Reviewing The Top Ten Country Singles From This Week In 1980

 

I didn't get out of the house much in 1980. I had a two-year-old and a four-year-old at home and up 'til May I was working part-time at a retail store ~ and by "part-time", I mean three or so hours a few weeknights and six hours on Saturdays. We needed to supplement our meager income, yet I wasn't comfortable leaving my children in the hands of a stranger. Thus, I found an evening job at a recently-erected catalog store located approximately one minute away from my house. Looking back, the pay was barely worth the gas fumes it took to motor there, and while I did get a ten per cent discount on merchandise, I really couldn't afford to buy anything. Like every job I've ever had, I only landed this one because I possessed one (just one) of the skills listed on the job description ~ I knew how to run a cash register. Thinking back over my long and varied career, if I had (or could bullshit through) at least one of the required competencies, I was pretty good at glossing over the ones I didn't have**.

**Note to job-seekers: Learn how to type. 

By May I'd landed a high-paying (for my town and my skill set) job as a Communications Clerk at the hospital where I'd delivered my boys. I think my success lay again in my typing skills, plus I was interviewed by a lovely, compassionate lady, who may have noted my earnestness (I really needed to make more money). My shift was from 3:00 to 10:00 p.m., which eliminated the need for paid child care, although my live-in caretaker wasn't necessarily vigilant. I loved that job. It was right up my alley. I worked on the medical floor, transcribing doctors' orders, getting the necessary forms ready for each patient, scheduling surgeries for the next day, preparing menu orders, assigning rooms to new admissions. I was often called upon to help lift or reposition patients due to staff shortages. I found the entire medical world fascinating. Plus, I even managed to sock a little money away every two weeks in my hospital credit union account to save up for a yearly vacation. 

Occasionally, my mom invited me to see a movie with her, which was odd because she and I weren't the best of friends. I guess my older sister must have been busy. We saw Coal Miner's Daughter together that year, and in 1977 Saturday Night Fever, which made me slink down in my seat when I got to witness the "sex in a car" scene with my mom. In 1980 (again for unknown reasons) my dad and I saw Ordinary People together. The film was great, but afterward I had to listen to Dad enumerating the many ways the film's cold mother reminded him of Mom. All in all, my movie outings with my parents were uncomfortable. But Mom and I also caught Urban Cowboy, which began with an uptempo Charlie Daniels song accompanying the scene of a black pickup barreling down a dusty country road.  The film was mediocre at best, and the music mostly ehh. But, oh, what a fad that movie wrought.

I'm curious as to whether any of those Urban Cowboy tracks made the top ten this week. My source is the American Country Countdown Wiki.  If you've been reading along, you know my rules:

• I review each single as a first-time listener.
  
• I must listen to the entire track before offering my critique.  
• I stick with the Top Ten only, because this is unbelievably time-consuming.
  
• I do my best to find music videos. If all else fails, I use a video of the recorded song
  

 

Grab that mechanical bull by the horns! Let's go!

 

#10 ~ Pecos Promenade ~ Tanya Tucker

As 1980 songs go, this is okay. I like the fiddles and the two-step beat and (of course) the singer has plenty of chops and attitude. The familiar voice of her (reputed) boyfriend can be heard singing one line ~ "needs a cowboy". This track would be a great one to dance to in a country bar, if I ever had the chance to dance in a country bar, though it doesn't match the quality of Tanya's earlier hits. People Magazine tells me she's apparently going through a period of abandon right now. I hope she gets her mojo back in the future.

B

 

#9 ~ Steppin' Out ~ Mel Tillis

I'm willing to bet that the 2022 me will have no recollection of this track, even though I apparently own the album from which it came. For some reason this song reminds me of something a future country star who I'm imagining is named George might record. It's got a nice shuffle beat and the requisite country instrumentation. I don't even have to guess whether Mel wrote it, but it's a filler song. It really says nothing new and worse, doesn't say the old in an interesting way. I'm a huge Mel Tillis fan, but it's no wonder I won't remember it.

B-

#8 ~ Hard Times ~ Lacy J. Dalton

I don't know this gal, but I'm not a fan of the tremulo. For my musical taste, this track has nothing to recommend it. It seems important to the singer to belt out those lyrics, but she slaps on a nothing tom-tom accompaniment. Apparently Bobby Braddock, who is a much better writer than this song demonstrates, penned the tune. And unfortunately, it's so unremarkable that I've already forgotten it.

D

#7 ~ Lady ~ Kenny Rogers

Oh, is this the one written by Lionel Richie? That explains a lot. Kenny has apparently been able to hustle the country music charts, I guess on the strength of his actual country hits. 

Disclaimer: I saw Kenny Rogers in concert one summer on vacation with my immediate family and my parents. We were in Duluth, Minnesota, and there are only so many times one can traverse the boardwalk and wave at the ore ships that breach the harbor. My mom learned from the local paper that Kenny was appearing at the waterfront arena, so we purchased last-minute tickets. I honestly wouldn't even remember the show except for that white suit.

I don't hate Kenny Rogers, but I can't say I'm a fan of even his country tracks. It's just that "you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em" is so ubiquitous that's it's turned into an earworm. 

And I certainly am not a fan of this. The Commodores probably could have done it better, and at least they'd stay in their lane. I'm a country fan, so...

D

 

#6 ~ Old Habits ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

 Was this melody cribbed from Merle Haggard?

 

I fully admit my bias. I rarely like anything Hank does, and yes, I did walk out on his concert once in the 70's. That said, his uptempo songs are far better than this. It's dull and not in his wheelhouse. I don't know what else to say about this. It's a nothing.

D

#5 ~ I Believe In You ~ Don Williams

Don Williams is kind of the Perry Como of the eighties. He's impossibly laid back, which is actually a nice contrast to the more bombastic tracks spun by local DJ's. And Don picked a good one to record, written by Roger Cook and Sam Hogin. It definitely confers a vibe, a "snuggle under a blanket", "sip hot cocoa" ambience, and what's wrong with that? 

What the song has going for it: First, melody, Second, singer. Third, memorable chorus. Fourth, a nice warm feeling. I think this is one that will be remembered.

A

#4 ~ Could I Have This Dance ~ Anne Murray

Ahh, Urban Cowboy weighs in.

I read somewhere that Anne recorded this in a lower register because it was supposed to be a duet with Kenny Rogers. I like it as it is.

The first thing one can say about this track is that it is country. The second thing is, Anne Murray is one of the seminal voices of her generation. Thirdly, I'm a sucker for waltzes. This could and most likely will be the first wedding dance of just-married couples everywhere. The lyrics are lovely and the melody hits the sweet spot. Good songs don't have to be complicated; just honest.

