Tag: Lost Highway

Five of my Favorite Country Songs

The good thing about Star Trek being over is…I can start posting a couple of music things on Saturday and Sunday.

I grew up near Nashville so it did leave its imprint on me but I don’t listen to modern country music. I do include some songs that are more country/rock but they fit what I like. They are in no particular order…well my favorite admittedly is the top one.

Hope you enjoy the small sample platter of country songs.

This song is my favorite of the Flying Burrito Brothers. It came off their great  album The Gilded Palace of Sin.  It didn’t chart at the time. Parsons wrote this song with Burrito bass player Chris Ethridge while the band was living in their San Fernando Valley house that was dubbed “Burrito Manor.”

Merle Haggard was a constant on the radio here with my parents. He wrote so many classic songs and this is one of them…Mama Tried.

Merle Haggard wrote this song while serving time in San Quentin prison for robbery. The song is based on his life, and how his mother tried to help him but couldn’t… Mama Tried came out in 1968 and peaked at #1 on the Country Charts and #1 in the Canada Country Charts in 1968.

The man had 38 number-one hits, 71 top-ten hits, and 101 songs in the top 100 in the country charts. Merle is one of my favorite country artists. If only the new ones would listen and learn.

Hank Williams is one of my favorite country artists. He could write songs of great quality but the ironic thing is…this one is one of the few he didn’t write. His nickname…The Hillbilly Shakespeare is true to form. Hank Williams released this song in 1949 and it peaked at #12 on the Country Charts. It was written by Leon Payne.

Loretta Lynn is my favorite female country singer with apologies to Dolly Parton. This is a song that she did with Jack White called Portland Oregon. If the modern country was like this…I would listen. Their voices go really well with each other.  Country radio would not play it but the album still peaked at #2 on the Country Charts and #24 on the Billboard Album Charts and #1 on the UK Country Charts in 2004.

They didn’t win any country music awards but came away with two Grammys.

I love the build-up to this song…Jack White builds this up and Loretta starts singing around 1:40.

Now to finish it out with 5 songs…I thought I would add Dwight Yoakam who was inspired by Buck Owen’s Bakersville Sound. The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard Country Charts and at #3 in Canada in 1993. It was written by Yoakam and produced by Pete Anderson.

The song was on Dwight’s album This Time. The album peaked at #4 in the Billboard Country Album Charts, #1 in the Canada RPM Album Charts, and #25 in the Billboard Album Charts.

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Jason and the Scorchers – Lost Highway

I truly love this band. They filled a space in the 80s for me. Loud unprocessed guitars with sparse production. They were close to the Georgia Satellites but more of a Rockabilly band on steroids. I was talking to fellow blogger Obbverse and he brought them up and I was very surprised he knew them. Not many outside the Southeast of America know much about them.

In the mid-eighties, I had a friend who was big into Jason and the Scorchers so I gave them a listen. They were big on college radio and they had many ties with Nashville and played here quite often. I saw them and Webb Wilder live downtown once. That is when I heard them do “The Race Is On”…the old George Jones song and it won me over. Their music seemed to have a kinship to the Georgia Satellites but they were a little more robust. They did have some MTV play with the song Golden Ball and Chain.

The band was formed in 1981. They were together through the 80s till the drummer Perry Baggs was diagnosed with diabetes and could not finish a 1990 tour. They have regrouped since then off and on and altogether have released 15 albums with the last one being in 2010. In 2012 Perry Baggs passed away because of diabetes.

They played a mixture between country and rock but fell into the cracks. They seemed too rock for country and too country for rock. Their concerts were simply unbeatable. They were led by frontman Jason Ringenberg and they released a couple of EPs before releasing their debut album Lost & Found in 1985. They were classified at one time as alt-country but I would add rock/punk/rockabilly in there also.

One of the things that made the band different is Jason wanted to sound country but guitar player Warner Hodges wanted to sound like AC/DC…that interplay made them unique. This song was on their 1985 album Lost and Found. The album peaked at #86 on the Australian album chart in 1987.

Most people will know the song Lost Highway…a hit by Hank Williams. It’s surprising but Hank didn’t write this song. Leon Payne wrote and released this song in 1948. Blind since he was a child, Payne wrote hundreds of songs, some of which were recorded by  Hank Williams, John Prine, Elvis Presley, George Jones, Johnny Cash, and many more.

I also added another live cover they did as a bonus…the old George Jones hit The Race Is On. 

Jason Ringenberg: “I kinda wanted to make a supercharged roots-rock band, some people were caught by surprise, but by and large people fell in love immediately. There was nobody else like us.”

Lost Highway

I’m a rollin’ stone, all alone and lost
For a life of sin I have paid the cost
When I pass by all the people say
Just another guy on the lost highway

Just a deck of cards, and a jug of wine
And a woman’s lies makes a life like mine
Oh, the day we met, I went astray
I started rollin’ down that lost highway

I was just a lad, nearly twenty-two
Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you
And now I’m lost, too late to pray
Lord, I’ve paid the cost on the lost highway

Now, boys, don’t start your ramblin’ around
On this road of sin, or you’re sorrow bound
Take my advice, or you’ll curse the day
You started rollin’ down that lost highway

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