Tag: Charlie Gearheart

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