A

#3 ~ I'm Not Ready Yet ~ George Jones

Like the Mel Tillis track, I'm willing to bet that I'll have zero recollection of this forty years in the future. It's got the required Jones recitation, which is kind of a lazy affectation, unless the song is Detroit City. The melody is pedestrian, the sentiment has been recounted countless times, in much better ways. Granted, unlike other die-hard country fans, I don't think George Jones is the best thing that's ever happened to country music, but I like a ton of his songs. Just not this one.

C-

 

#2 ~ On The Road Again ~ Willie Nelson

The first two or three times one hears this song, it's fine. Pedestrian, but fine. The third through the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time, it becomes grating. For a master songwriter, this must have been a throwaway written for his bandmates on the bus. A lark. Then somebody hollered out, "Hey! You should record this!" And the rest is history. I imagine that Willie will collect tons of royalties from all the future commercials that'll use this track. Everything from cars to first-aid kits (?) to probably dog food. An amateur songwriter could pen something like this, but he'd be afraid everyone would laugh at him. Kudos, though, Willie, for your success!

C

#1 ~ Theme From The Dukes Of Hazzard (Good Ol' Boys) ~ Waylon Jennings

 

I have a four-year old this year (1980) who somehow knows when it's Friday, at which time he plops himself on his stomach in front of the TV, his chin propped on his hand, to watch his favorite show of all time, The Dukes Of Hazzard. He, of course, doesn't know whose hands on the guitar are being shown on the screen, but his mom does. He's far more interested in Luke and Bo and the General Lee, which magically flies through the air in every episode. He knows all the characters, including the one he refers to as "Roscoe Peeko Train". 

I'm assuming most adults are like me, and only tolerate the goofy show for their kids, but I do appreciate hearing Waylon Jennings on my TV once a week.

Waylon wrote the song, and it's got something that the monotonous On The Road Again doesn't. Number one, it's got Waylon Jennings, one of country's legendary singers; but it's also got changes, appealing instrumentation, and creative lyrics. It's far more interactive than simply snoring along the highway on cruise control. This one is barreling down the road, feeling every bump, offering a wave (or the finger, depending on the situation) to fellow travelers.

Sure, the lyrics don't exactly relate to the average man's or woman's circumstances, but it still makes them feel good when they hear it.

A

Much to my surprise, only one track from Urban Cowboy appears in this week's Top Ten. I'm not dumping on the movie's soundtrack. There were actually several good songs inserted into the film; not just Could I Have This Dance. "Darlin'" by Bonnie Raitt, "Look What You've Done To Me" by Boz Scaggs, Charlie Daniels' "Devil Went Down To Georgia", and even "Love The World Away" from Kenny Rogers and "Here Comes The Hurt Again", a Mickey Gilley tune. 

Unfortunately, of those, only Charlie Daniels hit the jackpot. Instead we got Johnny Lee's "Lookin' For Love" ad nauseum. And it beget an unsavory fad that eclipsed more quality country songs. 

Still, this week included three A's. I think that's a record. Sometimes we forget that certain musical times were better than our cluttered brains recall.

 

 

Musical Snobbery

There's lots of music I don't like -- there's more I do like. It's not that I'm superior to Steven Tyler or Crosby, Stills or Nash. Their music simply doesn't resound brightly with me. Musical taste is impossible to define. 

Being a thirteen-year-old who liked country music taught me about snobbery. "Country music? Like Johnny Cash?" kids would snicker. Those same kids are now sixty-five years old and cherishing their newly minted thirty-dollar vinyl copy of "Live At San Quentin".(I never was a Cash fan, by the way.) I didn't dare point out that Mama Tried was a far superior track to Snoopy Versus The Red Baron. Mostly no one outside my family and my best friend even knew that I listened to country.

My theory is those who sniff at any kind of music truly don't like music; they're just haughty prigs. I had my phases, too, but my prejudices were generally aimed at artists who tried to change country into something it wasn't. For a time I hated John Denver and Kenny Rogers. In the late sixties I detested Glen Campbell. Happily, I now like both Denver and Rogers; and I cherish Glen.

My favorite (really, my only) country music site sometimes reflexively denigrates artists of the past, while enshrining obscure musicians few have even heard of.There is a certain songwriter who recently passed away who is being (implausibly) touted on the site as a candidate for the Country Music Hall of Fame. While I knew the man's name, I had to Google his songs, and I am here to report that I've never heard of any of them. And I've been enveloped in music for a good sixty years.But he's cool.

This blog is non-judgmental. Music is music, and if you like a track, cool. Joy is what music is supposed to bring to our lives. It should be apolitical; it can be nonsensical.Sometimes it just has a good beat and you find yourself dancing in your chair when you hear it.

Music can be dissected, but boy, that takes the fun out of it. Listening to SiriusXM on my weekend nights, I hear recordings I used to dismiss, but suddenly I'm hearing them with fresh ears. And I don't solely listen to country music. It depends upon my mood. My bookmarked channels range from the 50's to the 80's to Yacht Rock, with a smattering of seventies and eighties country and, of course, Willie's Roadhouse. (Why is there no nineties country channel, Sirius? Hit me up -- I can help you out.)

People can revel in their hipness. I'm just going to derive joy in whatever music hits me.

In the mid-seventies, I was caught in a chasm between country and rock, and I mostly leaned toward rock. AM radio was still the king of the car, and certain tracks were predominant. I remember my brother driving me somewhere and hearing "Heard It In A Love Song' and thinking for the longest time that the title was "Pretty Little Love Song". Not that I necessarily liked the song, but it was played incessantly. That reminded me of this one, that I summarily dismissed, but I really kinda like it now:



Enjoy your weekend. Avoid people. Snack a lot and good luck finding something decent to watch on Netflix. Better yet, crank up some tunes. I won't tell anyone.

Kenny Rogers

I think Kenny Rogers stumbled into country music.I read his autobiography, and as a musician he was many things, but primarily he was a jazz artist. His career soared when he became a member of the New Christy Minstrels in the sixties and then accidentally became the First Edition's lead singer. His "Just Dropped In" will live forever, thanks to the Coen Brothers and The Big Lebowski. Maybe it was when the group decided to record Mel Tillis's "Ruby" that the thought of a country music career pinged in Kenny's mind.

I don't remember when I became aware of Kenny Rogers as a country artist, perhaps in 1977 when Lucille hit the charts. He didn't exactly sound "country", but Lucille was a damn good song.



