Country music from a fan's point of view since 2008
Late last month, George Strait released his 30th studio album, his first collection of all-new music in four years. The record, entitled Honky Tonk Time Machine, is a thirteen-track set co-produced by Strait and Chuck Ainlay.
Strait wrote six of the album’s tracks along with his most frequent co-writers — his son Bubba and Dean Dillion. The strongest of the songs is the affecting ballad “The Weight of the Badge,” a beautiful tribute to our everyday law enforcement officers. Also excellent is lead single “Every Little Honky Tonk Bar,” which Occasional Hope reviewed last month.
The trio’s remaining co-writes are very good. “Blue Water” is about longing for escapism from our modern world. He sings about a “Sometimes Love” he can’t seem to forget and shows his woman he’ll always be there on “Take Me Away.” The outlier is “Código,” which serves as little more than a commercial for a brand of tequila Strait has an investment in.
“What Goes Up,” a nice spiritual ballad about leaning on God, was co-written by father and son and Jeff Hyde. They branched out even further, bringing in Willie Nelson and Buddy Cannon for “Sing One with Willie,” a duet with Nelson. The track is pure honky-tonk and while the melody is delightful, the lyric boards on cutesy.
Bubba also has some co-writes of his own. “Some Nights” is a mid-paced ballad about getting over a lost love. The title track is a barnburner in the same vein as “Heartland.”
The remaining tracks were penned by outside writers. The spiritual “God and Country Music,” which laments about the only things worth saving, was co-written by Luke Laird, Barry Dean, and Lori McKenna. “Two More Wishes” reunites him with Jim Lauderdale. The results are just as you would expect. The final track is a fine cover of Johnny Paycheck’s “Old Violin,” on which you can hear off of Strait’s life experience coming out in his vocal.
Honky Tonk Time Machine is a fine addition to Strait’s catalog. It’s refreshing to hear his voice and perspective again.
Grade: B+
This one hurts. Roy Clark passed away this morning due to complications from pneumonia at home in Tulsa, Okla. He was 85. Clark was not only a legend in country music but a major fixture on television, appearing for half a century as a main cast member on Hee Haw and frequent guest host of The Tonight Show, filling in for Johnny Carson. He’ll be best remembered for his songs, his outstanding comedic timing, and his brilliant musicianship.
Here are some career highlights:
A cover of Bill Anderson’s “The Tips of My Fingers” was his first chart hit, reaching #10 in 1963:
Clark released his signature song, “Yesterday When I Was Young,” in 1969. It would go on to peak at #9:
Clark reached #1 just once, with “Come Live With Me” in 1973:
Clark’s comedic timing, and his stellar musicianship are on full display in this clip from The Jimmy Dean Show:
Clark also had a line of Signature Guitars. You may remember this commercial he made in the 1990s:
Clark appeared in the star-studded opening of the 50th Annual CMA Awards in 2016, one of his last public appearances:
By the end of the 90s, Daryle’s hits had dried up at radio as the industry moved away from his pure country sound, and Giant decided to drop him from the label. He moved to independent label Koch Records, and released Now And Again, an album which mixed his Giant hits with a handful of new songs (including two of his own co-writes, the title track and ‘I’ve Thought Of Everything’, a very good mournful ballad which is worth downloading).
2002 saw Daryle pay tribute to his roots with a set of mainly classic country covers. Not everyone likes this kind of project, but if nothing else it proves definitively that Daryle was a great country singer who would have been an enormous star had he been born a few decades earlier.
Two singles were released, both peaking in the 40s. The title track was the album’s sole new song, and was written by the great Max D Barnes. Set to a cheerful mid-tempo, the tongue-in-cheek song recalls a childhood devotion to country music:
My mama used to tell me
“Son, you better get your work done
Your Daddy’s coming home at five
And if you ain’t all through with the chores you gotta do
Boy, I’m gonna tan you alive”I was glued to the radio, listening to my hero
Singing them sad old songs
Singing them sadder than a one car funeral
Nobody sings like JonesI’d take that old kitchen broom up to my room
And I’d play it like an old guitar
Or sit out on the porch tryin’ to sing like George
Dreaming of becoming a starWell, things I never did when I was just a kid
Made me what I am today
You see, Mama used to whoop me with a George Jones album
That’s why I sing this way
‘I’d Love To Lay You Down’, Daryle’s last ever charting single, is a sensual love song to a wife, which is a cover of a Conway Twitty hit.
George Jones, namechecked in the title track, also receives tribute in the form of a cover of, not one of his heartbreak classics, but his trustingly romantic ‘Walk Through This World With Me’, a hit in 1967. The arrangement is gorgeous, with piano, steel and fiddle prominent, and Jones himself sings harmony.
Merle Haggard makes a guest appearance on his ‘Make Up And Faded Blue Jeans’, in the form of a couple of lines near the end. Johnny Paycheck provides a similar cameo on one of the highlights, an intense version of ‘Old Violin’; the fiddle on this is suitably beautiful.
