Country music from a fan's point of view since 2008
It wasn’t a great year for reissues but there were some bright spots. As always our British and European friends lead the way. Also, please note that these can take a while for foreign titles to become available from US suppliers, so it may be into 2019 before these are generally available.
In those cities that still have adequate recorded music stores (sadly, a rare commodity these days), it can be a real thrill finding a label you’ve not encountered before reissuing something you’ve spent decades seeking. It can be worthwhile to seek out the foreign affiliates of American labels for recordings that the American affiliate hasn’t reissued. For example, there are Capitol recordings not reissued in the US that are available on the UK or European EMI labels. For the rest of us, scanning the internet remains the best alternative.
Unfortunately as the sales of physical CDs continue to plummet, so does the willingness of labels, domestic and foreign, to invest in reissuing material by second and third tier artists. Still missing in action are the catalogues of such significant artists as Liz Anderson, Wilma Burgess, Johnny Darrell, Jack Greene, The Hager Twins, Freddie Hart, Warner Mack, Kenny Price and David Rogers. While there has been a slight uptick in vinyl sales and reissues, most of that has been of only the very top selling artists (and at $22 to $33 per title).
Anyway …
The British label Jasmine issued a number of worthy country releases:
Billy Walker – Well, Hello There – The Country Chart Hits and More 1954-1962. The album features most of Billy’s biggest Columbia hits in decent sound.
Johnny Cash – Change of Address – The Single As and Bs 1958-1962. This release is somewhat redundant as it collects the A&B sides of Cash’s first sixteen Columbia singles. The songs are available elsewhere, but it is nice to have the singles all in one place.
Kitty Wells – I Heard The Juke Box Playing. This two CD set features Kitty’s 1950s solo hits plus a bunch of (not readily available) duets with the likes of Roy Acuff, Webb Pierce and Red Foley. While much of this material had been available in the past, it had been allowed to slip out of print so it is nice to have it available again.
The Collins Kids – Rockin’ and Boppin’. Lorrie and Larry Collins were teenage rockabilly artists backed by the cream of California’s country musicians. Their material has been unavailable for quite a while.
Jasmine isn’t specifically a country label with much of their output being R&B and Rock ‘n Roll, but their country reissues are always welcome. Jasmine also issued an early Homer & Jethro collection from their recordings on King Records, a Lee Hazlewood collection and several mixed artists albums during 2018.
Another British label, Ace Records, usually does a nice job with reissues. Unfortunately, 2018 was a sparse year for country reissues with a Johnny Lee Wills reissue (available only as a digital download) being about it this year.
The British Hux label had a light year as far as country reissues was concerned issuing nothing (that I have been able to find), but they did have a mid-2017 release that slipped my notice last year, a nice Dickey Lee reissue comprised of Dickey’s first two RCA albums from 1971 & 1972 in Never Ending Song Of Love / Ashes Of Love. Dickey Lee was far more successful as a songwriter than as a recording artist, but this pair features four of his hits plus some other songs he wrote including “She Thinks I Still Care”.
The British Humphead label has received criticism for using needle drops but they’ve gotten better at the process and in many cases, theirs are the only available (non-remake) recordings by the artist.
In October Humphead issued the Connie Smith collection My Part of Forever (Vol. 1), comprised of mainly her 1970s recording including tracks recorded for Warner Bros., in the mid-1990s, Sugar Hill in 2011, and rare lost radio performances from the early 1970s. Many of these tracks have been previously unavailable – a real find.
Humphead also had released a three CD Ed Bruce collection and a two CD best of the Kentucky Headhunters collection.
The British BGO label finished its reissue series of Charley Pride’s RCA catalogue with its two CD set consisting of The Best of Charley Pride Volumes 1-3 and Charley Pride’s Greatest Hits VI. At this time virtually everything from Charley Pride’s landmark RCA tenure is now available on CD, either from BGO or from other sources.
BGO also released a two CD set of Charlie McCoy’s first four albums on Monument (The Real McCoy / Charlie McCoy / Good Time Charlie / The Fastest Harp In The South). They are good, but rather more harmonica than I care to listen to at one sitting,
Other BGO sets can be found here.
Germany’s Bear Family Records has been the gold standard for reissues; however, this was a rather quiet year on the country side of the business. On the other hand, the one truly significant set released is a doozy. Bear had previously released vinyl and CD boxed sets on the legendary Lefty Frizzell. In October Bear released a greatly expanded twenty CD set titled An Article From Life – The Complete Recordings. The original Bear set was beyond great and if I had unlimited cash reserves I would buy this set which includes the following:
• Every 45, 78, and LP track from Lefty’s entire career. Every unissued session recording
• Newly-discovered demos and non-session recordings
• Newly-researched biography and discography
• Many previously unseen photos from the Frizzell family’s archives
• A new designed 264 page hardcover book!