By the time "The Gambler" came around in '78, Kenny was firmly ensconced in the folds of country music. Is there a bigger earworm than "you gotta know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em"?



Through no fault of his own, or perhaps because of my country proclivities, I came to disdain subsequent Rogers singles. He was exactly what was wrong with country in the late seventies/early eighties.I didn't stop listening to country because of Kenny Rogers - he was simply a symptom of a widespread virus infecting Nashville.Nevertheless, while on vacation in Duluth, Minnesota with my tiny kids and my parents, when my mom learned that Kenny was set to appear in concert, we scooped up the last remaining tickets. We ensconced ourselves in the nosebleed seats and aimed our binoculars. Frankly my only memory of the concert was that Kenny definitely had a command of the stage. I wasn't impressed with Lionel Richie's "Lady" or "You Decorated My Life". This was hardly country.

It was but a year later that Kenny released my all-time favorite Rogers single:



I remember steering my Chevy Malibu up Divide Avenue in 1983 when this next song came on the radio. It sounded eerily like The Bee Gees (duh). Little did I know that I would hear it ten thousand, five hundred and eighty-eight more times. Regardless of its repetitiveness, you gotta give it credit.



I didn't necessarily love Kenny Rogers, but I respected him. Respect is good. He understood the music business like few others.

He has left a legacy. And he never shied away from embracing it:



Rest in peace, Kenny. 

Sixty-Four Years of Music ~ Why I Left Country

In the seventies, I was a singles buyer. Country albums, for the most part, didn't try too hard. In the late sixties Merle Haggard had done an album called, "Let Me Tell You About A Song", which is the first "themed" LP I can remember. That was an anomaly, however. Country albums generally consisted of one or two hits and nine filler songs. It was a cheat designed to get music lovers to plunk down four dollars and ninety-nine cents. I could never understand why artists, who had to go through the trouble of recording an album, didn't at least look for good songs. Thus, singles were king.

We didn't yet have a full-fledged music store in my town, so Woolworth's record department was my deliverance.Singles only cost a dollar, so even during my poor times, I could at least pick up one.

Gradually, however, riffling my fingers through the accordion of country singles in Woolworth's bins left me angry and frustrated. I bought a lot of crappy singles during that time, just to go home with something. Like anything a person tires of, it didn't happen overnight. Sometimes one doesn't even realize they're being played. Country label execs at some point decided that we hayseeds would buy anything, and they probably didn't like country music anyway, so it was a win-win for them.

The top artists in the late seventies were Crystal Gayle, Kenny Rogers, Dave and Sugar, Billy Crash Craddock, Johnny Lee, Sylvia, Charley Pride (who'd somehow lost his mojo), and Barbara Mandrell. Sure, there were some wonderful outliers ~ The Oak Ridge Boys, Eddie Rabbitt, Rosanne Cash, Gene Watson, The Kendalls ~ but the charts were hogged by mediocre artists' "country" tracks. I don't have anything against Kenny Rogers, per se, but except for The Gambler, he essentially bastardized country music. As for the others....

 Here's a sampling:



The sensation that Crystal Gayle was posturing never escaped my brain. Her singing seemed so stylized, with the way she pronounced her words. I think, had it not been for her freakishly long hair, she would have simply been a flash in the pan, regardless of who her sister was.



As I understand it, Sylvia is actually a good songwriter; and one must do what one needs to do to advance in the music biz, but her singles were like deadly earworms.



Ahh, Dave and Sugar...to be generous, this is actually country music, but something about that guy set my teeth on edge. He was too seventies-disco-cool, with his hair and chains. It also bothered me that they replaced the good girl singer with somebody else and acted like no one would notice, simply because she didn't quite fit the image Dave wanted to evoke (seventies-disco-cool).



I generally like Barbara Mandrell, but this song is putrid. Barbara also had a network TV show where she featured her sisters (Louise and the other one, who couldn't sing), and it was tedious. Every week Barb would do her shtick of playing the one song she knew on the steel guitar and then they'd do some goofy skits and sing a song together (the non-musical sister's mic was no doubt turned off). Every freakin' week was the same.

So, yes, I finally reached my breaking point. If the country music industry didn't respect me, ta-ta! I turned to MTV and hallelujah ~ they were playing actual music! I love, loved MTV. I loved it for many years, and I missed the resurgence of actual country music (thank you, Randy Travis). Those who hung in there through the lean times didn't miss it. I did. My patience had been snapped. And I had to play catch-up, once I discovered that the walls had been battened with clubs and fiddles and steel guitars.

The seventies music honchos should be ashamed of the tatters they ripped country music into. As well as those artists who blithely tottered along.

Even thinking about it makes me shudder.

Music Biographies

I get most of my Kindle books from the library, because I don't want to spend good money on something I won't like, plus it's easy, and I'm on a budget. My preferred genres are music biographies and true crime.

Procuring books from the library does limit my options. If the book is brand-new, the library won't have it. For example, I'm salivating over Randy Travis's memoir, which won't be released until May, which means my library will have sometime in late autumn (I may have to break down and purchase that one.) So I grab whatever's available and looks semi-interesting.

I find that biographies are much more interesting than autobiographies. It's hard to write about one's own life ~ it's a fine line ~ the experiences that mean so much to the writer will be pages that are swiped by the reader. There are exceptions, of course. Two autobiographies I recommend are:

 

Some memoirs I've read have infuriated me ~ the ones that sink into political grievances, for instance. If one's life is summed up by politics, that's kind of sad. Others have completely bored me (sorry, John Fogerty ~ a ghost writer might have been a judicious choice). 

I've read a ton of memoirs by former rock and country stars, and common themes in all of them are:

• Sports hobbies, from tennis to race car driving to skiing, consume far too many tedious pages. The reason anyone is reading your book is because we like your music. Talk more about that.

• After four or five failed marriages, the artist has finally found sublime happiness with a girl thirty years his junior. Here's a tip ~ that's kind of creepy.

•  Illicit drug consumption is something to regret; not celebrate. Even Keith Richards gets that. It just makes you look pitiful.

Musicians who have journalism degrees think their writing is great. Apparently they missed the class on the prudent use of adjectives. Another annoying literary device is time-skipping. "This reminds me of the time twenty years ago, when I..." You're writing about your life ~ was your life rife with time travel? I sometimes wonder if it's a stream-of-consciousness writing style that no discerning editor dared question.

Some memoirs scream, "I'm an auteur!" Springsteen's book might have been okay, but after about three chapters all I focused on was how hard he was trying to be literary, and I gave up.

I enjoyed Patti Smith's memoir and I barely even know who she is. Because the writing was engaging.

