"The Death of Rock and Roll" ...Happy Birthday Elvis, That Is

Elvis Presley, January 8, 1935 - August 16, 1977. Was he King of Rock 'n' Roll, or its Kiss of Death? Does it matter either way at this point? He cut some fine records and had some mighty cool hair. So happy birthday Elvis. Here's a clip of his version of "I've Got a Woman."



The Maddox Brothers and Rose re-did the tune as "The Death of Rock and Roll" for Columbia Records in 1956, featuring Don Maddox on the lead vocal.

Finally, here's a clip of ol' Don Maddox doing "The Death of Rock and Roll" in 2011 (!!) at last year's Hillbillyfest, supported by Deke Dickerson and Dave Stuckey.

Rose Maddox on Milk Cows & Matrimony

Rose Maddox in a detail from Joe Coleman painting "A Doorway to Joe".

On some old hillbilly records, use of the word matrimony underscores the sexual dimension in that “union of man and woman in marriage.” Wayne Raney’s 1949 hit “Haul Off & Love Me,” which went to #1 on the Country charts before crossing over to the Top 40, suggests with a leer that that union is sealed by love, law, and genitals. The singer, lookin’ to score in the only way that good Christian values allow, pursues his object of desire through a proper courtship—about two verses in duration—before reaching that promised land at the altar, and in between her thighs. At that point he proclaims Now I can feel your warm lips on me, hear you breathin’ soft & fine/ I can feel the matrimony crawlin’ up & down my spine!  

And this from the same guy who’d later record “We Need a Whole Lot More of Jesus (And a Lot Less Rock and Roll)”!
           But, in “Haul Off & Love Me,” Raney still tows the Christian line, and towing the line never generated much good material for Country & Western songs. For that you need sin, or at least a more hard-bitten realism. Maybe the two go hand in hand.
           Enter “America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band,” aka The Maddox Brothers and Rose. Who better to bite hard on reality than a band of Dustbowl Okies? From the late 40s through the mid-50s, brothers Fred, Cal, Henry, Don and sister Rose Maddox cut a slew of sides for the 4-Star and Columbia labels, several of which treat the subject at hand with swing, humor, and occasionally, a big helping of milk & butter. 

Blues Hangover - Hangover Blues

Label scan nicked from TheHoundBlog

Now lay aside all worries about chickens and eggs. What we wanna know today is which one do you have, a Blues Hangover or the Hangover Blues? Strung together like so, the titles nearly form a palindrome, or do a figure 8, or make two railroad tracks, one of ‘em goin’ away, the other one comin’ back.

Slim Harpo

“I am the Alpo and the omego,” sez the Alpha Dog. He chases his own tail, but ends up sniffing his own anus. He reads a portent there: Blues was here in the Beginning, Blues will be here in The End. Like most Blues, these two had their antecedents. The Texas Boogie-man Lloyd Glenn, who played piano for T-Bone Walker, among others, woke up with our first hangover, an instrumental version of Blues Hangover released in 1950 on the Swingtime label. Although a fairly low-down number, Glenn still drank pretty smooth hooch. His hangover is a product of an earlier era of big band R&B. Ten years later, Slim Harpo swilled from a much raunchier batch of bathtub gugalug, and he added this lament: I done gave my baby $20 for Christmas, and all I got was a slice of jelly cake. Drink up, Slim, because nowadays, $20 is a pretty fair price for a slice. 

Maddox Brothers and Rose

The hayseed hears the cottonpicker’s same three chords, repeated 100,000 times, all the way from Baton Rouge to Bakersfield. Love and theft, that’s the story of American music, at least during the 20^th Century, anyway. Blues in the beginning, blues in the end. Hangover Blues by the Maddox Brothers and Rose borrowed its title from a 1951 b-side by the Johnny Otis Orchestra, a West Coast, Central Ave R&B stalwart. Decca released the Maddox Bros and Rose's newer version in early 1953 amid the vacuum left by a recently deceased Hank Williams. Hank knew about hangovers. While walking in the shadow of death he tipped a few bottles of Wine Headed Baby. Did he ever see his own skull floating near the bottom? While he was busy dyin’, the Maddox Brothers and Rose gave the hangover a few new lines, just like Slim Harpo would later. Walkin’ down the street with my head hangin’ low, my bottle is empty I ain’t got no dough. I gotta go… I gotta go… I gotta go and lose these mean hangover blues.

  

Blues Hangover - Slim Harpo

Hangover Blues - Maddox Brothers and Rose