• Many previously unissued recordings – a total of 12 CDs of music.
• An audio book on 8 CDs with Lefty’s life history, written and read by his brother David.
As for domestic reissues our friend Ken Johnson helps keep the folks at Varese Vintage on the straight and narrow for their country releases. This year Varese only had one country album released which occurred in November, when Varese issued the John Denver collection Leaving On A Jet Plane. This isn’t really country, but Denver was heavily played on country radio., These tracks come from the 1960s when Denver was part of a late edition of the Mitchell Trio and part of the successor group Denver, Boise and Johnson. The collection features John’s first recordings of “Leaving On A Jet Plane”.
Although not really a reissue, Yep Rock released a nice Jim Lauderdale/ Roland White collaboration that had never before been released. We reviewed it in September 2018 here.
Sony Legacy controls the rights to Columbia/CBS, Epic, RCA, Monument and some other labels as well. In May 2018, Sony Legacy released Outlaws & Armadillos: Country’s Roaring ’70s, a nice two CD set of “Outlaw Era” country. The thirty-six song collection is hardly essential but it is a nice introduction to the era, showcasing the obvious artists along with the likes of Marcia Ball, Rodney Crowell, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Willis Alan Ramsey. This label seems to be Willie Nelson’s current label for new material
Omnivore Recordings spent several years releasing the recordings of Buck Owens. In May of this year they released The Complete Capitol Singles: 1967-1970, a two CD set that seems to have completed their coverage of Buck’s peak period. Since then they have issued Country Singer’s Prayer, the never released last Capitol album, and Tom Brumley’s Steelin’ The Show, featuring Buckaroo and Buck Owens tracks on which Tom’s pedal steel was prominently featured. Neither of the latter two albums are essential but the Brumley collection highlights just what a great steel player was Tom Brumley.
Earlier in 2018, Omnivore released a Don Gibson collection featuring most of Don’s hits on Hickory plus some album tracks.
***
I suppose I should again say a few words about the Gusto family of labels. It appears that Gusto still is in the process of redesigning their website, but plenty of product can be found from other on-line vendors or from retail outlets such as Pottery Barn and various truck stops along the Interstates.
As I mentioned previously, with the exception of the numerous gospel recordings made by Porter Wagoner during the last decade of his life, there is little new or original material on the Gusto Family of labels. Essentially, everything Gusto does is a reissue, but they are forever recombining older recordings into new combinations.
Gusto has accumulated the catalogs of King, Starday, Dixie, Federal, Musicor, Step One, Little Darlin’ and various other small independent labels and made available the music of artists that are otherwise largely unavailable. Generally speaking, older material on Gusto’s labels is more likely to be original recordings. This is especially true of bluegrass recordings with artists such as Frank “Hylo” Brown, The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, Stringbean and Curley Fox being almost exclusive to Gusto.
After 1970, Gusto’s labels tended to be old age homes for over-the-hill country and R&B artists, and the recordings often were remakes of the artists’ hits of earlier days or a mixture of remakes of hits plus covers of other artists’ hits. These recordings range from inspired to tired and the value of the CDs can be excellent, from the fabulous boxed sets of Reno & Smiley, Mel Street and The Stanley Brothers, to wastes of plastic and oxides with numerous short eight and ten song collections.
To be fair, some of these eight and ten song collections can be worth having, if they represent the only recordings you can find by a particular artist you favor. Just looking at the letter “A” you can find the following: Roy Acuff, Bill Anderson, Lynn Anderson, Eddy Arnold, Leon Ashley, Ernie Ashworth, Chet Atkins and Gene Autry. If you have a favorite first or second tier country artist of the 1960s or 1970s, there is a good chance that Gusto has an album (or at least some tracks) on that artist.
Stereo recording technology has been around since the early 1950s, although it came into general use in recording music albums around 1959. For the first decade or so thereafter, albums were issued in both stereophonic and monaural versions, with the stereo version costing about $1.00 more. By 1968 US record labels were no longer issuing separate versions, as turntables had begun featuring lighter “stereo-compatible” styluses and tone arms that could play stereo records in monaural without groove damage to the record.
Pop singles were another matter as 45 rpm records remained available only in monaural until the end of the 1960s when some labels began issuing 45 rpm in stereo. Why the delay in making singles available in stereo sound?