John Wesley Ryles is one of the most ubiquitous of backing singers in Nashville, but he started out as an artist in his own right, with the song ‘Kay’, a top 10 hit in 1968, when he was only 17 years old. Daryle’s version of this fine song about the man left behind to a life driving a cab, when his sweetheart makes it big in country music is excellent, and Ryles adds harmonies.
Rhonda Vincent joins Daryle on a superb version of one of my favorite classic country duets, ‘After The Fire Is Gone’. The final guest, Dwight Yoakam, plays the part of Don Rich on the Buck Owens classic ‘Love’s Gonna Live Here Again’. Daryle also covers Buck’s Hank-Cochran-penned hit ‘A-11’ in authentic style. I think Darrin Vincent may be among the backing vocalists here.
A measured version of ‘Long Black Veil’, a mournful ‘I Never Go Around Mirrors’ and ‘Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)’ are all also highlights.
Grade: A
This album set the tone for the remainder of Daryle’s career, focussing on great traditional style country music. We have reviewed all his subsequent albums.
Back in 1993, Delta Music issued four albums in their Live in Branson MO, USA series. While I think the intent was to go farther, only albums on Johnny Paycheck, Faron Young, Connie Smith and Moe Bandy were ever released.
Live albums are always a bit of a gamble; some of them are quite good, others are a waste of material. Moe Bandy Live in Branson MO, USA is a pretty decent album; moreover, at the time it was issued it was the only live recording available of Moe as a solo artist (I believe that is still the case).
Moe is accompanied by the following musicians on this recording from June 26, 1992. The album was recorded at the Moe Bandy Americana Theatre, so which of these musicians were members, if any, of these were members of Moe’s road band, I cannot say:
Phil Coontz – leader & steel guitar
John Clark – fiddle, accordion, steel & acoustic guitar, mandolin
Scooter Hill – acoustic guitar, harmonica, keyboards & harmony vocals
John Parmenter – accordion, fiddle & harmony vocals
Kris Spencer – harmony vocals
Ed Synan – piano, synthesizer & harmony vocals
Shawn Tull – guitar & harmony vocals
Tony Walter – bass & harmony vocals
Terri Williams – vocals
Whatever the case, these musicians do a nice job of presenting Moe in a country context.
The album opens with “Another Day, Another Dollar”, the Wynn Stewart classic which is used to give the band a chance to show off. Moe sings the first verse and the chorus.
Next up is Ian Tyson’s “Someday Soon” which hit #21 for Moe in 1982. The song was long familiar to audiences through the Ian & Sylvia, Judy Collins and Chris LeDoux recordings (plus it was an album track on countless albums by other artists). Suzy Bogguss would have a slightly bigger hit with the song a few years later.
“Hey Joe” was written by Boudleaux Bryant and was initially a hit for Carl Smith, the father of Carlene Carter and a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Carl took the song to #1 for eight weeks in 1953, the first of many #1 records written by Boudleaux Bryant. Moe &Joe (Stampley) reached the top ten with the song in 1981. This version is an up-tempo straight ahead version that I like better than the Moe & Joe duet.
“It’s A Cheating Situation” written by Curly Putman and Sonny Throckmorton, was one of Moe’s two #1 singles (Record World & Canada RPM). Terri Williams fills the Janie Fricke role here – she’s not as accomplished a singer as Fricke but acquits herself quite well.
“Rodeo Romeo” a typical Bandy song that reached #10 in 1981, is up next, followed by the first of two Moe Bandy compositions in “Many Mansions”, about a down and out homeless person’s faith in what is to follow:
Hope is a thing with feathers that perches on the soul
Said the homeless young man standing there strong against the cold
I reached into my pocket, said a penny for your poetry
But when I handed him a dollar bill he was shaking his head at me
And he said these words to me
In my Father’s house are many mansions
Though tonight some make their beds along the streets
Where I’ve seen lives still by winters bitter chill
In my Father’s house there’s a mansion for me
“The Horse You Can’t Ride” is an interesting song composed by Blake Mevis. Moe had this song on one of his albums, so it has not been widely heard but I think it is a compelling song. I think maybe Garth Brooks should hunt down this song and record it.
His boots were all beat up from the dust and the weather.
His face and hands were tanned like sun dried leather.
He rolled a Bull Durham reefer, as he thumbed my diesel down.
He said he had just blew Dallas on the first wind out of town.He must have read my face, I didn’t think it was showing.
Anyway that old cow poke had a way of knowing.
He said judging from the way your broken up inside.
My guess would be that you just found that horse that you can’t ride.We all find that horse that we can’t ride.
He kicks you in the heart and leaves you laying in your pride.
But every cowboy worth his salt knows its worth a little hide.
To fall and get back up on that horse that he can’t ride.He said son now I have done an awful lot of living.
It’s too late for me to ever be forgiven.
The devil holds the mortgage on my saddle and my soul.
