Country – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Link Wray – Link Wray …album review

I was really taken aback when I saw this album. I played it, expecting an instrumental, and when I heard a voice, I thought it was a different singer. When I think of Link Wray, I think of Rumble and instrumentals like that. I was surprised when I found this roots album by him, recorded in 1971. I want to thank Lisa for posting something that made me think of this rare Link Wray album.

After serving in the military, Wray contracted tuberculosis and lost a lung, which made singing difficult, and doctors advised him against it. Because of his breathing difficulties, Wray began to focus more on expressive and experimental guitar playing, leading him to become known for his instrumental hits. Wray was a Native American of Shawnee descent. He grew up in North Carolina. Wray later honored his heritage in his music, with songs like Apache and Comanche.

This album was recorded in a converted chicken shack. His brother, Ray Vermon Wray, helped produce it along with Bob Feldman and Steve Verroca. Instead of power chords and a leather jacket, Link traded distortion for Americana, funk, gospel, and storytelling. It was earthy, roots-driven, and deeply personal, almost a different artist altogether from the one I thought I knew. After being freed from label pressures, Link finally made the music he grew up with: gospel from church revivals, Native American rhythms from family heritage, country blues, and Southern soul.

There were still guitars, but now they sat behind the songs instead of smashing through them. Tracks like Fire and Brimstone, Juke Box Mama, and Ice People feel like they were born out of the dirt. The grooves are loose, almost like field recordings. His voice, rarely heard on record before this, carries a soulful and weathered sound. He didn’t sound like a rock guitarist trying to sing; he sounded like a weathered preacher who happened to play guitar.

You hear old-time country on Take Me Home Jesus, boogie on God Out West, and Native rhythms driving Black River Swamp. No other rock guitarist of his generation made anything remotely like this. Only one song retains his old tone, and that’s the intro to Tail Dragger. If anything, it pointed the way decades later for artists like Los Lobos and the entire alt-country movement. If you want to hear some authentic Americana, listen to this album.

Polydor gave the album a shot, but the public wanted Link the guitar guy, not Link the backwoods Americana prophet. Sales were modest, and critics were divided. However, like many records that were too authentic for their time, it grew in legend over time. Today, many fans call the 1971 album his true masterpiece

Black River Swamp

I was born down in the countryDown where the cotton growsTurnin’ off the main highwayGoin’ down that country road

There’s a place down in the countryWhere the pine trees grow so tallWalk across that old log bridgeStretching ‘cross Black River Swamp

I can hear them bullfrogs croakingIn the blackness of the nightCalling me back to my childhoodDown here in Black River Swamp

Saw my name carved on a big oak treeDown there by the fishing holeAnd the smell of old Black RiverWhere the waters are deep and cold

I can hear the hound dogs howlin’Chasin’ that old fox where I used to roamDown there in the countryCallin’ me to Black River Swamp

I can hear them hound dogs howlin’Chasin’ that old fox where I used to roamDown there in the countryCallin’ me to Black River Swamp

I was born in the countryDown where the cotton growsTurnin’ off the main highwayGoin’ down that country road

There’s a place down in the countryWhere the pine trees grow so tallGo across that log bridgeStretching ‘cross Black River Swamp

Goose Creek Symphony – Words Of Earnest

I wanted to throw something different at you today, and this is something different. As I was looking for some more roots music, I heard this and loved it. It took me a couple of listens…I haven’t stopped listening to it all week. It is roots music, no doubt, and heavy back porch bluegrass country with a tinge of rock. I love the melody, chord structure, and the dynamics they built in. It starts off as country as cornbread but switches gears with some horns, guitar breaks, and fiddle near the end. Although the country voice is there, the music is more rock structured. I’m not sure what to call it, but I’ll just call it good.

They were a very original band that blended country, rock, bluegrass, and psychedelic into something that didn’t fit anywhere. They were too twangy for the rock crowd, too trippy for Nashville, and too Kentucky-mountain raw for L.A.. When I listened to this song, I was won over.

This was the title track of their 1972 album. I’ve read reviews about this album, and some called it a masterpiece of cosmic Americana. The album should’ve been their big breakthrough, but Capitol didn’t know what to do with them since they didn’t fit neatly in a box.

