The Old Guard (There's gold in them there hills...)
Following on from my earlier ruminations on country and alt-country, 'No Stetson Required' (which you really ought to read first), I'd like to offer a few signposts to help you on your journey down this lost highway. Please bear in mind this is in no way a definitive list. It is a very personal guide, there are many alternative routes and diversions. I make no apologies for being a 'cry in your beer' country kind of guy or for recommending actual albums over songs. I've tried to do this in a vaguely chronological way, at least as far as the artists are concerned.
1) Hank Williams - 40 Greatest Hits (1978)
2) Johnny Cash - Live At San Quentin/Live At Folsom Prison (1968/9)
Not much more needs to be said about the man in black these days thanks to his late career renaissance. These live albums are probably Cash at his peak. When he sings "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die", for all their whooping and a-hollering, you can imagine even this captive audience of hard-nuts shitting their collective pants.
3) Merle Haggard - If Only I Could Fly (2000)
The 20 year old Merle Haggard was once such inmate at Cash's first San Quentin prison concert in 1958 and he often credits this as the turning point in his life. 'The Hag' made much of his outlaw credentials: I'm A Lonesome Fugitive, Branded Man, Mama Tried etc and still refuses to grow old gracefully. His 2000 album 'If Only I Could Fly', opens with "watching while some old friends do a line. Holding back the want in my own addicted mind..." Oh, and it's better than all of Cash's Rick Rubin produced 'American' albums put together.
4) George Jones - The Grand Tour (1974)
5) Faron Young - Hello Walls (1961)/Four in The Morning (1972)
He might seem an odd inclusion in this list, alongside such household names as Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, but I don't think the country genre ever produced a better singer than Faron Young.
Young started out in the 50s as a honky-tonker in the footsteps of Hank Williams but his deep rich tone is perhaps more reminiscent of the crooners of that age. Maybe that's why he appeals so much to me.
1961's 'Hello Walls', an early Willie Nelson cover, was a huge hit for him and the album of the same name is perhaps his most consistent recording - although I'd argue that the title track is one of the album's weaker songs compared to his original compositions.
Following on from my earlier ruminations on country and alt-country, 'No Stetson Required' (which you really ought to read first), I'd like to offer a few signposts to help you on your journey down this lost highway. Please bear in mind this is in no way a definitive list. It is a very personal guide, there are many alternative routes and diversions. I make no apologies for being a 'cry in your beer' country kind of guy or for recommending actual albums over songs. I've tried to do this in a vaguely chronological way, at least as far as the artists are concerned.
1) Hank Williams - 40 Greatest Hits (1978)
If not quite the first king of country music (Jimmie Rodgers beat him to that) his was the most enduring reign and unquestionably it's the Hank Williams songbook that represents the crown jewels in the country firmament: Cold Cold Heart, Your Cheating Heart, I Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love with you... etc Simple songs of heartbreak, longing and loss that have a timeless appeal. And even if he didn't invent county music, as the original hard-drinking, hard-living hellraiser he was rock n roll before it was invented. You've got to take your ten gallon hat off to the man.
2) Johnny Cash - Live At San Quentin/Live At Folsom Prison (1968/9)
Not much more needs to be said about the man in black these days thanks to his late career renaissance. These live albums are probably Cash at his peak. When he sings "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die", for all their whooping and a-hollering, you can imagine even this captive audience of hard-nuts shitting their collective pants.
3) Merle Haggard - If Only I Could Fly (2000)
The 20 year old Merle Haggard was once such inmate at Cash's first San Quentin prison concert in 1958 and he often credits this as the turning point in his life. 'The Hag' made much of his outlaw credentials: I'm A Lonesome Fugitive, Branded Man, Mama Tried etc and still refuses to grow old gracefully. His 2000 album 'If Only I Could Fly', opens with "watching while some old friends do a line. Holding back the want in my own addicted mind..." Oh, and it's better than all of Cash's Rick Rubin produced 'American' albums put together.