‘Cause I left heaven crying on a ranch in El Paso.We split a pint or two by the time we got to Austin.
He told me how he loved it and then he told me how he lost it.
When nothing meets nowhere with nowhere.
I stopped and let him down.He said son now this is where you are headed,
If you don’t turn this rig around..
We all find that horse that we can’t ride.
He kicks you in the heart and leaves you laying in your pride.
But every cowboy worth his salt knows it’s worth a little hide.
To fall and get back up on that horse that he can’t ride
This is followed by “Hank Williams You Wrote My Life”, a quintessential Moe Bandy song if ever there was one.
Moe Bandy didn’t seem to write a lot of songs but the ones he did right were quite good. “My Wish For You” is about a father’s wishes for his child’s well-being.
The album closes with three of Moe’s later, less hard-core country hits, plus an early hit. The later hits are “You Haven’t Heard The Last of Me” (#11 – 1987), “Till I’m Too Old To Grow Young” (#6 – 1987) and Moe’s last top ten hit “Americana” (#8 – 1988). Because Moe did not have an orchestra, these recordings have a more solidly country sound than the post-Columbia albums from which these songs were taken. Sandwiched in between these numbers is an early GRC hit, written by Lefty Frizzell, “Bandy The Rodeo Clown.”
The only real criticism I have of this album is that on a few songs, I would have preferred that Moe’s voice be a little more front and center in the mix. A few of the tracks, most notably “My Wish For You” have a quasi-acoustic setting.
This is a really fine and enjoyable album that shows off the range of Moe’s talents, and is the only exemplar of Moe’s live show of which I am aware.
Grade: A-
It’s a Cheating Situation is the 10th studio album by Moe Bandy and his seventh album of new material. Released in 1979, the album reached #19 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart, his best showing in a few years. The album generated two top ten hits and featured the solid country sound that made Moe such a favorite among fans of traditional country music.
The album opened with the title track a fine track featuring Janie Fricke on harmony. Written by Curly Putman and Sonny Throckmorton, the song sailed to #1 on Record World (#2 Billboard, #1 Canadian Country), one of only two solo Bandy singles to reach #1. The song was a bit unusual for Bandy, but effective.
It’s a cheating situation, a stealing invitation
To take what’s not really ours, to make it through the midnight hours
It’s a cheating situation, just a cheap imitation
Doing what we have to do when there’s no love at homeThere’s no use in pretending, there’ll be a happy ending
Where our love’s concerned, sweetheart, we both know
We’ll take love where we find it, love and try to hide it
It’s all we got, for we know they’re not gonna let us go
Next up is a more typical Moe Bandy number in “Barstool Mountain”, written by Donn Tankersley and Wayne Carson. The song was the second single released from the album and reached #9. The song had been recorded, as an album track, by Johnny Paycheck a few years earlier on his Take This Job And Shove It album. I like Paycheck but Bandy’s version is far superior
I’ve finally found a place where I can take it
All this loneliness you left behind.
On a mountain that’s no hill for a climber.
Just one step up, sit back and pour the wine.I climb up on barstool mountain.
High above your world where there’s no pain.
And I’m the king of barstool mountain.
Pretending I don’t love you once again.
“Cheaters Never Win” by Sanger Shafer and Doodle Owens sounds like something Hank Williams might have written, and the comparison is driven home by the arrangement put together for Bandy. Released a decade before, the song would have made a good single for someone.
I don’t know how long you left me here alone
But I sure was a lonesome someone
And I learned from a friend how cheaters never win
Oh, but we sure have more fun.When empty arms need someone soft to fill them
They’ll start reaching out for almost anyone
My stood to couldn’t stand and cheaters never win
Oh, but we sure have more fun.
“Conscience Where Were You (When I Needed You Last Night)” is a medium slow ballad from the pens of Sanger Shafer and Warren Robb.
I’m not that familiar with songwriter Herb McCollough but his “Try My Love On for Size” is a nice song with steel and fiddle driving the ong along. This song is taken at a moderately up-tempo pace. I really like the song, but I don’t think it would have made for a successful single.
Yeah slip into my arms I think you’ll find a perfect fit
They’ll keep you warm throughout the coldest nights
And these lips will cool the fires that burn you deep inside
My love will hold you close but not too tight.So try my love on for size
It’ll never shrink or run or fade away
Yes, try my love on for size
Never return it if you’re fully satisfied.Yes, try my love on for size
Never return it if you’re fully satisfied…
Bobby Barker’s “To Cheat Or Not To Cheat” is a mid-tempo song that asks what I suppose to be the eternal question (my suggestion is ‘Not To Cheat’). It’s an okay song as an album track but nothing more.
While she makes another midnight pot of coffee
We’re mixin’ up just one last glass of gin
And before I even cheat I’m feelin’ guilty
And gin can’t dim these butterflies within.To cheat or not to cheat, that’s the question
That’s been runnin’ through my mind all evenin’ long
To cheat or not to cheat, what’s the answer
Now I’m pullin’ in my driveway here at home…
Max D. Barnes was a fine songwriter, and “She Stays In The Name of Love” is a good song that I think could have been a good single for someone. Johnny Gimble and Weldon Myrick shine on this track.