Goose Creek Symphony was formed in the late 1960s by Charlie Gearheart, a Kentucky songwriter with country and rock ‘n’ roll influences. Gearheart, whose real name was Paul “Charlie” Gearheart, had played around in bluegrass and psychedelic rock bar bands before deciding to mix the two, to let fiddles, horns, banjos, and Telecasters mix together.

He gathered a very talented bunch of musicians from Kentucky and Arizona, naming the group after a small town near his old Kentucky home: Goose Creek. Early members included Michael “Ted” Reeder on drums, Alvin Bennett, and William “Charlie” Prichard on guitar and fiddle, all guys who could swap instruments mid-song without losing the groove.

They did have a hit in 1972 with the cover of Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz. That was on this album as well.

Words of Earnest

Lived in the city and I lived in the wood;
Lived through the fire and I lived through the flood,
Lived through the summer when the creek went dry;
Guess I’ll keep living til the day I die,
I think I’ve done everything, In my time;
Everything I didn’t do wasn’t worth doing when I had that time, OH no

Talked to the prophets and I talked to the fool;
Even tried work and I even tried school,
Fell in love I got pushed through hate;
Even drove my car through a big steel gate,
I think I’ve done everything, In my time
Everything I didn’t do wasn’t worth doing when I had that time,

Deep in the hills of old Kentucky, Once lived a man I used to know;
He got up every morning at the crack of dawn, Earnest was his name you know
He was full of love an understanding, Never had a nickle or a dime;
Happiness is free, is what he said to me, Earnest was a friend of mine,
Friend of mine,

To many people on the same old road;
Loaded down with the same old load,
To live a good life you can’t do it that way;
Cause every day is different an it’s different every day,
Gotta do everything, in your time;
Everything you wanna do, Really worth do when I had that time, OH Yeah it is

Nobody knows when I’m lonely, Nobody knows when I’m blue;
Nobody knows when I’m happy, Nobody knows that I’m blue,
Nobody knows that I love everyone, Nobody knows that I’m fine;
Nobody ever gets in my way, Cause nobody’s on my mind

Joe South – Walk A Mile In My Shoes

When I hear this song, I think of Joe South delivering a Sunday sermon on Southern philosophy. It was on the AM radio growing up, and I remember it well. This one and Games People Play were the two South songs I heard the most.

This song is a little bit of everything with pop, gospel, country, and soul. Before his solo success, South had already built a reputation that most session players would love to have. He played guitar on Aretha Franklin’s Chain of Fools, wrote Billy Joe Royal’s Down in the Boondocks, and later wrote his own solo hit, Games People Play, which was a Grammy-winning anthem of its own. Joe South was Georgia guy who would write songs that people could relate to. His records were smart, soulful, and unafraid to say something.

Elvis Presley covered this song during his 1970 That’s the Way It Is concerts, giving it his full Vegas-gospel jumpsuit treatment, which helped carry Joe’s song to the mainstream. Everyone from Coldcut to Bryan Ferry to Otis Clay would later cover it, but none quite captured that mix of frustration and hope that Joe did on the original.

Joe South doesn’t get enough credit in the conversation about 60s/70s singer-songwriters. He wasn’t flashy, but was saying something worth hearing. The song peaked at #12 on the Billboard 100, #10 in Canada, #11 on the Canada Country Charts, and #56 on the Billboard Country Charts in 1970.

Joe South is personal to me because of his connection to my family. He recorded some in my uncle’s studio. This is from 1964.

Walk A Mile In My Shoes

If I could be you, if you could be meFor just one hourIf we could find a wayTo get inside each other’s mind

If you could see you through my eyesInstead of your egoI believe you’d beSurprised to seeThat you’ve been blind

Walk a mile in my shoesWalk a mile in my shoesAnd before you abuse, criticize and accuseWalk a mile in my shoes

Now, your whole worldYou see around youIs just a reflectionAnd the law of KarmaSays you gonna reapJust what you sow, yes you will

So unless you’ve lived a lifeOf total perfectionYou better be careful of every stoneThat you should throw, yeah

And yet we spend the day throwing stonesAt one another‘Cause I don’t think or wear my hairThe same way you do

Well, I may be common peopleBut I’m your brotherAnd when you strike out and try to hurt meIt’s hurtin’ you, Lord have mercy