Writing is a muscle that requires constant flexing. I despise lazy writing because I understand how hard writing is. Granted, I'm not paying actual money for most of these books, so maybe I deserve what I get. Everyone isn't good at everything. Being a musical virtuoso doesn't guarantee a mastery of every other artistic endeavor.

My advice to would-be memoirists ~ find a co-writer.

I, however, still love their music:

1979 ~ Back To Real Life

I had no misconceptions regarding what work would be ~ a series of dead-end jobs; maybe I'd eventually land one with tenure and I could coast my way to retirement. I really didn't want a job. I wanted to be a mom, but President Jimmy saw things differently. Being poor wasn't all that bad, but I hated having to charge basic needs, plus the hospital let me know my five dollar-a-month payment for my new son's delivery just wasn't going to cut it. That telephone conversation convinced me I needed to find a job. Before I became a mom my work life was scattershot at best. I'd tried the real world and didn't like it. Being a clerk-typist for the state, I found, didn't mean sitting in a cubbyhole and typing all day. I had to interact with customers, which I guess was the "clerk" part. I didn't know what it was called then, but it turned out I had social phobia, which is in essence a fear of making an utter fool of oneself. Whenever I heard the front door of the State Health Department creak open, I had to steel myself for the inevitable person-to-person interaction. In retrospect, I am convinced I didn't instill confidence in my customer. I would toddle off and retrieve a copy of their birth certificate and mumble, "two dollars". I think I also said, "thank you", because while I was a near-mute, I was perpetually polite. After little more than a year I'd scurried back home to work for my parents. I quit working all together in November of 1976 and nested.

By the summer of '79, the fiscal writing was on the wall. As we pedaled down the expressway in our tin-can Chevy Malibu, I gazed at the building being erected, with a big sign out front that announced, "Future Home of LaBelle's". I said, I'm going to work there. I don't know why; maybe it was the close proximity to home, basically a zip up one street and one zip down another. Possibly it was because the one skill I was confident I possessed was ringing up a cash register. Plus I still retained the naive certainty that this place would be all my hopes and dreams tied up in an azure package; a retail nirvana. And it was part-time.

1979 began nine years of inhabiting second shift, forgoing toddler's bedtime baths, snuggling with little towheads, missing all my favorite TV shows, But life is a series of have-to's. I couldn't place Lego sets and Fisher-Price parking garages under the Christmas tree without the money to buy them and without my ten per-cent employee discount.

LaBelle's was a catalog store, which no longer exists in today's Amazon world. Customers would wander about with a stubby pencil and a pad and write down the number of the item they wanted to purchase; then hand their paper to an associate who'd punch it into a "computer" and the bored guys back in the warehouse would fetch the item from an eight-foot high wobbly shelf and dump it onto the conveyor belt. My job was to grab a hand mic and announce, "Johnny Jamsicle, your order is ready at Register Three. Johnny Jamsicle, Register Three." Johnny would step up to Register Three and I'd ring him up.

Some nights were excruciatingly quiet. Especially Tuesdays. Nobody ever seemed to shop on Tuesdays. So I'd stand behind the counter in my high heels and eye the one person in the store longingly, willing them to order something. Truthfully, LaBelle's was quiet most of the time, except during Christmas season. I would, of course, be scheduled to work Saturday days, and Christmas was the only time the hours whizzed by.

When I had my yearly review, my manager docked me for not coming up with a product display, which I didn't even know was a requirement! I subsequently visited a travel office and gave the girl behind the desk a line about a school project, and talked her out of a vacation poster, which I pasted in the luggage department, along with the words, "Flights of Fancy". Casey, my manager, didn't understand the saying and argued that my word choice was wrong. "It should be flights of fantasy," she proclaimed. I tried to explain to her what a flight of fancy meant. She finally gave up the ghost and let me keep my display. I didn't even get a five-cent raise for all my effort. I did, however, learn a valuable lesson about dealing with morons.

I frankly didn't have much free time to devote to music listening, but I couldn't escape the fact that Kenny Rogers was everywhere. This dude who'd had a minor career with The First Edition in the sixties had reinvented himself as a precursor to Lionel Richie.

The number one song of 1979:

Kenny had five, count 'em, top twenty hits in '79. And that wasn't even his best year. I'm not sure why, but I rolled with the flow. I even saw him in concert once, sitting in the nosebleed seats in Duluth, Minnesota. It was a spur-of-the-moment impulse on my mom's part. We were there; he was there ~ why not?

There were better country songs in 1979; for instance, Eddie Rabbitt:

The Dirt Band:

Don Williams:

Waylon:

T. G. Sheppard:

The Oaks:

I had my Bang and Olufson component stereo I'd bought on credit and a stack of country albums. Sometimes I'd come home from LaBelle's in the dark and slip the needle on one of those LP's, quietly, as to not awaken the kids snug in their beds, and relax with a cup of instant Sanka. 

And think about the pitiful state of my "career".

Mel Tillis

The guys who write obituaries for newspapers are probably around thirty or so. Maybe forty at the most. Everyone knows that companies are in the midst of showing baby boomers the door. That leaves a gap when it comes to writing about someone's life, because these young guys (and/or girls) don't have a clue who Mel Tillis was. It makes me mad when I realize that an obituary consists of bits gleaned from Wikipedia. A life should mean more than that. Especially Mel Tillis's.

Country music would have been so much less if Mel Tillis hadn't come along.

When I first became involved with country music, I didn't know Mel Tillis. I might have seen "M. Tillis" in parentheses beneath the song title on a '45 single, but at that time, I only cared about who sang the song. Granted, I was only around thirteen, so I was as shallow as a...well, thirteen-year-old.

I didn't even know that the title song of my all-time favorite album (because it was Dad's all-time favorite album) was written by this Mel Tillis guy. Dad bought the LP in 1965, when I was still engrossed in the orange and yellow Capital '45's released by this group called "The Beatles".

Sorry, apparently they didn't make videos in 1965, but this is still awesome:

Seeing as how I was a remedial country music student, once my best friend Alice began schooling me in the ways of (good) country music, I caught up with this next song. Alice also was the person who taught me how to play (chord) guitar (I never actually learned how to "play"), and she taught me the intro to this song. 

Detroit City was released in 1963, and while I didn't listen to country music then, one could not help but be exposed to it, because the radio stations played an eclectic mix of musical styles. My cousin and I created a comic book about "singers when they get old". Bobby Bare was one of our subjects, but in our version he was an actual bear. Our comic was a huge hit among my Uncle Howard's bar crowd. Orders rolled in, but unfortunately we would have had to recreate the whole thing by hand over and over, so we sacrificed the big bucks (twenty-five cents) we could have made from the venture, essentially because we were lazy. 