I’ve been everything that a man shouldn’t be
I’ve done things a man won’t do
And it’s hard to believe what she sees in me
After all that I put her through.But I guess that she knows when the bars finally close
She’s the one that I’m thinkin’ of
Well she could leave in the name of a heart full of pain
But she stays in the name of love.
“It Just Helps To Keep The Hurt From Hurtin'” is a fine and wistful Cindy Walker ballad that Moe tackles successfully with just the right amount of trepidation in his voice.
Carl Belew was one of my favorite songwriters, and while his success as a performer was limited, some of his songs became great pop and country classics (“Stop The World and Let Me Off”, “Lonely Street”, “What’s He Doing In My World”, “Am I That Easy To Forget”, “Don’t Squeeze My Sharmon”). “When My Working Girl Comes Home (And Works on Me)” is the sort of album material that Moe excels at singing.
The album closes with “They Haven’t Made The Drink (That Can Get Me Over You)”, another mid-tempo Sanger Shafer – Doodle Owens honky-tonk classic, featuring Johnny Gimble on fiddle and “Pig” Robbins on piano . For the life of me, I do not understand why this track wasn’t released as a single by Moe or perhaps someone else.
The face on my watch stares up through a scratched up crystal
As if to say I’m sorry it’s too early for the booze
Sometimes my mind wonders from the bottle to the pistol
‘Cause they haven’t made the drink that can get me over you.The bartenders’ local called a special meeting
They came up with a drink called ‘What’s The Use’
I must have drank a dozen before I broke down cryin’
‘Cause they haven’t made the drink that can get me over you.
There are signs on several tracks of the Moe Bandy sound beginning to soften a little. There’s still plenty of ‘Drifting Cowboy’ steel guitar and Texas-style fiddle but on a few tracks the Jordanaires are a little more prominent than I would like, and the title track is far less honky-tonk that Moe’s usual fare.
Among the musicians helping keep this country are the following: Bob Moore (bass), Johnny Gimble (fiddle, mandolin), Hargus “Pig” Robbins (piano), Bobby Thompson (banjo), Weldon Myrick (steel guitar), and Charlie McCoy (harmonica).
I very much like this album and would rate it an “A”.
In a world of interesting individuals, there probably were none that were more interesting than Johnny Paycheck. Starting off as a young hellion, Paycheck got. progressively wilder as time went by. While his chaotic life was reflected in his music, at some point in his life even Paycheck realized that things had gotten completely out of control.
The torture in his soul and regrets in his life could never be better exemplified than in his masterpiece (from his 1987 Mercury album Modern Times)@
“Old Violin” as written and performed by Johnny Paycheck:
Well, I can’t recall, one time in my life,
I’ve felt as lonely as I do tonight.
I feel like I could lay down, and get up no more,
It’s the damndest feelin’; I never felt it before.Tonight I feel like an old violin,
Soon to be put away and never played again.
Don’t ask me why I feel like this, hell, I can’t say.
I only wish this feelin’ would just go away.I guess it’s ‘cos the truth,
Is the hardest thing I ever faced.
‘Cos you can’t change the truth,
In the slightest way. I tried.So I asked myself,
I said: “John, where’d you go from here?”
Then like a damned fool,
I turned around and looked in the mirror.
And there I saw, an old violin.
Soon to be put away and never played again.
So one more time, just to be sure,
I said: “John, where in the hell do you go from here?”
You know that when a nickel’s worth of difference,
And I looked in the mirror, that’s when I knew.
That there I was seein’, an old violin.
Soon to be put away, and never played again.
And just like that, it hit me,
That old violin and I were just alike.
We’d give our all to music,
And soon, we’d give our life.
1958 (Sales): Great Balls of Fire — Jerry Lee Lewis (Sun)
1958 (Disc Jockeys): The Story of My Life — Marty Robbins (Columbia)
1968: For Loving You — Bill Anderson & Jan Howard (Decca)
1978: Take This Job and Shove It — Johnny Paycheck (Epic)
1988: I Can’t Get Close Enough — Exile (Epic)
1998: A Broken Wing — Martina McBride (RCA Nashville)
2008: Our Song — Taylor Swift (Big Machine)
2018: Meant To Be — Bebe Rexha featuring Florida Georgia Line (Big Machine)
2018 (Airplay): Like I Loved You — Brett Young (Big Machine)
Make Mine Country, Charley Pride’s fourth album, was released via RCA Victor in 1968. The album didn’t produce any singles but featured covers of many notable songs that have become classics. It was produced by Chet Atkins along with Jack Clement, Bob Ferguson, and Felton Jarvis.