Walk a mile in my shoesWalk a mile in my shoesHey, before you abuse, criticize and accuseWalk a mile in my shoes

There are people on reservationsAnd out in the ghettosAnd brother, thereBut for the grace of GodGo you and I, yeah, yeah

And if I only had the wingsOf a little angel, yeahDon’t you know I’d flyTo the top of the mountainAnd then I’d cry, hey

Walk a mile in my shoesWalk a mile in my shoesHey, before you abuse, criticize and accuseBetter walk a mile in my shoes

Walk a mile in my shoesWalk a mile in my shoesOh, before you abuse, criticize and accuseWalk a mile in my shoes, yeah…

Freddy Fender – The Rains Came

I was talking to a friend of mine named Greg, who lived in Texas for around 10 years. We were talking about Texas music, and I brought up Freddie Fender. I remember he told me that he met him in Nashville around 1987 when he was around 15.

He saw Freddy and said, “Hey Freddy, I love your music.” Fender was not only polite, but he went over to Greg and called him “little one” because he was so small, and he could not believe Greg was a fan, being that young. He said Fender was such a nice person and thanked him for being a fan. That always stuck with me about Fender.

Fender was one of the many country artists I heard growing up. Wasted Days and Wasted Nights was the song by Fender that I remember the most, and I’ve found that he is much deeper than that. If you’ve only ever dipped into Freddy Fender through the big radio hits, this is a good one to chase down.

This song rides a rail of half Tex-Mex and half Nashville. It was written by Huey Meaux and came out in 1962. A couple of weeks ago, while posting about the Sir Douglas Quintet, I heard this song, and I knew I had heard it before, and this is the version I remember. The song has been covered by many artists over the years, including Ripp Tide, Alvin Crow, Jimmie Vaughan, Doug Kershaw, and B.J. Thomas.

This song peaked at #4 on the Billboard Country Charts and #1 in Canada in 1976. The song was on his album Rock ‘n’ Country that peaked at #3 on the Billboard Country Charts.

Freddy had three successful careers, as a pop star in the late 50’s, a country pop star in the 70’s, and a member of the Texas Tornados and Los Super 7 in the 90’s.

The Rains Came

The rain keeps falling
Tears keep coming down
I can’t find my baby
I wonder she left town

Rain rain rain rain
I’d like to see my girl again
She broke my heart in two
And caused me so much pain

Rain rain rain rain
My pillow’s soaking wet
I can’t find her in the morning
She’s not home yet

The rain keeps falling
Tears keep coming down
I couldn’t find my darling
I wonder she left town

Rain rain rain rain
My pillow’s soaking wet
Where is she in the morning
She’s not home yet

Rain rain rain rain
Rain rain rain rain
Rain rain rain rain

Guy Clark – Desperados Waiting for a Train

When I’m in the mood to hear a well-written song, I go to either John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, or Guy Clark. They always hit the spot, and this song is one of those story songs that just stuck with me. I look at some of these songwriters not as normal songwriters but mini movie writers.

Guy Clark wrote this song in the early ’70s, drawing from his own childhood in Texas. The old drifter in the song, the surrogate grandfather who taught him about cards, women, and hard living, wasn’t made up. Jack Prigg, a wildcatter and oilfield worker, had lived in Clark’s grandmother’s boarding house, and a young Guy Clark soaked up every curse word and story. By the time Clark wrote the song, the memories meant something more universal, a man who refused to fade quietly.

The song was on Clark’s 1975 album, Old No. 1, and it quickly became one of his signature songs. But it didn’t stop there; it was picked up and recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker (first recording of the song), Tom Rush, Rita Coolidge, and, eventually, The Highwaymen (Waylon, Willie, Kris, and Johnny), covering it in 1985. It’s been covered 32 times. Walker, Coolidge, David Allan Coe, and Tom Rush covered it before Guy released his version.

This is wonderful Americana storytelling is as rich as anything you have heard or watched. He writes these story songs so well that you can see them in your head being acted out like a movie.