Well, as Buck Owens himself said:
“The reason my Capitol records sounded the way they did—real heavy on the treble—was because I knew most people were going to be listening to ’em on their AM car radios. At the time, nobody else was doing anything like that, but it just seemed like common sense to me. And it was one more reason that you knew it was a Buck Owens record as soon as it came on the radio—because it just didn’t sound like those other records…”
Buck was right – much of the music listening, done by youthful listeners, was done in automobiles over AM radios. AM – FM radios would not become standard equipment in automobiles until the mid-1970s. While FM radio existed during the 1960s, most FM stations played classical music.
Whether you are a fan of country, Motown or pop music as it was played and heard before 1970, you likely have complained that the music available on stereo albums doesn’t sound like it did on your car radio. This is true whether due to the way the mono and stereo was mixed, or the fact that many songs were recorded separately for release on stereo (Motown fans and fans of the Mama & Papas have been lamenting this for years),
With The Complete Capitol Singles (1967-1970) Omnivore has made available the Buck Owens mono singles for the first time in ages. Comprising the A&B sides of Buck’s singles, Omnivore has put together a two-disc set of 36 Buck Owens songs. Disc one is entirely monaural mixes but by the time most of the songs on disc two were issued, Capitol was issuing stereo 45 rpm singles.
Unlike jazz artists who often re-recorded their tracks for stereo release (June Christy’s Cool is a notable example), for the most part, country artists did not record separate stereo and mono tracks. The sound difference is in the mixing and the fact that sometimes certain instruments get lost in the monaural mix (usually the lower pitched instruments). In the case of Buck Owens, the treble is brighter and sometimes the steel guitar seems mixed more prominently up front.
As far as I can tell the only track which seems to have been modified significantly in the stereo version is “How Long Will My Baby Be Gone” which had some annoying clapping sounds and other overdubs applied. Also, the distortion guitar on “Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass” seems less pronounced than on the stereo albums, but I could be mistaken about that. There is one live track on the album “Johnny B. Goode” – my Dad and I were in the audience (it was his 44th birthday) and if you listen very carefully you might hear Dad and I applauding!
This is not quite Buck Owens at his peak (none of his very biggest hits are here) as Buck was beginning to be bumped off the mountaintop and was getting a bit more experimental in an effort to stay current. Also, Steel wizard Tom Brumley left the group in late 1968 to be replaced, briefly, by Jay Dee Maness. Maness was a fine steel player but his sound is very different than that of Tom Brumley
Especially noteworthy are “I’ve Got You On My Mind Again” which was the first Buck Owens single to feature strings and background voices, and “Tall Dark Stranger” which is unlike anything else Owens recorded.
The sound on this set is fabulous and I really enjoyed Disc One which transported me back to my teen-aged years listening to these songs on the radio. Disc Two documents Buck’s slow decline, and also gathers his duets with Susan Raye.
This isn’t where I would start my Buck Owens collection (Rhino’s fabulous box set from 1992, The Buck Owens Collection 1959-1990, is where I would start, although there are other good sets available, including a pair of two-disc sets by Omnivore Records in Buck ‘Em ! – Volume One and Buck ‘Em ! Volume Two) but this is a nice addition to any collection, collecting some otherwise unavailable material
Grade A
DISC ONE
01 Sam’s Place
02 Don’t Ever Tell Me Goodbye
03 Your Tender Loving Care
04 What A Liar I Am
05 It Takes People Like You [To Make People Like Me]
06 You Left Her Lonely Too Long
07 How Long Will My Baby Be Gone
08 Everybody Needs Somebody
09 Sweet Rosie Jones
10 Happy Times Are Here Again
11 Let The World Keep On A Turnin’ (w/Buddy Alan)
12 I’ll Love You Forever And Ever (w/Buddy Alan)
13 I’ve Got You On My Mind Again
14 That’s All Right With Me [If It’s All Right With You]
15 Christmas Shopping
16 One Of Everything You Got
17 Things I Saw Happening At The Fountain On The Plaza
18 Turkish Holiday
DISC TWO
01 Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass
02 There’s Gotta Be Some Changes Made
03 Johnny B. Goode [Live 03-09-1969]
04 Maybe If I Close My Eyes [It’ll Go Away]
05 Tall Dark Stranger
06 Sing That Kind Of Song
07 Big In Vegas
08 White Satin Bed
09 We’re Gonna Get Together (with Susan Raye)
10 Everybody Needs Somebody (with Susan Raye)
11 Togetherness (with Susan Raye)
12 Fallin’ For You (with Susan Raye)
13 The Kansas City Song
14 I’d Love To Be Your Man
15 The Great White Horse (with Susan Raye)
16 Your Tender Loving Care (with Susan Raye)
17 I Wouldn’t Live In New York City
18 No Milk And Honey In Baltimore
All tracks on Disc 1, and Tracks 1–2 on Disc 2 are Mono Single Versions. After “Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass” all US singles for Buck were issued in stereo. Although British and German releases were still mostly monaural.