The album opens with Jack Clement’s “Now I Can Live Again,” a minor hit for Mickey Gilley the previous year. The uptempo track, about a newly-single man finally putting the sorrow behind him, is brimming with sunshine.
“A Word or Two to Mary,” written by Vince Bulla and Peter Cotton, is a ballad between friends in which a man asks his buddy to compose a letter to the woman he’s leaving behind in death. The track, typical of the era, is beyond creepy and has an inappropriate sing-song melody that clashes with the subject matter.
“If You Should Come Back Today” was also recorded by Johnny Paycheck although I couldn’t find the year he released his version. The honky-tonk uptempo number returns the album to the sunny disposition of the opening track, with a lyric (written by Johnny Mathis and Harlan Howard) about a guy who would forgive his ex if she came back into his life.
Clement also solely wrote “Guess Things Happen That Way,” which Johnny Cash took to #1 the year previous. Pride’s version is slicker sounding than Cash’s, which is the sole difference between the recordings.
The album’s fifth song is “Before The Next Teardrop Falls,” which appears here seven years before Freddy Fender had an international hit with it. Pride’s version is terrible by comparison, a by-the-numbers take that lacks the nuance Fender was able to find within the lyric.
Make Mine Country continues with Clement’s arrangement of “Banks of the Ohio.” The track, drenched in mandolin, feels rushed and like the song before it, lacks any care to bring the emotional qualities out in the lyric.
“Wings of a Dove” was already eight years old when Pride released his version. It’s a solid take, although the arrangement is far too cheesy for my tastes.
“A Girl I Used To Know” was six years old by 1968, a top 5 hit for George Jones that would top the charts as “Just Someone I Used to Know” in a duet recording by Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton the following year. Pride’s version is very good, but hardly an essential take on the song.
“Lie To Me,” which only saw this version by Pride, is another sunny uptempo number. This one is about a guy who wants his woman to confess her love to him, even if she doesn’t truly feel it deep inside.
The regretful “Why Didn’t I Think of That” appears next, with Pride taking on the role of voyeur, watching the way his ex’s new love shows his affection towards her. The track is merely good.
Eight years after Buck Owens took it to #3, Pride unleashes his rendition of “Above and Beyond (The Call of Love).” He handles the song beautifully, allowing it to stand out among the twelve tracks on the album. “Baby Is Gone,” a mid-tempo ballad, closes out the record.
Make Mine Country is a very strong album, with solid takes on some of the hits from the day. Given that it didn’t have any singles, I can only guess it was an obligatory record aimed at fulfilling some clause of his recording contract. I found the album to be bogged down by a few second-rate relationship songs that could’ve been swapped out for a bit more meaty material.
Grade: B
Charley Pride’s second album was released in June 1967, and was the record which broke him through into stardom. There were two top 10 singles, both of which were written by Charley’s producer Cowboy Jack Clement and became instant classics. ‘Just Between You And Me’, the breakthrough hit, which peaked at #9, is an excellent song about a broken heart. Perhaps better known today thanks to the Garth Brooks cover, is the ultra-traditional ‘I Know One’, which reached #6. The song is almost perfect in its simplicity.
Another Clement tune, ‘Spell Of The Freight Train’, is a pleasant song about a rambler who doesn’t want to settle down, with some nice harmonica. The endearing ‘Best Banjo Picker’, about an aspiring musician, features some great banjo (some deliberately faltering to illustrate the song), played by bluegrass great Sonny Osborne who also gets a name drop.
‘Take Me Home’, written in slightly tongue in cheek fashion by Clement with Allen Reynolds, is about a wanderer’s rather more rueful longing to return home:
Well, I’ve slept all night in a water trough
Had the flu and the croup and the whoopin’ cough
Had the mumps and the measles and the seven year itch
And I can’t count the times that I’ve had a cold (and sore throat)
Not to mention all the times that I cut my fingers on a sardine canTake me home
My heart is heavy and my feet are sore
Take me home
I don’t want to roam no more
It had also been recorded by Johnny Cash and Bobby Bare.
As was customary at this date, Charley included a selection of recent and older covers, which make for enjoyable listening but cannot be described as essential. The delightful mandolin-led ‘A Good Woman’s Love’ was first recorded by Hank Locklin in 1955 but has also become a bluegrass standard following Bill Monroe’s recording. The mandolin is played by Bobby Osborne, brother of Sonny. There is a slow, emotional version of the Johnny Paycheck-penned ‘Apartment #9’, which was Tammy Wynette’s debut hit. ‘Touch My Heart’ is a broken hearted ballad which had been a big hit for Ray Price in 1966.
Tom Paxton’s contemporary folk classic ‘The Last Thing On My Mind’ was a popular choice of cover for country artists in the 60s, and Charley’s version is nice but forgettable set next to Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton’s hit version same out the same year. ‘The Middle Of Nowhere’ also has a somewhat folky feel, with its melancholy tale of a return to a childhood home where the narrator is now a stranger out of place.