Around 1967 Alice and I were excited to see Bobby Bare in person, but thanks to a freak winter fiasco, we never got to. We ended up going back to her house and watching the local TV broadcast of Bobby's performance. 

A lot of my musical history is tied up in Detroit City, and it was all thanks to Mel Tillis:

The very first song I ever wrote went like this:

1967, you taught me how to play

All those Merle Haggard songs

Man, he had a way

And the intro to Detroit City

I remember it today

You were my hero then

You still are today

So, again, it all started with Mel.

Much like I traveled back in time to capture songs like "City Lights", I didn't quite catch that Mel had written this hit song from 1957. Was Mel around forever? 

I never understood why this guy named Webb Pierce was considered the Hank Williams of the fifties. Pierce didn't even write his own songs! And he was rather an awful singer, but apparently the "nasal" sound worked for him. In the fifties, who was the competition? Pat Boone? The only thing I know about Webb Pierce is that he had a guitar-shaped swimming pool and he was a renowned asshole. Regardless, Mel Tillis wrote this song and Webb should have thanked him for it, but apparently that wasn't Pierce's modus operandi:

More my style was this single released in 1967:

And seriously, all this time, I had no idea that a guy named "Mel" had written these songs.

So, when did I become aware of this Mel Tillis guy? In the mid-sixties, I began hearing songs on the radio by someone who had a different sort of voice. He was no Ray Price. He sang like the words were stuck in his gullet. I was judgmental. The songs were good, but I was perplexed by the singer.

Eventually, as more of this guy's recordings got played by the DJ's, I became used to him.

In 1970, I got hooked. This is one of my favorite recordings ever.

 In the mid-seventies, Mel's career took off. He was still writing songs and still writing hit songs, like:

By then, I'd bought his live album, and it was hilarious. I never knew that Mel Tillis stuttered! Of course, if you read the various obituaries, that's practically all that is written about him.

Yea, Mel Tillis was funny. And Clint Eastwood and all the Hollywood set loved him. 

This might have been from a Clint movie, or maybe not, but I think it was:

This one, I'm pretty much convinced is from a Clint movie:

Here's one more (Mel did it better):

I'm going to guess that the most famous song Mel Tillis ever wrote was this next one. It would have been nice if Kenny Rogers had tweeted a few words and had thanked Mel for his career, but whatever. I'm not going to judge the propriety or impropriety of not acknowledging.

Mel Tillis was with me all my life and I didn't even know it. I didn't know that Mel was wrapped up in my musical belonging. 

Pay it forward, they say.

Mel paid a lot of artists' ways.

Mel Tillis is wrapped up in my musical memories. Ir's not everyone who can encompass a person's life. I wanna cry just thinking about him. And I truly miss him.

Thank you, Mel Tillis, for things I didn't even know you taught me.

1980 In Country Music...and Super Kid

It's hard to remember a particular year until one is reminded of the cultural touchstones of the day. By June 1 of 1980, I'd begun my new "career" as a hospital worker. It doesn't sound fancy, but it was by far the best job I'd had in my whole nine years of working life. Once my youngest child was old enough for me to feel safe leaving him in the distracted hands of his father, I'd begun looking for second shift jobs.

Retail came first. Please be nice to retail workers -- they get shitty pay and have to park a mile away in order to leave the prime parking spots for actual customers. On moonless nights in North Dakota in January, it's a long cold walk at nine thirty p.m. Of course, January is the dead time for stores, once all the unwanted Christmas gifts have been returned for store credit, so although one might be scheduled for eighteen working hours for the week, she will most likely get a phone call from her department manager at the last minute, informing her that "things are slow" and therefore she won't be needed that night. There was no vacation pay and certainly no health insurance, so I mentally had to calculate which monthly bill would not get paid on time.

The hospital, on the other hand, offered actual benefits. And "customers" weren't surly. They appreciated every single little kindness offered. And face it, the job was interesting. I was able to learn more than simply how to punch numbers into a cash register.*

*I learned something from every job I ever had. Don't discount life experiences.

 I would begin my shift at 3:30 in the afternoon, which left plenty of "kid time" during the day. My sons were four and two. We had no exciting "outings". We were poor, so a trip to the mall was our farthest journey, and it rarely ended well. Attempting to corral a toddler and a pre-schooler while browsing Woolworth's aisles only resulted in disapproving glares from store personnel. If I was feeling flush with cash, I'd purchase a '45 single from the record department and hope to make it all the way home without a tussle ensuing in the back seat, crushing my precious purchase to shiny black shards.

Cable TV was like manna from heaven, even though the fanciest channels available were WGN in Chicago and WTBS from Atlanta, which broadcast black and white reruns of James Garner's "Maverick" late at night. On June 1 something called a "news channel" debuted. Dave Walker and Lois Hart anchored its first newscast, which was memorable for Lois's hairdo. Imagine getting news anytime one wanted! What an alien concept! The channel called itself "CNN". Everyone said it wouldn't last; that it was a novelty. But we tuned in because it was new. 

Back home, my little brother had discovered something called a Rubik's Cube. It was a frustrating little box puzzle and thus "stupid". I hated that thing, but still I persisted in twisting it around, hoping a miracle would happen (it never did). 

Mom and Dad had bought a "VCR" and showed it off. I couldn't afford seven hundred dollars for an electronic gizmo, but I sure coveted theirs. My whole life I'd wanted the newest gadgets, because they would transform my life, and I scratched and clawed to get them. It wouldn't be too long before I bought a damn VCR, because I couldn't miss St. Elsewhere, which would be sacrilege, since I knew how hospitals worked!

I don't know why I attended movies with my mom. It's an alien concept to me, because Mom and I were never what you'd call bosom buddies; but we saw "Coal Miner's Daughter" together, which I've since seen approximately 10,000 times. (Did I mention we had HBO?)

Mom and I also saw "Urban Cowboy", which leads me (in a painfully roundabout way) to the top country songs of 1980.

Country music was dominated by Urban Cowboy. If one does not own the soundtrack album, they would not know.  Urban Cowboy and Kenny Rogers -- that basically sums up 1980. We country fans were on a quest to find something, anything, that would justify our faith in music. Country consisted of the old standbys and by those "new kids" who performed on the UC soundtrack...and by Eddie Rabbitt. 

