Showing posts with label lynn anderson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lynn anderson. Show all posts

Saturday, July 13, 2019

A Look Back At Country Albums ~ 1969

(I used to subscribe to this ~ it had song lyrics!)

By 1969 I could afford to buy albums. Up 'til then I'd been solely a singles gal, because I was penniless. Of course, I was barely a teen, so jobs were hard to come by. Due to family circumstances, however, my mom frequently enlisted me to man the motel office (during the times she was off looking for my dad). Travelers were taken aback by finding a little girl waiting to check them in, but I just did what needed to be done ~ shove the heavy metal bar across the credit card swiper, tear the little side receipt off the registration card and hand it over, answer the beeping switchboard, make change for the Coke machine.


Mom reluctantly determined that I needed to be paid for those nights, when I really needed to be doing homework, so my paying wage became seventy-five cents per hour. Before too long I had enough money saved to buy an album!

Sometimes albums were the only means of obtaining songs I really liked, because our little town's selection of country singles was limited to the top ten. At least JC Penney's basement had a middling country album offering. Often my tastes were dictated by my best friend Alice's inclinations. I was still a relative country music novice; still feeling my way around this new musical world. I liked Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, and Charley Pride (which essentially sums up sixties country music), but I was keen to spread my wings.

There was a pretty new gal on the scene, a beehived blonde who had teamed up with an old guy with a pale pompadour, and this was the album I bought by this duo:



There had been occasional duet pairings before Porter and Dolly, but none so successful or influential. In the "actual" country music world (as opposed to the faux New York/Hollywood lexicon), they were superstars. Any skim of country music charts from the late sixties will reveal a multitude of hit records by one or the other, or both.

In that vein:



 Snigger if you will, but Carroll County Accident was an enormous hit. Granted, Alice and I weren't enamored with it ~ we made up our own, politically incorrect lyrics. But it could not be avoided on AM radio or ignored.

Then there was:


The album cover included a distant shot of Dolly's real-life husband, Carl Dean; the one and only time Carl allowed himself to participate in Parton's musical world.


I fell in love with the sweet voice of Lynn Anderson sometime around 1967. She'd begun moving away from her mom's penned songs (although Liz Anderson was no slouch ~ she did write "Strangers" after all) and was still signed to Chart Records until 1970.




This was an album of covers, but Lynn sang the hell out of them.

No live video, unfortunately:




Not my favorite Hag album, but with few exceptions (see below) I always bought Merle Haggard LP's. I did like this one:


Here's one I didn't buy, and my reasoning is this (if I can remember): I'd heard the single ad nauseam and I didn't need a live version of it. I liked studio recordings, although I never bought this as a single, either. Looking back, I think I had an issue with the title song. At fourteen I was far from sophisticated, but the track seemed almost mocking, and I wasn't on board with that. As for live Haggard albums, "The Fightin' Side Of Me" ranks up there with my favorites of all time, so I had no bias against live recordings.



 

I also didn't buy this one, and again I will explain. Johnny Cash is the hip country artist that non-country fans always cite. Granted, he had a network TV show in '69 that featured acts that rarely got television exposure, and he had a great gospel group performance (thanks to the Statlers) at the end of each episode. But real country fans weren't real Cash aficionados. All his songs sounded the same, with their thump-thudda-thump beat, over and over.


And speaking of overplayed songs, what could top this?


These last two will get all the kudos, naturally undeserved, but I choose to remember the LP's that touched me as a fourteen-year-old kid, newly seeping herself in country music.

Ahh, fifty years. 

Really?

Friday, October 19, 2018

Yay For Women Artists?

So CMT (which used to be a network), in a shameless publicity grab, decided to anoint all women as "artists of the year". First of all, if you've got about twenty of them, that kinda dilutes the artist of the year moniker. Secondly, who is CMT to decide anything? The only admirable thing CMT has done in the past thirty years is pick up the series Nashville after ABC canceled it.

I remember CMT when it was actually watchable. That's when the great Ralph Emery had a nightly talk show that featured real country artists, and when videos were broadcast that one could distinguish from crappy pop. Everything doesn't get better with age.

Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Maren Morris, Kelsea Ballerini, Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum, and Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman of Little Big Town were the honorees. I know what you're thinking ~ who now? I know Carrie Underwood from watching American Idol all those years ago, and I know Miranda from the tabloids. I didn't watch the telecast, but it seems that the gals honored those time-honored country artists Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight.