‘I‘m Not The Boy I Used To Be’, written by Curly Putman, is a shamefaced confession from an ex-con on his way home:
You see, mama,
I’ve spent time in prison
For a crime that I’m too ashamed to tell
And when you meet me there tomorrow
Don’t be surprised at what you see
Cause mama I’m not the boy I used to beFor I’ve been gone away too long
And I’ve done everything that’s wrong
But I think I’ve finally found myself at last
And just you wait and see
Another chance is all I need
But mama I’m not the boy I used to be
Charley is a little too clean cut to completely sell the part of the guiltridden sinner. ‘Silence’, written by Margie Singleton and Leon Ashley, is a steel laced ballad about loneliness and missing an ex.
The music on this record stands up pretty well today, although it is the singles which have endured the best. The Nashville Sound trappings of the arrangements do not overwhelm what is essentially solid country music from one of the great country singers. You can find it on a joint CD with three other early Pride albums.
Grade: A-
Nowadays when a tribute album is released, often it is more of a multi-artist gala event than an honest tribute with many of those paying tribute being mere poseurs. This was not always the case. Prior to the Urban Cowboy movement, it was common to see single artist albums that paid tribute to another artist. Kitty Wells, Faron Young and Del Reeves paid tribute to Jim Reeves. Similarly, Stonewall Jackson, Ernest Tubb and Charley Pride issued Hank Williams tribute albums and Loretta Lynn cut a tribute album to Patsy Cline. Even the great Merle Haggard issued tribute albums to Bob Wills and Jimmie Rodgers, as did Willie Nelson with his a salute to Lefty Frizzell. Most of these single artist tribute albums were sincere tributes, but they were seldom innovative or particularly soulful endeavors, just albums of adequate cover versions.
Mr. Hag Told My Story is different. For one thing Paycheck, a somewhat kindred spirit to Haggard, inhabits these songs, making them very personal indeed. Moreover, instead of merely recording a collection of Haggard’s hits, Paycheck goes deep catalog, recording some relatively obscure songs that were mostly album tracks for Haggard.
While Haggard and Paycheck had some similarities such as tough childhoods which resulted in both being hellions during their younger years, Haggard outgrew his demons and never was regarded as being part of the outlaw movement. This may be at least partially due to Haggard’s producer at Capitol, Ken Nelson, giving Haggard free reign to release some very personal albums with less commercial viability. Consequently, Haggard did not have much cause for rebellion.
I am not convinced that Johnny Paycheck ever truly conquered his demons, except when he grew too old to continue his self-destructive ways.
Haggard was a huge star with over 20 years of sustained chart success while Paycheck had three scattered periods of success scattered over a 15 year period. Both were successful songwriters and both got started in the bands of the biggest stars of the time.
For a brief period of time Haggard and Paycheck recorded for the same label, Epic, toured together and were able to record together.
Released in 1981, Mr. Hag Told My Story is an album of moody and/or introspective songs all of which were written by Haggard except for “Carolyn” a Haggard hit written by Tommy Collins. There were no hit singles released from the album, but there are a lot of classic performances, with Haggard’s band The Strangers providing much of the instrumental backing.
The structure of the album is that Paycheck introduces each of the songs with a spoken introduction. Haggard himself weaves in and out of the album, sometimes as a lead or harmony singer, sometimes as part of a conversation and sometimes playing his guitar. Make no mistake – this is a Johnny Paycheck album but Haggard’s presence is significant.
The album opens up with “(I’m) Turning Off A Memory”, the B-side of Haggard’s 1971 hit “Grandma Harp”. This is a great song that I think should have been an A-side for Haggard. Haggard adds some asides and sings on the choruses and takes on one of the verses.
You can find me in a dim lighted bar room
If your coldness should ever turn warm
But the chances of you ever changing
Are as slim as your two loving armsSo I’m turning off a memory
As quickly as time will allow
Yes, I’m turning off a memory
And the wine seems to help me somehow
“I’ve Got A Yearning” was an album track on Haggard’s 1978 Capitol album Eleven Winners. Taken slightly up-tempo, the song is another tale of loneliness:
I’ve got a yearning to hold you tight
A burning desire I live with day and night
Everything I lose keeps on hanging on
This feeling isn’t leaving and by now it should be gone.I keep on thinking those thoughts that keep making me want you all the time
I should be trying to find me a way I can drive you from my mind
I know that you wanted to give and I know that you gave all you could
Wish I could accept what is over and done with for good.
Tommy Collins wrote “Carolyn”, a classic song of frustration and angst, that Haggard took to the top of the charts in 1972. Here Paycheck sings the verses and Haggard does the narrations. Don Markham’s horns give the song a more jazzy feeling than on Haggard’s earlier single.