Released in June 1986, Black and White saw a strong directional shift in Janie’s music toward a more nuanced and adult approach to music. There is more blues influence evident than in her earlier recorded efforts. This was Janie’s eleventh album (her last name was spelled ‘Frickie’ on the album cover). Norro Wilson produced the album.
Although I regard this album as Janie’s masterpiece, some of the songs are marred by 1980s production. Also this album marked the end of her as a chart force. “Always Have, Always Will”went to #1, but the second single “When A Woman Cries” only reached #20, and no future Janie Fricke single would ever again reach the top twenty. Some would argue that the New Traditionalist movement shoved Janie aside, but I suspect that her age had as much to do with it as newer, younger faces arrived.
Side one of the original vinyl album opens up with “Till I Can’t Take It Anymore”. Written by Clyde Otis and Ulysses Burton, the song has a long history, having been a pop hit for Ben E. King in 1968, with numerous covers including Billy Joe Royal’s #2 country hit in 1990. Janie does a nice job with the song.
Let’s not fight it anymore
Unpack your bags and close the door
Girl, I’ll never leave you
Though you lied right from the start
I can’t convince my foolish heart
Not to believe youYou’ve got two good men strung out
And there’s not the slightest doubt
That other men have loved you before
But you drew your face away
I dream of Heaven and I live in Hell
Till I can’t take it anymore
“He’s Breathing Down My Neck” is a mid-tempo ballad with a very jazzy feel to it. I think this is the weakest song on the album and it’s not at all bad.
Kent Robbins wrote “Take Me Like A Vacation”, an interesting song taken at mid-tempo. The song was later covered by Lynn Anderson. “Nothing Left To Say” is a slow ballad about the end of a relationship. The song is really well sung by Janie, a very nice album track. “Coming Apart At The Seams” is the story of a breakup that the narrator wants no part of, and cannot accept.
Thus ends side one of the original vinyl album. Other than the first track, none of the songs themselves are anything special but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Side two opens with the best song Janie Fricke ever recorded, the bluesy “Always Have, Always Will”. The song reached #1. There is some lovely steel guitar on the track by former Buckaroo Tom Brumley.
It seems funny I remember your number
After all this time
And I know that it’s late
And I hope that I’m not out o’ line
But for some crazy reason
I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout you all day
And every three hours now
I’ve been thinkin’ of somethin’ to sayIlove you like a fool
Always have, always will
But you know that it’s just my point of view
But I love you still
Always have, always will
Always have, always will love you
“Don’t Put It Past My Heart” is a mid-tempo song about a woman’s warning to her lover telling him to not take her for granted. This would have made a good single.
“When A Woman Cries” was released as a single, topping out at #20. Written by Buck Moore and Mentor Williams, I would have expected the song to be a bigger hit.
The album closes out with a pair of slow ballads. “He’s Making A Long Story Short” and “I’d Take You Back Again”, one of the few songs penned by Ms. Fricke.
The key to this album is that the songs are all situated in such a way as to let Janie show off her vocal prowess without overstraining her voice. Fricke is in good voice throughout, and while parts of the production sound a bit dated, at no point are the arrangements cluttered and obtrusive. Unlike her prior albums, which were simply collections of songs, this album sets a mood and does it well.
Grade: A
The late 50s and early 1960s saw many so-called heart throb artists pushed off on the American teenage population. Most of them were very attractive guys who had a strong visual appeal to teenage girls, but had minimal singing talent, which meant that they had a few hits before their fans moved on to other artists .
Ricky Nelson was one such artist, who also had the advantage of a weekly platform on his parents popular television show THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE AND HARRIET. Unlike most of his teen-throb counterparts, Ricky Nelson had real talent and was able to sustain his musical career throughout his short life, charting 53 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1957 and 1973.
WHO WAS HE ?
Ricky Nelson was the younger son of big band leader Ozzie Nelson and Ozzie’s featured singer (and later wife) Harriet Hilliard Nelson. Ozzie’s band was very successful, having many hits including a #1 record in 1935 with “And Then Some”. From 1944 onward, Ozzie & Harriet were involved in the THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE AND HARRIET, initially on radio and then from 1952 to 1966 on television. Starting in 1949 Ricky and his brother David had roles as themselves on the show.