Jack Prigg was an old oil wildcatter and oilfield worker who lived for a time in Clark’s grandmother’s boarding house in Monahans, Texas, during the 1940s. Clark’s parents had split up when he was young, and he spent a big part of his boyhood around his grandmother’s place. That’s where he met Prigg, who was already an old man by then, tough and weathered from a lifetime in the oilfields. Clark mentioned that he didn’t romanticize the lyrics, he wrote them straight. That’s why this song works, everything is left intact. Clark said, “He was my hero. He was a tough old bird who drank hard, swore a lot, and lived a big life.”

Desperados Waiting For The Train

I’d play the Red River ValleyAnd he’d sit in the kitchen and cryAnd run his fingers through 70 years of livin’And wonder, “Lord, has ever, well, I’ve drilled gone dry?”We was friends, me and this old man

We was like desperados waiting for a trainLike desperados waiting for a train

Well, he’s a drifter and a driller of oil wellsAnd an old-school man of the worldHe taught me how to drive his carWhen he’s too drunk toAnd he’d wink and give me money for the girlsAnd our lives was like some old western movie

Like desperados waiting for a trainLike desperados waiting for a train

From the time that I could walk, he’d take me with himTo a bar called the Green Frog CafeAnd there was old men with beer guts and dominoesLying ’bout their lives while they playedAnd I was just a kid that they all called his sidekick

We was like desperados waiting for a trainLike desperados waiting for a train

One day I looked up and he’s pushin’ 80And there’s brown tobacco stains all down his chinWell, to me he’s one of the heroes of this countrySo why’s he all dressed up like them old men?Drinkin’ beer and playin’ Moon and 42

Just like a desperado waiting for a trainLike a desperado waiting for a train

And then the day before he died, I went to see himI was grown and he was almost goneSo we just closed our eyes and dreamed us up a kitchenAnd sang another verse to that old song“Come on, Jack, that son of a bitch is coming”

And we’re desperados waiting for a trainLike desperados waiting for a trainLike desperados waiting for a trainLike desperados waiting for a train

…

Blue Shadows – Don’t Expect A Reply (Runaway Train)

This isn’t the same Runaway Train that brought Soul Asylum into heavy MTV rotation a year earlier (or Blue Rodeo’s song). No, this one’s more haunted, more twangy, and more soaked in country rock. It might be better, at least to me. Since I heard this band a few months ago, I cannot shake them, nor do I want to. I feel a Big Star love for them.

The Blue Shadows never got their due. They existed in that strange space between country and power pop, never quite fitting into either scene completely. But that’s exactly what made them special. This song stands as a testament to what happens when talented musicians follow their instincts rather than market trends or what’s hot today. This song was released in 1995 on the album Lucky To Me, their last studio album.

Led by Billy Cowsill, the Blue Shadows carved out a very different space in early ’90s Canada. The song was written by Jeffrey Hatcher and Billy Cowsill. Cowsill had the kind of voice that was country tinged with an edge. Hatcher was equal parts Buddy Holly with a touch of Chris Hillman cool, which makes for a killer songwriting partner.

There’s an alternate timeline in a perfect world where the Blue Shadows catch fire, tour with Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, or The Jayhawks, and end up as alt-country royalty. Instead, their last album, Lucky To Me, went quietly out into the world, loved by those lucky enough to hear it, and this song remains one of the most gorgeous things to ever slip through the cracks of the 1990s.

Billy Cowsill’s last interview, he was asked what he was most proud of in his career, and he answered with The Blue Shadows’ first album On The Floor of Heaven. “To my mind, that is the finest piece of work I ever did. It is just so good. The writing is so good. The production is so good. It is a nice little piece de resistance.”

Runaway Train

There ain’t a ball and chain
That can tie me down
There ain’t a jail been made
That can hold me now
I heard some fool say
He’s got to be insane
Well it kind of looks that way

From a runaway train that’s out of control
No matter what I do
No matter where I go
You can say goodbye
I won’t be back again
But don’t expect a reply
Not from a runaway train

Oh no they can’t catch me
Because they move too slow
And they’re new at this game
I started long ago
I tell you I was here
Before the track was laid
I was the first to ride

On that runaway train that’s out of control
No matter what I do
No matter where I go
You can say goodbye
I won’t be back again
But don’t expect a reply
Not from a runaway train

I used to roll on through
When it was countryside
Then the cities they grew
Until they reached the sky
I’m going to hit the coast
Then roll right on through
Wish you could see the view

From that runaway train that’s out of control
No matter what I do
No matter where I go
You can say goodbye
I won’t be back again
But don’t expect a reply
Not from a runaway train

From that runaway train that’s out of control
No matter what I do
No matter where I go
You can say goodbye
I won’t be back again
But don’t expect a reply
Don’t expect a reply
Don’t expect a reply

No, no don’t expect a reply

….