Yes, Carolyn, a man will do that sometimes on his own
And sometimes when he’s lonely
I believe a man will do that sometimes out of spite
But Carolyn, a man will do that always
When he’s treated bad at home
“I’ll Leave the Bottle on the Bar” comes from Haggard’s 1968 album Sing Me Back Home. This song is another featuring a quicker tempo. The steel guitar sounds like that of Big Jim Murphy, Paycheck’s regular steel guitarist:
A loser doesn’t always know he’s losing
Till he’s lost the game and it’s too late to win
I hope I’ll call in time and you’ll forgive me
‘Cause I want so much to come back home again
And I’ll leave the bottle on the bar
If you’ll take me back to start anew
I’ll leave the bottle on the bar
I’ll sober up and come back home to you
I’m not sure that “All Night Lady” was ever issued on a Merle Haggard album. This song is about Death Row, not the first time Haggard wrote about the subject. Paycheck does a masterful job of singing the song.
Through the window he sits watching his last sunset
Like a blackout curtain closing out the light
It’s now he needs someone’s arms around him
Yes it’s now he needs someone to help him through the nightAn all night lady
One who loves me
And won’t leave me when daylight comes
One who’ll stay with me until my life is doneAt 9 AM they’re going to lead him to the death-house
And at 10 AM they’ll lay his soul to rest
I can see them giving him his last supper
I can hear him giving them his last request
“I Can’t Hold Myself in Line” was the only single issued from the album, dying at #41. The song originally appeared on Haggard’s Pride in What I Am album released in 1969. This song is basically a very bluesy conversation between Haggard and Paycheck, with twin steel by Jim Murphy and Norm Hamlet, plus some very funky lead guitar by Roy Nichols and terrific horns played by Don Markham.
I’m going off of the deep end
And I’m slowly losing my mind
And I disagree with the way (ha-ha) I’m living
But I can’t hold myself in lineYou give me no reason for my drinkin’
But I can’t stand myself at times
And you’re better off to just leave and forget me
Cause I can’t hold myself in line
“Yesterday’s News Just Hit Home Today” is another bluesy track with the sage advice that ‘being a fool is one thing, but not knowing you’re a fool is another thing’.
“You Don’t Have Very Far to Go” was a Haggard co-write with Red Simpson that first surfaced on Haggard’s 1967 album Branded Man. I thought at the time that it would have made a good single for Haggard but then, most of his sixties albums were full of good singles material. Johnny gives it a more honky-tonk treatment that Hag had given it.
You always find the way to hurt my pride
If I’m not crying you’re not satisfied
And I don’t know why you want to hurt me so
If you’re tryin’ to break my heart
You don’t have very far to go
You don’t have very far to goBefore the heartache begins
I already feel the sadness
Of a heartbreak settin’ in
I don’t know why you want to hurt me so
If you’re tryin’ to break my heart
You don’t have very far to go
“No More You and Me” is a fairly generic honky-tonk ballad, executed perfectly by Paycheck.
The album closes with the bluesy title track “Someone Told My Story”:
I played a brand-new record on the jukebox
And I scarcely could believe the song I heard
It told of how you left me for another
It was almost like I’d written every wordSomeone told my story in a song
The lyrics told of happiness and home
And then it told of how you’ve done me wrongSomeone told my story in a song
The writer must’ve seen the way you done me
For he told it all and never missed a line
He told of swinging doors and the jukeboxAnd he even knew I almost lost my mind
Someone told my story in a song
After listening to this album, I think you’d have to say that Haggard definitely told Paycheck’s story in his songs. This album is my favorite of the post-Little Darlin’ Johnny Paycheck. Really, how could this miss?
The great songs of Merle Haggard, as sung by Johnny Paycheck with an amplified version of Haggard’s Strangers providing most of the instrumental backing and Hag himself joining in at times.
Grade: A+
Johnny Paycheck followed his most successful album, Take This Job and Shove It, with Armed and Crazy exactly a year later. The album was produced, as per usual, by Billy Sherrell.
The record saw two single releases. “Friend, Lover, Wife,” a mid-tempo ballad about a man’s straight-laced other half, peaked at #7. “The Outlaw’s Prayer,” an excellent recitation in which a man is banished from a church because of his appearance, stalled at #27.
The title track is a sonically adventurous mess that fails on every level. The song attempts to extend Paycheck’s outlaw image, but it tries too hard and devolves into a mix of unappealing loud noise. “Mainline” is better, with audible harmonica throughout, but it’s still not very good. “Just Makin’ Love Don’t Make It Love” is an AC-leaning ballad that feels uninspired, to say the least.
“Thanks To The Cathouse (I’m In The Doghouse With You)” has a strong lyric and clever title, but is bogged down by heavy production that intrudes on the overall listening experience. The track would’ve been far more enjoyable if the proceedings had been a bit more tasteful and let the song breathe. “Leave It To Me” isn’t much better, succumbing to Sherrill’s need to get in the way of Paycheck’s performance.
“Me and the IRS” is an excellent workingman’s anthem that perfectly balances comedy and reality. The uptick in quality continues with “Let’s Have A Hand for the Little Lady,” a rocker that succeeds on its melody and Paycheck’s energetic vocal. “Look What the Dog Drug In” is easily the album’s strongest track (along with “The Outlaw’s Prayer”) and would’ve made a terrific single.