After his death, Ricky’s sons would score a #1 record recording as the group ‘Nelson’, making the Nelson family one of two answers to the trivia question “what musical family had #1 pop records in three consecutive generations?”.
Ricky Nelson’s recording career began in 1957 when he covered the Fats Domino hit “I’m Walking'” b/w “A Teenager’s Romance”. Both sides charted in the top four. From there Ricky would have eighteen top ten records through the end of 1963 including two #1s in “Poor Little Fool” (1958) and “Travelin’ Man” (1961). Ricky’s records were always noted for having a really tight band with ace guitarist James Burton featured on most of his records.
In addition to his family’s television show, Ricky Nelson appeared in several films including the classic western RIO BRAVO with John Wayne.
WHAT WAS HIS CONNECTION TO COUNTRY MUSIC ?
Ricky Nelson recorded and release many country songs both as singles and as album tracks. County radio played many of his singles with five of them charting country including his #10 cover of Hank Williams’ “My Bucket’s Got A Whole In It” and “Poor Little Fool” which reached #3.
Several of Ricky’s pop hits that did not chart on the country charts, were either country songs such as “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” or songs written by songwriters such as Baker Knight who came to be identified with country music. Moreover, many of Ricky’s songs have been covered as album tracks by country acts including such songs as “Hello Mary Lou” , “Travelin’ Man”, “Lonesome Town” and “Never Be Anyone Else But You”.
After the “British Invasion” wiped out the early rock & rollers and the “Philly Cream Cheese” doo-woppers, Ricky Nelson went more overtly country in his musical quests, recording a pair of straight ahead country albums for Decca, BRIGHT LIGHTS AND COUNTRY MUSIC and COUNTRY FEVER, both really solid albums.
Toward the end of the 1960s and tired of being considered an “oldies” act, Nelson revamped his name and image, becoming Rick Nelson and putting together the Stone Canyon Band, a country-rock band which featured former Buck Owens’ Buckaroo Tom Brumley on steel guitar. The band issued five albums, all of which charted. The fourth and most successful album 1972’s GARDEN PARTY charted both pop and country and also charted in Canada. The featured single “Garden Party” was Rick’s first top ten single in nine years reaching #6 (also #1 on the adult contemporary chart and #1 on the Canadian pop chart). “Garden Party” would prove to be Rick’s last real hit.
When Rick died in a small plane crash on December 31, 1985, millions mourned. He was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and has also been elected to the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.
After just three albums, the band released a Greatest Hits compilations (A Dozen Roses). Alongside the hits were a couple of new songs, minor hit ‘Will This Be The Day’ and the less successful ‘Come A Little Closer’. Changes were on the way. Steel guitarist Jay Dee Maness left in 1990, replaced by former Buckaroo Tom Brumley, while Tony Brown took up the producer’s role for the groups’s fourth studio album. The result was a mellower, more low key album than their first three, but although its pleasures are more subtle than the joyful country rock of their commercial heyday, this is a fine album.
Neither of the two singles selected did well. The first of them ‘You Can Go Home’ (written by Hillman with Jack Tempchin, best known for writing the Eagles’ ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’), is actually an excellent song about the impossibility of going back again to a former life. ‘Twilight Is Gone’ (one of four songs written with Steve Hill) is also good, a reflective mid-tempo song about loneliness and regret over a failed relationship. It may have been too low key for radio play.
The title track (another of Hill’s co-writes) is a warmhearted celebration of love. The urgent ‘Glory And Power’ is about the central importance of love in one’s life, in the context of a man who finds it hard to communicate his feelings. ‘Shades Of Blue’ is a tasteful ballad.
The best of the other songs is the pretty ‘Undying Love’, the only non-Hillman tune (it was written by Peter Rowan), which is a duet with Alison Krauss. Krauss’s angelic tones work well responding to, and harmonising with Chris. She was not yet well known in country music circles, or perhaps this would have been a single.
The philosophical and optimistic ‘It Takes A Believer’, co-written with Michael Woody, is pleasantly melodic. Woody also co-wrote the more downbeat ‘Behind These Walls’.
Herb Pedersen sang lead on the brisk ‘No One Else’, which he wrote with Chris, and which is perhaps the most reminiscent of the band’s earlier work. ‘A Matter Of Time’ has a solid country rock groove although it isn’t that memorable lyrically.
The album lacked the bright tone and sparkle of the group’ s first three albums, and I can see why it slowed down their career. Tony Brown had a reputation as a hitmaking producer, but it may have been a mistake to call on him this time. But the album has a lot to offer the more thoughtful listener.
Grade: B+
My Kind of Country 