As the slick, overproduced country sounds of the 1980’s transitioned into the insufferable cubicle pop of the 1990’s and beyond, traditional country music was pushed to the AM radio fringes and then mostly forgotten by mainstream radio. LOST COUNTRY will take a look back at obscure and overlooked artists from country music’s heyday of the 1960’s through 1970’s. The Late, Kinda Great Johnny Darrell While the country “outlaw” moniker wasn’t formally kicked around until Willie Nelson released his Austin-recorded [...]

It was the age of the country songwriter, with people such as Harlan Howard (Heartaches By The Number), Hank Cochran (I Fall To Pieces), Roger Miller (Billy Bayou), Willie Nelson (Crazy), Mel Tillis (Detroit City), Tom T Hall (Harper Valley PTA) and the Bryants (Love Hurts) creating many classics. Some of them would become stars in their own right. None maybe more so than Kris Kristofferson, a man whose early biography reads like a far-fetched penny novel. Many of the songs he is known for were first recorded by others, sometimes several times. With the arguable exception of Me And [...]

This is one bad-ass comp from my colleagues in music fanaticism at AtlCountryTab.ca . If you love the country and/or western gernre, you will love this mix. Yeeee-haw! Enjoy! 1. Holly Williams - "He's Making a Fool out of You" Here With Me (2009) 2. Al Green - "Love and Happiness" Greatest Hits (1975) 3. The Kings - "Beat Goes On/Switchin' To Glide" The Kings are Here (1982) 4. [...]

I was in two minds (only two?) over what to title this post : Ruby... was certainly a guilty pleasure during my childhood, not cool at all to enjoy country music. But it's an excellent, if understated, story song too - not the classic verse-after-verse sort, but one where your mind fills in all the details & history. You create your own image of a crippled ex-soldier, and of Ruby - contemplating a night out... all made-up, hair tinted & curled; even of the house where our story-snippet [...]
For Clarence White ( second from left ), 1969 began with the release of his first album as a member of The Byrds, Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde , and ended with the release of that album's follow-up, Ballad Of Easy Rider . In between, the band played over 70 dates throughout the U.S., many of those gigs featuring multiple sets (early and late shows, e.g.). Despite the heavy workload, there were enough gaps in The Byrds' tour schedule that White was able to contribute [...]

Since there's no such thing as too much overkill, today we're shining the spotlight on a ridiculously generous sampling of The Cold Hard Facts Of Life, one of singer and songwriter Bill Anderson's most expertly-crafted tunes. Sure, Anderson wrote a plethora of great songs, but for my money none of them tops The Cold Hard Facts Of Life. Originally recorded by Porter Wagoner in late 1966, the song tells the story of a hapless chump who returns home from a business trip a few days earlier than expected only to find his wife gettin' busy [...]

Like Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah , which was transformed in the popular imagination by Jeff Buckley's haunting version of John Cale's cover, there is a plurality of high-profile, popularly dominant sources for These Days , Jackson Browne's melancholy yet ultimately optimistic tribute to the general malaise and lonesome depression that characterizes the soul after a long relationship has come to an inevitable end. But where in the case of Halellujah the versions which rose to obscure the original were recorded long afterward, in the case of These Days , [...]

A couple of weeks back, Debbie blogged on the topic of the "jody grind" phenomenon, wherein a military soldier (or sometimes a prisoner) is the victim of a cheating mate back home. The term originated as informal shorthand for "Joe The Grinder," a mythical character in jazz and blues tunes who was known for making time with the wives or girlfriends of far away military men. Though most jody songs may well have their roots in jazz, blues, and soul music, there are also quite a few country jody songs. In my ceaseless efforts to [...]

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped [9/11] happen.' Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them. It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist [...]

Running the Drunkard has put me in touch, both through email and in person, with some great folks, many of whom have been eager to share their musical best-kept-secrets, and in the case of this post, their excellent themed compilations. The L.A. Burnout comp was mailed to me in November from a longtime reader based in NYC, which coincidental arrived at the same time I was reading two books chronicling the late sixties-early seventies Laurel Canyon incestuous music scene. The L.A. Burnout mix has since proved to have been the perfect companion piece. I [...]