Armed and Crazy is a strange album full of adventurous production that usually is not in service of the song. Sherrill used many of the techniques that were popular in the day and they don’t hold up to modern times. I can see why this album wasn’t a smash hit, it just doesn’t have a magical spark. There are a few good tracks, but that’s not enough to save the album as a whole.
Grade: B-
At a prison show with Merle Haggard:
1977 was the peak of Johnny Paycheck’s career, seeing the success of his signature song, the only chart topping single of his career. The album from which it came was also his most successful, his only platinum record, and was arguably his best. By now Billy Sherrill knew what kind of production suited Paycheck, and he gives him the right backings for this excellent selection of songs.
‘Take This Job And Shove It’, written by fellow Outlaw David Allan Coe, is a true country classic which is still instantly recognisable – and relatable – today. More casual country fans may think of it solely as an assertive blue collar walkout from an underpaid, boring factory job with bosses he despises, but at heart it is a heartbreak song. The narrator’s motivation is the woman he loves. He has been enduring the job he loathes in order to try and make a home for her – but now she has left, he plans on making is true feelings known. Paycheck’s growling delivery is completely convincing. The song had such a popular impact it even loosely inspired a movie a few years later, in which both Paycheck and Coe had cameo roles.
The spoken ‘Colorado Kool-Aid’ is a rather bizarre intended-to-be-funny tale of a bar fight in which the narrator’s Mexican friend cuts off a drunken aggressor’s ear as payback for the latter spitting beer at him:
If you’re ever ridin’ down in south Texas
And decide to stop and drink some Colorado Kool-Aid
And maybe talk to some Mexicans
And you get the urge to get a little tough
You better make damn sure you got your knife-proof ear-muffHey, ain’t that right, big man?
I said, ain’t that right, big man?
Ah, hell he can’t hear
Nnot on this side anyway, he ain’t got no ear
It was the B side to the physical single of ‘Take This Job And Shove It’, and it got some airplay in its own right.
The album’s other single, the booze-drenched Bobby Braddock’s ‘Georgia In A Jug’, was less successful, peaking at #17, even though it is an excellent song. Younger fans may know it better from Blake Shelton’s cover. Like ‘Take This Job’, it appears to be one kind of song, in this case a drinking song, with an underlying narrative of heartbreak over the woman who has left. Mexican horns, Caribbean steel drums, and Hawaiian steel are used sparingly, and tastefully, to illustrate the exotic destinations the happy couple will never now visit in real life. A similar alcoholic tour, this time of the US, to try and get over a woman, take space in ‘The Spirits Of St Louis’.
Another superb song, ‘From Cotton To Satin (From Birmingham To Manhattan)’ (covered by Gene Watson a few years later) is about a marriage which founders due to financial pressures. The poor farmer hero scrapes together just enough to take his wife on a vacation to New York City, where she dumps him for a rich man. Ironically, just after she has done so, his Alabama farm turns out to be the site of an oilwell.
‘Barstool Mountain’ was written by Donn Tankersley and Wayne Carson (who recorded it first), and also recorded by Moe Bandy. A classic honky tonk ballad about “drinking away I love you”, it’s another great tune.
‘The Fool Strikes Again’ (written by Steve Davis, Mark Sherrill and Gary Cobb) is a delicate ballad about a loyal wife whose man continually lets her down:
Lady Luck never smiles on those who cheat to win
Every time I get her back
The devil tempts me into sin
And with a smile on his face
The fool strikes again
It was subsequently a single for Charlie Rich, although not a particularly successful one.
‘When I Had A Home To Go’, penned by Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton, might depict the same relationship a little later. The wealthy protagonist admits to the bartender,
She loved me more than life itself
But the liquid diet I was on starved our love to death
So it’s not hard to figure out why my baby’s gone
‘Cause when I had a home to go to
I never did go home
Luckily for him, she actually seeks him out in the bar where he has taken refuge, and offers him a second chance, and he has suffered enough to take it up:
So forget the double
Keep the change
And you can call me gone
Cause while I’ve got a home to go to
This time I’m going home
‘The Four F Blues’ is more light hearted, with Paycheck cheerfully playing the field:
I ain’t never seen a woman that didn’t like the 4-F blues
Ooh I like to find ’em, fool ’em, free ’em and forget ’em
And love ’em till they’re satisfied
Then look around for something new
‘The Man From Bowling Green’ is a nice, rather sad story song written by Max D Barnes and Troy Seals., about a naïve young girl seduced by an older man, a musician who moves swiftly on once he has got what he wanted.
This is a great album, which I strongly recommend. If you have nothing else by Johnny Paycheck nin your collection, this is the album to go for. You can find it on a joint CD with Armed And Crazy, and half the tracks from Mr Hag Told My Story, reviews for both which will follow later this week.
Grade: A+
My Kind of Country 