4) George Jones - The Grand Tour (1974)
Aah, 'The Possum'... Outside of country circles the late George Jones is sadly better known for being Mr Tammy Wynette and if he is known in his own right it's more likely for his boozing rather than his music. Such extreme hell-raising earned him the nickname 'No Show' Jones as he was often too inebriated to make his own gigs. One of the most often quoted GJ stories concerns his second wife Shirley's attempts to prevent him from drinking. Having removed all the liquor in the house and hidden all their car keys Shirley reckoned she'd cracked it, given that they lived miles away from any bar or store. She hadn't banked on George taking the only means of transport available to him, his lawnmower.
George's alcholism meant he had a less than professional attitude to recording also, so the quality of his albums varied wildly. 1980's Double Trouble, a rock n roll duet album with the equally sozzled Johnny Paycheck, marks his nadir. But what George always had was a remarkable voice - a pure tone with impeccable phrasing. Matthew Diebel's scholarly obituary proclaims him to be the greatest of all American 'pop' singers.
His fourth wife, Nancy cleaned him up and arguably saved his life yet you could argue that it was writer/producer Billy Sherrill that saved his professional life a decade earlier. Under Sherrill's guidance he recorded some of his most consistent work and had huge crossover hits with 'He Stopped Loving Her Today' and 'A Good Year For The Roses.' Ploughing this furrow George became a self-styled King of misery, perfectly demonstrated on the title track of 'The Grand Tour' - where the listener is invited to gaze around the physical and emotional debris of a broken home. "As you leave you'll see the nursery... she left me without mercy, taking nothing but her baby and my heart." Step right up. Come on in.
5) Faron Young - Hello Walls (1961)/Four in The Morning (1972)
He might seem an odd inclusion in this list, alongside such household names as Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, but I don't think the country genre ever produced a better singer than Faron Young.
Young started out in the 50s as a honky-tonker in the footsteps of Hank Williams but his deep rich tone is perhaps more reminiscent of the crooners of that age. Maybe that's why he appeals so much to me.
1961's 'Hello Walls', an early Willie Nelson cover, was a huge hit for him and the album of the same name is perhaps his most consistent recording - although I'd argue that the title track is one of the album's weaker songs compared to his original compositions.
Faron's biggest hit came in the 70s with 'Four In The Morning'. If his earlier work had bordered on 'easy-listening' with a country styling, here the transformation to full-blown crooner was complete. Not necessarily a bad thing. That said, 'Four In the Morning', the album, is a terrific country LP with enough honky-tonk to satisfy the purist...
Sadly Faron's career came to something of a halt in the 80s. Deteriorating health and a feeling that Nashville had turned its back on him led to him taking his own life in 1996.
I must confess that my first encounter with the name Faron Young was the Prefab Sprout song of the same name that opens their classic 'Steve McQueen' album.
For years I thought 'Faron Young' was the narrator's lover and the lyric "Forgive me, Faron Young... it's four in the morning" was a plea to the lover for forgiveness. Today I'm still not 100% sure what the actual lyric, "You give me Faron Young, Four In The Morning", means - is he suggesting that his lover leaves him with that feeling of desolation that the song 'Four In The Morning' encapsulates?
Is it an argument about the virtues of country music over pop music, "you give me infrared instead of sun, you offer paper spoons and bubble gum"?
I don't know.
I do know that Faron Young is one of the all-time great country singers. And there's not many like him left.
I must confess that my first encounter with the name Faron Young was the Prefab Sprout song of the same name that opens their classic 'Steve McQueen' album.
For years I thought 'Faron Young' was the narrator's lover and the lyric "Forgive me, Faron Young... it's four in the morning" was a plea to the lover for forgiveness. Today I'm still not 100% sure what the actual lyric, "You give me Faron Young, Four In The Morning", means - is he suggesting that his lover leaves him with that feeling of desolation that the song 'Four In The Morning' encapsulates?
Is it an argument about the virtues of country music over pop music, "you give me infrared instead of sun, you offer paper spoons and bubble gum"?
I don't know.
I do know that Faron Young is one of the all-time great country singers. And there's not many like him left.
