... And the childhood fantasy involving Mr. Kendall's beautiful daughter always started with something like "If I could just take out the old man..."
Every now and then, childhood memories come flooding back to me, and I don't like it...
The Kendalls was a father-daughter country act, and they were really good, but it was just so wrong to a 12 year old boy to hear such a pretty girl singing about heaven while harboring thoughts that lead in the opposite direction.
Years later, I picked up with a country band when the singer/rhythm guitar player went on the lam.
Lena was a slender, sexy redhead who played bass and sang really pretty. She could sing the hell out of Patty Loveless..
Have a good weekend!
24 comments:
Too bad what's happened to country.
Pretty much all overproduced junk right now.
I agree. You just described much of pop music today.
I grew up with country, but I couldn't tell you squat about today's version of it. I'm into Waylon, Bob Wills, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Bobby Bare, etc... The oldies.
.
Heck, I remember when country was popular in NYC, and country hits regularly hit on the top 40 and rock charts! And before my day, Patsy Cline and Hank Williams Sr. were hugely popular among Brooklyn gangsters! Talk about cross-over!
Now it's either poppy crap or jingo bullshit.
Terrible.
JMJ
"... but no matter who's in Austin,
Bob Wills is still the king".
How good was he?
Guy could easily be in the jazz, country and rock halls of fame.
Yeah Jersey, there was a time back in the day when radio wasn't so segregated.
Black dudes were listening to Merle Haggard, white kids were listening to Otis Redding. We were all listening to the same things in this big stew.
Great days, they were.
"How good was he?
Guy could easily be in the jazz, country and rock halls of fame."
The man was brilliant. A champion fiddler from Oklahoma, he took the big band sound and put it to guitars, steel guitars and fiddles.
His music is not of the "three-chord-wonder" variety.
And speaking of... have you heard the many Grateful Dead covers of Merle Haggard songs? Flat out awesome.
I had to marry a German to like it a lot now. We'd be driving through Germany listening to American Country. Not great American country western, but...they often got the "B sides".. Yes, Mr. Z made me a fan.
SO, SF, about you and Lena....may I play Paul Harvey and ask for "the REST of the story,"...or..... :-)
Z: Oh no, nothing went on. She we probably ten years older than me and she'd already been through a few husbands. She was pretty snooty, probably never said more than three words to me.
Best Country label in the world, Bear Family is German.
Have several of their box sets and they are terrific.
Ducky, I'd never heard of it. I have to admit that a LOT of the Country they play there is second best, but this does sound interesting. thanks. I had no idea.
SF...when you went from Mr Kendall's daughter to Lena, I figured there was more story there :-)
I love your line about a girl singing about heaven while you're harboring shall we say heavenly thoughts of a very different kind?!
Good memories from all. The first vinyls I remember listening to in my house as a lad were Lead Belly (who, as a blue artist, may have influenced some country western singers) and Hank Williams Sr. I know Ducky is old enough to remember the 30s when LB came to New York :-)
Ironically growing up in West Texas I hated country because my dad listened to it. After I grew up I came back though. I like the outlaw country of the seventies, Waylon, Willie, Merle, Hank Jr., David Allen Coe and Jessie Colter.
But you have to admit the resurgence of country in the late 80s was good. I'm talking about Garth, Alan Jackson, Clint, Travis and the like.
While today's country seems like bubble gum of the seventies I do have a few such as Toby Keith. Maybe because he's a little outlaw.
Take a few trips to Branson or the Smokey mountains and you'll start to appreciate Alison Krauss more. I like me some bluegrass also.
There is some good stuff in the last couple decades. Montgomery Gentry: "Speed" and "Gone". I also like Trace Adkins: "You're Gonna Miss This" and "Songs About Me".
"Scars and cars and broken hearts".
@OD357 << Ironically growing up in West Texas I hated country because my dad listened to it.>>
Dang, mang, that is damn near a country song in one sentence.
Boston isn't much of a country haven but bluegrass is pretty popular. Bill Monroe used to say, "you can't play country up their but they love the 'grass."
No KP, I don't remember Leadbelly coming to New York but I do remember the great folk scare quite fondly. Got to see Ramblin' Jack Elliot a couple weeks ago and it was like winds of the old days. I was pretty much a folkie in the 60's.
KP Said:
Dang, mang, that is damn near a country song in one sentence.
Yeah but my grandma didn't get run over by a pickuuup....truck
Or a dang ol' train.
Don't call me darlin, darlin.
True lovers of C&W ought to be well acquainted with You Made Me A Part-Time Woman, 'Cause You Were A Two-Time Man with Anna Russell.
Russell was one of the truly greats.
~ FT
Have a great weekend- a perfect one here at the Bunker!!
SF: "I grew up with country, but I couldn't tell you squat about today's version of it. I'm into Waylon, Bob Wills, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Bobby Bare, etc... The oldies."
Patsy Cline. No one better, IMO. As a Bostonian, I listened to the best of country, and she was it, along with Hank Williams, Sr., Johnny Cash, and all the originals who made listening to country music a real pleasure.
Today? No so much. I don't like it.
You've got excellent taste, Shaw. Patsy, Hank Sr and a Johnny Cash were authentic people who sang from their souls. That is why their work endures.
Patty Loveless is a great singer, I think. I would certainly take her over most of the crap that passes for Country these days.
Try this -- it was "Country" before "Country" was "Country:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJMtnRMpjM
And then there was Patti Page and "The Tennessee Waltz." That was "Country" before "Country" became "Country" too.
"I Never See Maggie Alone" was another in that same genre from that same era.
~ FreeThinke
That was a golden era, but "country" was already "country" at that time.
Mother Maybell and A.P. Carter were making country commercially back in the 20's.
There were a lot of songs crossing back and forth in the early part of the century.
Probably true, SF, but I never heard any popular music specifically referred to as "Country" until some time in the Sick-sties.
There has always been authentic FOLK music to be sure. That goes back hundreds -- maybe even thousands -- of years, but when I was a little kid in the New York Metropolitan area all we had for popular music -- and it was PLENTY -- were The Big Bands and their imitators, the Juke Box recordings that sprang mostly from the bands, songs from Broadway Musicals, songs written especially for Movie Musicals, music performed in nightclub acts and "cocktail music" (both mostly derived from Jazz, Blues and Show Tunes) and satirical "novelty" stuff like Spike Jones who made mincemeat out of standards and classics in ways that had everyone in stitches. There was clever-but-shallow Leroy Anderson too -- the last [and maybe the first and only!] Middle Class WASP composer. There was Latin music too, of course. The Rumba and the Samba were all the rage back then. My parents and some of their friends even hired a dance teacher to work in their basement rumpus room. It was a fun time. Inane, of course, but good clean fun. No one needed drugs to enjoy it, and I never heard of it being used as background music at a Swingers Orgy either.
In those days New York City WAS the avant garde. For a long time now it has followed other trends -- manufactured trends I believe that originated in boardrooms where moguls of the Music Industry wise in the ways of the world cynically dictate The Tastes of the Nation -- much as the enemedia has been CREATING "Public Opinion" for the last 50 years.
So-called Classical Music, and Jazz belong in special categories. Authentic Folk music is a genre all its own too as is "Bluegrass," which I like, because it's gentle and played on acoustic instruments.
I remember very well when Scott Joplin was rediscovered via The Sting, and suddenly because Hollywood had promoted it, "Ragtime" was all the rage.
And so it goes ...
FreeThinke
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