And we actually tolerated songs like this:

Super Kid wanted badly to be a super-hero. He was four years old. He thus dived off an orange velvet La-Z-Boy rocker smack-dab onto the corner of the coffee table. And thus he broke his nose. I saw it happen in slow motion but was unable to stop it. A trip to the emergency room ensued. 

Thankfully, he was consoled by his all-time favorite TV show OF ALL TIME:

There were, of course, songs for us grown-ups, too.

And songs played on a PlaySkool record player, as rendered by the Chipmunks:

1980, to me, will be forever memorialized by Dolly Parton confronting Mister Hart; by Tommy Lee Jones; by a superkid breaking his nose, by Eddie Rabbitt and by Kenny Rogers and his white beard. By slender youth. By a chubby toddler mesmerized by a goofy LP recorded by Alvin and the Chipmunks.

By a faux-walnut paneled home and rooms separated by paper-thin walls. 

By a mother's heart-piercing love.

Me and Country Music in 1977

Music wasn't foremost in my mind in 1977. My son was born in November of 1976, so I was busy. I had known nothing about babies, but the old adage is actually true -- babies are resilient, despite their parents' ignorance. Unless, of course, you can actually kill them with love (you can't).

I had quit working -- which is sort of amusing. As if one can just quit and magically be able to sustain their family. It would be more accurate to say that I took a break. Considering that we were pitiably poor, taking a break was either a selfless act of motherly love or a dimwitted blunder. Honestly, though, how many material goods does one need? Most every newly-married couple I knew lived in a mobile home (it was the seventies -- thanks to Jimmy Carter, nobody could afford anything).  It's funny how people love to throw around the term "trailer trash", but much like commenters on news sites who are instant experts on health insurance, people in general are ignorant. My house was nice. It was new, for one thing. I guess people are put off by the "shape" of mobile homes. Inside, however, it's a regular home. Morons. I had actual appliances and everything -- a washer and dryer; not a washboard. I will grant you that heating and air conditioning costs were astronomical. That was thanks to the paper-thin walls. But it was a mobile home. If I'd wanted good insulation, I guess we could have rented an apartment -- if we could find one. Apartments in the seventies in my town were practically unheard of. Some homeowners had little apartments on the upper floors of their houses. There were a couple of squat brick buildings that were "apartment houses". They were generally situated in the less-than-desirable areas of town. And they were meant for singles; not for families. The working girls, the State employees who hadn't yet found a husband.

I bought baby clothes at Woolworth's. I was a big Woolworth's consumer. We had a TV and a stereo and a stroller. The drawback of living in a mobile home park was the habitat -- long, long streets that went on forever. And yea, there were undesirable people I encountered while pushing my baby in his stroller down that interminable street. The park was a conglomeration of regular working people, those on their third divorce and their fourth batch of kids, upwardly mobile couples who held their nose and padded their savings accounts until they could afford to get the hell out, groups of party-bros sharing the rent. Yet, in 1977 there was a pastoral horse pasture across the street from my home. A white picket fence and lazy mares sidling up for a snack. That didn't last long -- progress and more lots to develop -- but it was there for a while -- and my baby boy and I saw it.

Music hovered between background minutiae and rare gems. Country music was in flux in 1977 -- the Outlaws and the In-Laws. Sixties holdovers, urban cowboys, and new jewels. I was nearing the end of the line with country music, yet I wouldn't give up on it completely until 1984. I hated most of it, but I kept holding out hope that something magical would happen.

This is what I remember:

Apparently Waylon and Willie saw no need to do a live version of this song. This was the best video I could find, and all in all, it's not bad:

After a time, I grew tired of Crystal Gayle and her hair. I mean, how many times can one watch a girl flipping her four-foot-long tresses? It was odd and led to many questions, such as, how much did she pay for plumber visits? And how much must the plumbers hate getting that call? "Oh, it's Long Hair again. You wanna take this one, Bob?" Nevertheless, this was a nice song the first fifty times I heard it.

George and Tammy got back together briefly in 1977, because they knew a good thing when they heard it. And when we heard it. It's so nice to hear Tammy again. There are two female singers who knew, really knew, how to sing country -- Patsy Cline and Tammy Wynette. It's that indefinable, know-it-when-you-hear-it quality. Tammy had it:

Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, many of the hits I remember from 1977 are unavailable on YouTube, so I will forego "The Wurlitzer Prize" Instead, let's take a look at a track that was truly country, and sustained my puny faith in country music. Unfortunately, no performance from 1977 can be found (and Emmylou had long black hair then -- not as long as Crystal Gayle's -- just sayin').

If one was to tick off the top singles from 1977, there would be these two. One is catchy -- really really catchy. The other is stuck in time. I'll let you be the judge:

But you know me. I'm a sucker for real country. This song, to me, will always represent 1977. My baby boy won't remember it, but I do:

If one is to remember the good times, music provides that nudge. When I hear these songs, I'm back in my mobile home kitchen with its frilly curtains, the FM radio blaring out of my faux-walnut console stereo, my baby nodding off in his play swing in the living room as I watch him from my perch in front of the avocado GE range. I was but a child then, playing at being a grownup. 

But I had my baby...and music.

1983 Was Not A Red-Letter Year In Country Music

In 1983 I was still driving my '76 Chevy Malibu. I liked it. It fit. It was also the first brand-new car I'd ever owned, so I felt like I had moved up in the world. I'd graduated from a used powder blue 1966 Chevrolet Impala to a they-saw-me-coming '74 Chevy Vega hatchback with the hue and texture of a can of Campbell's Cream of Tomato soup. Each of those cars had cost a couple hundred dollars at the most; the Malibu I had to finance! Sign papers for! The Malibu had a sometimes-it-works air conditioning system and tan folding faux leather seats. It was perfect, and it wasn't orange!

I didn't have far to travel in my tiny town -- my longest drive was north along Ninth Street to Mom and Dad's house; a fifteen-minute cruise if the stoplights didn't hit just right. I visited Mom and Dad a lot on sunny afternoons  -- my kids were in elementary school and I worked second shift. My days were free and Dad and Mom were my tether. Easing the Malibu into their driveway and spying Dad bent over in the front yard, yanking weeds from the flower bed, felt like home, even though I'd never ever lived in that house. I knew Mom would be upstairs in the kitchen, running a damp rag across the counter top, checking the Mr. Coffee to determine if it'd stopped dripping. I'd pull out a chair from the dining room table and Mom would offer me coffee and a slice of pie and we'd talk about nothing much. Dad would broach the stairs, swiping a handkerchief across his brow; pour himself a cup and ease his butt into an adjoining seat. I have no recollection of what those conversations entailed, but I remember that when I turned to go home, I always felt better -- stronger somehow.

