The great Nick Tosches introduces the great Andre Williams at the "Sweets & Other Stories" reading at The Saint Mark's Poetry Project, New York City, February 2010.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Have Blues Will Travel
Today the GS presents a random sampling of gravel-scratchers, records about gettin' the hell out of town, whether baby done 'em wrong, they can't stand the sinful ways of the big, big city, or they just caught a dose of white line fever.
First up: Eddie Noack's "Have Blues Will Travel." Noack is best known for his 1968 version of the Leon Payne song "Psycho," on the K-Ark label. Long before that, however, he cut many great country records for the Gold Star and 4-Star labels, the earliest of which date back to the '40s. In the late '50s Noack recorded several sides for Pappy Dailey's Starday and D labels. Noack wrote most of these latter songs --spare, mid-tempo numbers like "Walk 'Em Off" and "Take it Away Lucky" noted for their hard-bitten lyrics and ponderous, reverb heavy guitar. On this one the singer's hittin' the road, "Feelin' low, gotta go unravel... long gone, movin' on, scratchin' gravel..."
Next up is everyone's favorite Cherokee bopper, Marvin Rainwater, with "Boo Hoo," recorded for the Warwick label in 1961, after his classic MGM days. The lyrics here speak for themselves: "gonna leave this lonesome town... ain't no use me hangin' around..."
And speaking of Cherokees, we wrap up today's post with something by the King of the Cherokee Boogie, Moon Mullican. Here Moon's kissing off the "Big, Big City" on a single from 1965 on the Hall-Way label. Is that country fuzz we hear oozing from the rhythm guitar? And how frightening is that Hall-Way logo? Like when you inked a deal with the Hall-Way label did your life/career then move down the hallway, beginning the slide toward that final vanishing point? Mood did get his card punched a mere two years after this record.
First up: Eddie Noack's "Have Blues Will Travel." Noack is best known for his 1968 version of the Leon Payne song "Psycho," on the K-Ark label. Long before that, however, he cut many great country records for the Gold Star and 4-Star labels, the earliest of which date back to the '40s. In the late '50s Noack recorded several sides for Pappy Dailey's Starday and D labels. Noack wrote most of these latter songs --spare, mid-tempo numbers like "Walk 'Em Off" and "Take it Away Lucky" noted for their hard-bitten lyrics and ponderous, reverb heavy guitar. On this one the singer's hittin' the road, "Feelin' low, gotta go unravel... long gone, movin' on, scratchin' gravel..."
Next up is everyone's favorite Cherokee bopper, Marvin Rainwater, with "Boo Hoo," recorded for the Warwick label in 1961, after his classic MGM days. The lyrics here speak for themselves: "gonna leave this lonesome town... ain't no use me hangin' around..."
And speaking of Cherokees, we wrap up today's post with something by the King of the Cherokee Boogie, Moon Mullican. Here Moon's kissing off the "Big, Big City" on a single from 1965 on the Hall-Way label. Is that country fuzz we hear oozing from the rhythm guitar? And how frightening is that Hall-Way logo? Like when you inked a deal with the Hall-Way label did your life/career then move down the hallway, beginning the slide toward that final vanishing point? Mood did get his card punched a mere two years after this record.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Roy Hall on TeeVee!
Well, whaddya know, the Gemini Spacecraft team of crack researchers dug up the following clip of Roy "the Hound" Hall --he of "Flood of Love," "Dirty Boogie," "One Monkey Can't Stop the Show" fame-- performing another classic, "See You Later Alligator." Odds are this originally aired on ABC's Ozark Jubilee country music variety show, where Hall's host Webb Pierce regularly appeared for one brief year in 1956.
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