show and there seem to be hints of that theme at several points in the song):

And sure as you are
Of lessons you’ve learned
Decisions you’ve made
Will all be overturned
But life all alone
Is a life unfulfilled
You may not miss the hurt
But you sure do miss the thrills

You’re damned if you do
And damned if you don’t
Damned if you will
And damned if you won’t

Next up is “I Will Be Yours”, a romantic ballad that a younger Engelbert Humperdinck would have recorded as an album track in the late 1960. I can even imagine Elvis Presley or Marty Robbins tackling this song.

If you should want to, or ever need to
Find yourself someone who would be true
I know the right one, to be that someone
And he has fallen in love with you

If you surrender to love so tender
Until forever I will be yours
Don’t ever leave me, darling believe me
Until forever I will be yours

“Ride With Me” has an early rock ‘n roll feel to it (with brass and accordion added), although the song also reminds me of Bobby Troup’s classic song “Route 66”. Basically a travelogue, it is a good song anyway. If you listen closely you will hear some Bob Wills style asides from Malo.

When I’m in New York City, I never sleep a wink
When I’m in New York City, I never get to sleep a wink
But when I cross that river all I want to do is drink

Well I have been to Chicago, they said it was the promised land
You know I’ve been to Chicago, they said it was the promised land
When I arrived as a child they promised that I’d leave a man

Phoenix, Arizona; Memphis, Tennessee
Southern California, Washington DC
I gotta go… a whole world to see
So pack your bags up baby
Come along and ride with me

Of all the songs on this album “I Wish You Well” is the one that I would describe as being like a prototypical Roy Orbison song. Malo does a fabulous job singing it and conveying the regret and angst of the lyric.

This is where the road divides
This is where we have to say goodbye
Say goodbye

After all that we’ve been through
How I wish for more than this to say to you
This to say to you

Here’s to all the good times
That we’ve ever known
To the memories
Yours and mine alone

Now you lie before me
Like a star that fell
Oh I wish you well
Oh I wish you well

The album closes with “For The Ages”, a celebratory love song, with an arrangement that, with the exception of the choral coda, could be called country, the only song on the album I would so describe, although like every other song on the album, accordion is in evidence.

For the ages… that’s what our love will be
For the ages… through all of history
For the ages… who could ask for more
For the ages… that’s what our love is for

I’ve never known a love to make me feel like this
I’ve never tasted wine sweeter than your kiss
I’ve never seen a star shining in the sky
Nearly half as bright as the twinkle in your eye

Describing the music of The Mavericks has always been difficult somewhat akin to trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole, only in their case the peg had a trapezoid shape. This album is no exception. It has been categorized as rock, which it is not, and I have seen it called country which it most certainly isn’t.

There is nothing new or revolutionary about any of the music on this album, and many of the songs on the album will remind long-time fans of songs on other Mavericks albums. Even so, this is one of the better albums that will be released this year, with its wide array of songs and musical styles. Raul Malo is in excellent voice throughout. My only criticism is that the album could be a little longer (it runs about 38 minutes).

Graded strictly in terms of the excellence of execution, this album is an A+. Graded on other criteria you might downgrade it to a B+ (shame on you if you do, though)