Music was in the doldrums. I was on the verge of giving up on country, and soon I would. Shelly West was still basking in the after-glow of the Urban Cowboy fad and Crystal Gayle was a novelty, famous for her ridiculously long hair and the fact that she was Loretta Lynn's little sister. Sylvia was a producer's creation -- another try at Chet's Nashville Sound that was a long-time gone and hardly lamented. Alabama was still hanging around, as they were wont to do. Merle was on a down-slide; Charley Pride was still grasping onto the tattered shreds of his once-red-hot career. Even the artists I loved, like Ronnie Milsap and the Oaks, were looking at their careers in the rear-view mirror. John Conlee had exhausted his one big hit. Much like the late sixties, producers paired male and female voices, but the result was pop pap; as opposed to "After The Fire Is Gone". Country was lost and needed someone to save it. That someone hadn't yet ridden over the horizon.

Still, like any year in music, there were gems.

Alabama was on it's next-to-last gasp:

I think the first time I became aware of the Oak Ridge Boys was when they recorded Rodney Crowell's "Leavin' Louisiana In The Broad Daylight". Then I did a bit of digging and found that they were once a gospel band. As a Midwesterner, I was oblivious to gospel music. Alice and I, though, had seen the Statesmen as an opening act at one of the many country concerts we'd attended, and we'd gotten on board. The deep bass voice, the tenor, and the harmony parts had roped us in. The call and response.

For a time, country gospel became our new obsession. Of course, we were fourteen, so everything to us was brand new.

That history cemented my love for the Oak Ridge Boys, who had this hit song in 1983:

Along about July, a couple of old hands rode to the rescue:

Along about 1979, I talked Mom into attending an indoor rodeo with me. I told her that a new country artist would be performing in between the barrel racing and the calf roping. In the west, rodeos were not considered weird or corny. I'd been to lots of rodeos -- I was familiar with the eight-second rule for bull riders. It's not so much that I was a rodeo fan, but that live entertainment was sorely lacking in our town. We went to whatever the box office put forth. I was, however, enamored with Reba McEntire and had never seen her in person, so....

 Later, I would resent Reba for unnaturally expanding the boundaries of what could be called "country". She took advantage of her fame. She loved on-stage costume changes and male background dancers. But she was country once, and I'm happy I could introduce Mom to her voice.

The Number Eighty-Seven song of the year flew past me, because I'd by then long abandoned country music (as it had abandoned me).  It's funny how life works. Eighty-seven? Truly? This song rests firmly within my top twenty country songs of all time, and it only reached eighty-seven on the charts? Country fans needed a firm shake. (And speaking of rodeos):

The truth, though, sad as it may be, is that on my drive up Ninth Street to Mom and Dad's, with the seventeen-story Capitol Building casting its shadow across my sun visor, is that THIS is the song that 1983 will be remembered for. 

I remember that drive, and that day, so succinctly. I remember muttering to myself, "If I hear this song one more time, I'm going to stab my radio with a serrated carving knife."

Funny how time works. The song doesn't seem so bad now, thirty-four years after the fact. 

 

2013 CMA Awards

Isn't video great? One no longer needs to slog through a boring awards show to get to the good parts. The good parts come neatly packaged on YouTube for the discerning viewer's enjoyment.

I don't even know half of the acts who performed or were nominated for the 2013 CMA awards, which is one of the reasons why I determined not to watch the telecast. Country music has passed me by, and I'm okay with that. I've accepted it now.

I will say, though, that a little history never hurt anybody. Of course, the 2013 awards offered very "little" history, unless you count the one-second wave from Hall of Fame inductee Bobby Bare, who was situated somewhere deep in the audience. At least they didn't shuttle him up to the balcony somewhere. Be grateful for small favors.

I am, believe it or not, well aware of Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood. Carrie, because I did use to watch American Idol, and I was pulling for her all the way in whatever year that was. She was up against some retro-seventies guy who no one has ever heard from since, so there was very little contest, to be honest. I do remember, though, Simon telling Carrie that she needed to acquire a personality. Seems like she did:



Ahh, I love a good Obamacare joke - can't help it. It makes my heart glad.

I did try to watch a lot of the CMA performances. I thought, well, hell, maybe I'm missing out on somebody good, so I gave everybody a fair chance - if "fair chance" means ten to twenty seconds. I have the knack of making up my mind really quickly. Sorry, kids. None of you made the cut.

Unaware as I am, I had no idea that the CMA's actually featured a tribute to a guy nobody under age fifty has ever heard of - George Jones. See, back when country music was square, in a square Bobby Bare sort of way, George Jones was a big star. Some country music artists call him the "the voice". Of course, that was back when country music was country music, and not sort-of-but-actually-not-really-country music.

Nevertheless, it afforded me the opportunity to see the last of the country artists who still, somehow, manage to chart (for now), George Strait ("my" voice) and Alan Jackson (who sounds eerily like George; not saying he's emulated him or anything, but c'mon).

When George and Alan disappear from the scene, who'd going to be the standard-bearer for country music? Rascal Flatts (cough)?

Thus, I enjoyed this performance a lot, even though the cameraman was utterly befuddled, but that's okay. I knew who was singing what:




Sorry I somehow pasted this twice, and I can't seem to delete one, so choose whichever one you want, or better yet, watch it twice. It's worth it.



Unlike Bobby Bare, the other Hall of Fame inductee certainly got his moment in the sun. I'm speaking of Kenny Rogers, of course.

I will give Kenny this, though: he recorded a bunch of readily sung-along songs, and I actually enjoyed this a lot. But I'm a sucker for nostalgia. Don't know why Dolly wasn't there, but I'm not gonna quibble.



You might guess that the highlight of the evening for me was the Entertainer of the Year announcement.

Sure, I know why they gave it to George. He's quitting touring, you know. It was now or never.

I've read people's comments, carping that George isn't really an entertainer. Well, I was lucky enough to see him in concert. If your idea of entertainment is Lady Gaga-type choreography, then no.

If you like seeing somebody sing a song like it's supposed to be sung, then yea - George Strait is an entertainer.

Couldn't have happened to a better guy. I'm thrilled that it happened for George, and for me, before we both ride off into the sunset.



So, you see, while I didn't watch the awards live, I will concede that four pretty good things happened during the telecast.

I'm just glad that YouTube let me see them.

I'm thinking 2013 was my last chance.

Bobby Bare Inducted into Hall of Fame ~ Thanks to Me!

(Don't let the alien-creature eyes on the right scare you!!)

I'm being (semi) facetious, really.

