An honest overview of Cash's performance history from 1956 to 1979.
Photo courtesy of National Archives and Records AdministrationAt least we got some rain this year. You load 16 tons, whaddya get? Well, you'd be lucky to get a coal mining job these days. Okay,
On this day in country music history - July 14, 1973 - Phil Everly threw a dang old fit, smashing his guitar after performing the song, "('Till) I Kissed You" and walking off the stage, effecti

The world is ending today. In fact, it might end before I get to post this, or before you get to download these five songs. It's the day of Rapture. And we tend to get a lot of those these days. Yesterday Any Minor Dude said to me: "You can't predict the end of the world." Like the pedantic shit that I am, I reponded: "Oh, you can predict. You can always make a prediction, but most likely you'll be wrong if you try and predict the last day of the world." So whichever crazy cult said the world would [...]

Easter is coming, so it seems righteous to post the first in a series of great Christian music that, I hope, will lift the spirits of the believer, and make those who don't believe wish they would, if even for the duration of a song. This mix comprises gospel, soul, blues, funk and country, stretching from the late 1920s to the early 1970s. Some of the featured artists will be better known in other genres, some of them got their start in gospel music. Among them is Sly Stone , who as Sylvester Stewart was a child [...]

In this instalment of Murder Songs, we look at three real-life characters, from the 1890s, 1930s and 1950s. * * * Woody Guthrie - Pretty Boy Floyd (1940).mp3 Charles Arthur 'Pretty Boy" Floyd was a real-life criminal who came a cropper at the hands of law enforcement officers in 1934, at the age of 30. Wikipedia tells his story in some detail, including murders he might have committed or not. His fame rested with [...]
Wilco's long list of covers helps illustrate the band's changing sound through the years.

After the first instalment of the country history series, it was suggested that I should have at least two compilations for each article. When I floated the idea on this blog's Facebook page, a number of people approved of the idea. So, just to mess up the sequence of posts, here's a second disc for the Pioneer Years – 1920s selection. ... In the first part of the history, we noted the first ever country recording: Sally Gooden by Eck Robertson [...]

The second article in the history of country music covered the trends and artists of the depression and pre-war years, 1930-41. Here we'll look at some of the songs of the era. The photo on the cover comes from a superb series of colour photos from the US in the 1930s and '40s . * * * Rock 'n' roll grew out of R&B and various shades of country, especially rockabilly, a sub-genre [...]

The titles of posts in this series may be a bit confusing. They will refer to the timespan covered in the mixes. But this post looks at the era from about 1930 to about 1941. The next post will include the 1937-41 mix, but the text will be a sidebar to this article, also referring to 1930-41. I hope that nakes sense... Record sales collapsed dramatically with the Depression, with sales dropping from 104 million in 1927 to just 6 million in 1932. Some records still sold prodigiously, [...]

This is the first of a series in probably nine parts, aimed at providing a brief history of country music (all accompanied by an appropriate CD-sized mix). I hope it will not only inform those who have an interest in the genre, but also persuade those who resist becoming acquainted with country music to give it a chance, perhaps weakening resistance and preconceived notions which might be reduced to the stereoptypes of Confederation flags and the jargons of Hicksville. Of course it is very possible to dislike the sound of the steel guitar, the banjo, the fiddle or the yodel. [...]
From Mel Bay's Songs Of The Great Outdoors: Favorite Songs for Camping, Hiking, Boating, Biking, Backpacking and Skiing MP3: Carter Family - Wildwood Flower
Yesterday morning was lovely. One of those Sunday mornings where you wake up and the sun is out and the light in the house is perfect and there's nothing else going on. The Sunday paper was waiting on the driveway, coffee brewed, and the baby was happy. We sat an enjoyed the morning for many hours, listening to a playlist I'd made that was solely comprised of music from the 1930s and 40s, which only added to how pleasant everything felt. Here's a taste of it--ten songs from the 1930s. In my house music from the 30s means mostly country [...]
http://www.cbc.ca/q/I've been on a classic country kick since I saw Justin Townes Earle in concert two weeks ago. Here are the original tracks of the songs that he covered. Mance Lipscomb - So Different Blues.mp3 Buy (e-music): Texas Blues Guitar (1994) I can't find when this was originally recorded, but I am going to guess the early 1960s. Lightnin' Hopkins - My Starter Won't Start This Morning.mp3 [...]

Filed under: Exclusive , Spinner Interview , Country When Rosanne Cash was 18, her father Johnny Cash gave her a hand-written list entitled '100 Essential Country Songs.' Rosanne was a budding songwriter and dad was alarmed that his Beatles -obsessed daughter lacked a deep understanding of country music. He compiled the list and told her to learn every song. In the fall of 2009, Rosanne Cash released 'The List,' an album covering some of the tunes Johnny Cash recommended that day, [...]

We can all understand the importance of self-reliance, but how we express the need to take care of ourselves can sometimes be a little baffling to those unfamiliar with a particular idiom. A good example is an expression that's been around for many generations, one that has become so firmly entrenched that it has even generated a number of songs with varying lyrics but the same title - "Root Hog, Or Die." It's easy enough to understand the connection if you realize that hogs are survivalists of the first order. Their keen sense of smell, along [...]

Champion Jack Dupree - Stack O'Lee ( buy ) (1958) The bad man is another recurrent hero of black ballads, and an object of fascination and fear (see the Railroad Bill discussion) . The bad man survived the blues era and can be found in rap and of course, reggae. Last week I saw "The Harder They Come" (with the famous and excellent soundtrack), a great "bad man" story. The archetypal bad man is, of course, Stagger Lee (or Stack'O Lee), a St Louis (or, [...]

It's an understatement to say Carlene Carter comes from a musical family. She's the daughter of June Carter Cash and Carl Smith, the step-daughter of Johnny Cash, the granddaughter of Maybelle Carter, and the ex-wife of Nick Lowe. Here she is singing an old Carter Family tune, which she modernized for her 1980 album, Musical Shapes . (I only wish she'd kept the yodeling.) The Carter Family version is included for comparison purposes. Carlene Carter – Foggy Mountain Top ( buy ) The Carter [...]

The folk song Knoxville Girl was made famous by the Louvin Brothers in their opus "Tragic Songs of Life," but was merely a tradition of several hundred years of folk tales, street songs, and eventually folk songs. Recorded first in the United States by the Carter Family (that I know of), Knoxville Girl is the story of a man that kills his girlfriend/acquaintance in a fit of passion. The song is usually not very explicit, but through the various bluegrass renditions and into the country/alt-country renditions it becomes much darker and detailed. Nick [...]

Sam Mc Gee - Railroad Blues ( buy ) (1928) My discography of roots music is expanding week by week. Recent additions include this great compilation from Frémeaux & Associés , an excellent French label devoted to traditional music and audio books. They've got a huge collection of blues, country, early jazz and world music compilations with liner notes in French and English. This double Cd is a good introduction to prewar country music. Every subgenre is featured, from old Appalachian folk (a lot of songs in common with [...]