John Prine – Paradise

I want to thank halffastcyclingclub for bringing this song up when reading the Levon Helm post called The Mountain I posted last week. I’d never heard it and fell for it immediately. I listened to it over and over again. Such a cool vibe of looking back in this song.

The song is not just a song, it’s a family photograph yellowing at the edges, the kind you keep tucked in a drawer and only pull out when you’re feeling brave enough to remember. Written for his parents, and about a real place in Kentucky that no longer exists the way it used to. We can all relate to this. I grew up in a small city in Tennessee, and it’s completely different now than it was when I grew up. Sometimes progress is good and sometimes not.

I don’t usually dissect songs, but this one hit me. Prine was only in his mid-twenties when he wrote it, but he already sounded like someone who’d lived a dozen lives. It’s not just a memory, it’s a eulogy with a banjo. “And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County / Down by the Green River where Paradise lay…”
And the punchline comes just a beat later:
“…Well I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in askin’ / Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.”

That’s it right there. Prine gives you a warm hug and slips a dagger in your back before the first verse is out. It’s a protest song in overalls, gentle, but furious. Not angry, but quietly heartbroken. He’s not shouting down injustice; he’s telling you what it feels like when the land your family once lived on gets strip-mined out of existence.

This song was the fifth track on his 1971 debut album, which is ridiculous when you think about it. As young as he was, and writing a song like this. Plenty of artists have covered Paradise. Dwight Yoakam, John Denver, John Fogerty, even the Everly Brothers, but none of them touch the original. Because it wasn’t just a song to Prine. It was a love letter to something that couldn’t love him back anymore.

Lynn Anderson released it in 1975, and it was the most commercially successful release. It peaked at #26 on the Billboard Country Charts and #16 on the Canadian Country Charts.

Paradise

When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there’s a backwards old town that’s often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn

And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry, my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Well, sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes we’d shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill

And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man
See upcoming country shows
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When I die, let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester Dam
I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin’
Just five miles away from wherever I am

…

Johnny Cash – I’ve Been Everywhere

Happy 4th of July and a belated Canada Day.

I don’t think any performer is as popular and liked across generations and genres as Johnny Cash. I’ve met hard rock, country, and blues fans who love him. He was an American Icon. This man had been everywhere, and he had the stories to back it up.

The song originated in Australia in 1959, written by Geoff Mack, which name-checked towns like Mooloolaba and Wollongong. Lucky Starr popularized it in Australia at the time. Hank Snow gave it an American twist in the early ‘60s, with a rapid-fire list of U.S. towns delivered at a gallop, sounding like he was being chased by a state trooper and an angry tour promoter at the same time.

Hank Snow made this song popular in 1962 by taking it to #1 on the Billboard Country chart and #68 on the Billboard 100. Johnny covered this song in 1996, and it’s the version I remember. Cash had a way of making a song his own. He released it in 1996 but had been doing it for years live.

The genius of it, though, is that despite the fast pace, it never feels like a gimmick in his hands. There’s that world-weary baritone voice, like a man unrolling a crumpled map that’s been folded a thousand times. The song becomes not just about where he’s been, but what he’s seen, motels, hotels, and empty stages. He’s been everywhere, but not always by choice.

The song was on the album American II: Unchained produced by Rick Rubin. The album peaked at #26 on the Billboard Country Album Charts and #170 on the Billboard 200 in 1996.

I hope everyone living in the U.S. has a happy, safe Fourth of July! I know I will!

I’ve Been Everywhere
I was totin’ my pack along the dusty Winnemucca road,
When along came a semi with a high and canvas-covered load.
“If you’re goin’ to Winnemucca, Mack, with me you can ride.”
And so I climbed into the cab and then I settled down inside.
He asked me if I’d seen a road with so much dust and sand.
And I said, “Listen, I’ve traveled every road in this here land!”