However, the fact remains that I have been lobbying for Bobby Bare since 2007.  If you don't believe me, check this post.

And this post.

And this post. 

And this post.

And this post.

Therefore, I was stunned when I read the news this week that Bobby has been named one of the three Country Music Hall of Fame inductees.  He was elected in the Veterans category (you think?)

But let's start at the beginning.  Speaking of veterans, "Cowboy" Jack Clement was a producer and engineer at Sun Records in Memphis, when he discovered this guy:

Jack also worked with the other big three at Sun:  Johnny, Roy, and Carl; and he wrote this song for Johnny:

Later, Jack moved to RCA in Nashville, and produced a bunch of hit records for artists such as Bobby Bare, Charley Pride, and Waylon Jennings; and wrote more hits too, such as:

This is my favorite song written by Jack Clement:

That video brings back happy memories.  I remember watching the Porter Wagoner Show on Saturday afternoons, and liking his new unknown girl singer a lot.

Kenny Rogers ~ what can one say?  If one was alive in the nineteen seventies, she knows Kenny Rogers.  His wild popularity in that decade cannot be underestimated.  He was the singer of the decade.  Kenny started out as a rock singer, with a group called the First Edition.  They played on all the network variety shows in the sixties:  Ed; the Smothers Brothers...I don't know ~ Laugh-In?  Maybe not Laugh-In; but you couldn't turn on your TV and not see this group singing, "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)".  Kids would basically buy any song whose title was slapped across the label of a 45 record back then.

Kenny had his big breakout moment when the group, now called Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, released this single (written by Mel Tillis):

You probably can't tell from the video, because Kenny is wearing giant wire-rims, but his eyes actually looked humanoid during this period.

Well, it wasn't long after that Kenny struck out on his own, now having earned some unsought country music cred.  Thus, the First Edition was cast to the winds; I'm guessing never to be heard from again. 

Before Kenny eventually shed his cloak of faux-country authenticity, he was lucky enough to record two songs which shall live in...well, not "infamy".  The opposite of infamy ~ "famy"?

These songs were:

Without a doubt, "Lucille" is a catchy song; an earworm, if you will.  Not a lot of three-quarter-time songs are written, which is a shame, because that rhythm pattern is indigenous to human beings; it is akin to being rocked in the cradle as a baby.  My only quibble with the song is that it takes too long to get to the chorus ~ too much setup.  It should have been shortened; compacted.  I bet people turned the dial the first couple of times they heard it.  "Too boring", they no doubt said to themselves.  It was only after hearing the chorus one day (when they were not in control of the radio knob) that people said, Hey!  This is good!  And, on the plus side, I can sing along with it!  Ta-DA!  A hit.

Kenny's next cyclonic hit was an inferior song; but still catchy ~ again, because of the chorus.  How many people, even today, utter the words (in some random situation), "You gotta know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em"?  Well, there you go!

Kenny went on to record hits by such country luminaries as Lionel Ritchie. 

I saw Kenny in concert once in the seventies.  Granted, he was a teeny, tiny speck, but I can still say I saw him.  I was on vacation with my mom and dad and my two little boys, and we discovered that Kenny was in town for a concert at the town's cavernous auditorium.  We managed to snag tickets in the very top row.  Kenny was a good entertainer.  Oh, he was no Marty Robbins, but he still put on a good show.

I don't remember if he performed this song during the concert, but it is my favorite Kenny Rogers record.  The only performance video available is one in which he incomprehensibly ratchets up the tempo, which basically ruins the song; so I decided to go with this static photo and the song performed in its original (good) version:

  

Naturally, I cannot leave the topic of Kenny Rogers without acknowledging this 1983 hit, written by the renowned country songwriter, Barry Gibb; and recorded as a duet with that unknown girl singer from the Porter Wagoner Show.  

Let me just say, here and now, that if you had a radio in 1983, you couldn't outrun this song.  Every freakin' time I got in my car to drive somewhere, this song was playing.  It got far more radio play than the song warranted.  Yes, yes, it was catchy....the first million times I heard it.  Then it just got annoying as all hell.  AND it made no sense; but why should I quibble?

Here ya go, and don't say I didn't warn you:

Congrats, Kenny.  Can't say you didn't earn it.

Bobby Bare

Why have I thought, since forever, that Bobby Bare deserved to be in the Country Music Hall of Fame?

I don't know that it's anything I can put my finger on, exactly.  Bobby sort of seeped into my consciousness, like a shadow in the night.  I always knew he was there.  I even bought his first greatest hits album (on RCA) back when I was a pre-adult.  He was even there when I was a nine-year-old kid, and was creating my famous comic book with my cousin, which you would have to read about in my book (ha ~ snuck another plug in there, didn't I?) 

I guess it just struck me one day that, wow, Bobby Bare has recorded a bunch of great songs!  And why hasn't anyone formally recognized that?

In doing a (trust me, condensed) retrospective of Bobby's career, this blurb struck me as funny, and sort of typical of Bobby's life and the humor with which he's conducted his career:

Bobby also had a hit in the pop field, "The All-American Boy," released under the name Bill Parsons. He was drafted before he could tour with the hit, and the record label hired another singer to be Bill Parsons and cash in on its success. 

Let's go back a (long) ways, shall we?  To the early nineteen sixties:

And on..... 

And, well, you knew this one was coming (another song written by Mel Tillis ~ I guess both Bobby and Kenny Rogers can basically thank Mel Tillis for their careers)...

Bobby left RCA in 1970 and went to Mercury Records, where he had some monstrous hits, like:

And this (sorry, no performance video):

Both of the above songs were written by a little-known songwriter named Kris Kristofferson.  Did I mention that Bobby was a wiz at discovering new, great talent?

Bobby tripped on back to RCA in 1973; long enough to record this song, which merits a chapter all it own in Rich Farmers (I only write about the important stuff, you know):

And, just for fun, he also recorded this song on RCA (and it's fun ~ c'mon!):

Wikipedia says this about Bobby Bare:

In nearly 50 years of making music, he has made many firsts in country music. Bare is credited for introducing Waylon Jennings to RCA. He is also one of the first to record from many well- known song writers such as Jack Clement, Harlan Howard, Billy Joe Shaver, Mickey Newbury, Tom T. Hall, Shel Silverstein...and Kris Kristofferson.

Deserving?

More like "way overdue deserving". 

I want to say, thanks, Bobby Bare, for almost fifty years of great music.

And, I'm sure if Bobby knew me, he would thank me, too, for getting him inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

It's the least I could do, really.  After all, he hung in there with me for practically my entire life.