I understand that Carrie is a true country girl at heart, but she's a slave to radio and has to record the stuff that people (apparently) buy, but I don't really admire an artist who sells out. Doesn't she have enough cache now to record whatever the hell she wants? The gals paid lip service to Loretta Lynn and...apparently that's it....and sang a bunch of songs written by guys, which rather undermines the whole #women rule meme.

The problem I have with women who claim they're all powerful is that they seem desperate to prove it by whining a whole lot. That's not powerful; that's pitiful.

For those "artists of the year" who don't know country history (which seems to be all of them), here are some women who didn't whine:














The number one non-whiner was a broad who didn't give a damn that Roy Acuff and Faron Young were on the same bill. She knew she commanded the stage, and she didn't need a hashtag to tell the world she had arrived.

So, for all you Aretha and Gladys fans out there, here is some real country music:


But just keep thinking you're "all that". Those who don't know better will believe you. 

I am one who knows better.

 







 




Saturday, October 21, 2017

I Remember 1970


In 1970 I was fifteen and carving out my own, independent life. Things had been bad at home for about four years, and I was frankly tired of it -- tired of being mired in the constant physical and verbal battles between my mom and dad. Too, by fifteen I'd acquired the best thing that ever happened in my life -- my own room. My mom and dad owned a motel, which was the thing that started our lives on the unremitting slide off a slippery cliff. On the plus side, a motel in the sixties meant a ready supply of unoccupied rooms; a fact that I seized upon in order to whine and cajole my mom into finally giving in and agreeing to let me move out of the closet-sized room I shared with my little brother and sister and the bunk bed shoved up against the wall, and into Room Number One, which was a bit further than hollering distance away from our tiny "living quarters" behind the sliding door of the motel office.

My new living arrangements were sublime. I didn't eat, so I was able to avoid family dinners, if we actually had them. What I actually remember is my brother and sister being fed once we'd arrived home from school and my mom grazing throughout the evening. Dad wasn't around. He was busy working on his hobby -- getting drunk out of his skull and passing out anywhere he could find a safe place to land.

I had a best friend and hobbies of my own -- music! And smoking. I'd learned how to chord on a guitar a few years before and by now I was pretty proficient at the basics -- A, D, G, E, and sometimes B (if needed). The callouses on my fingertips were well-developed. If there was such a thing as tuners back then, I was unaware of them. I'd bought a '45 record Buck Owens had issued (I think with one of his songbooks), "How To Tune Your Guitar". That record was my "guitar tuner".  I locked myself behind the locked and chained door of my room and listened to country records and strummed along with them...and sang. Nobody could hear me anyway, so what the heck? I became pretty good at singing harmony, as long as I had the record to prompt me.

I'd latched onto country music because Alice (my best friend) was a die-hard country fan who was also the featured vocalist in a local country band. By 1970 rock was a faint memory and I knew all the top country artists and had developed my own tastes, rather than simply mimicking what Alice liked. I'd discovered all-night country radio, WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, with DJ Mike Hoyer. WHO had the strongest signal. I loved Bill Mack from WBAP, too, but a Fort Worth signal was only audible in the wee small hours. Ralph Emery? Forget it. The night had to be crystal clear and the moon full before I could ever get WSM to be more than a crackle on my radio. Mike Hoyer was my guy. He also played full albums, around two in the morning. (Yea, in the summer, I stayed up and waited for them).

In 1970 we country fans were still worshiping the old guard. It would take about three years before new acts would arrive on the scene and take over. Country music moved at a slow pace.

Don't get me wrong; the old guard was excellent -- Merle, Ray Price,Tammy, Marty. If one was to name the greatest country artists of all time, these four would make the top five...or at least top ten. Merle was hitting his stride in 1970, becoming recognized as a musical phenomenon. If one were to scan his career, however, Merle's best recordings came before '70. The same with Ray and Tammy and Marty Robbins. They were all "mid-career" by that time. But there were other artists, too.

David Houston first hit it big with a song that in 1967 made me cringe. I was twelve and at that awkward stage at which my dad had the car radio tuned to country music and I was held hostage if I ever needed him to traverse me anywhere. David Houston sang about being "almost persuaded" and I knew it was kind of dirty, but I wasn't sure why. Hearing a song about s-e-x at age twelve with your dad in the car is the ultimate nightmare. Nevertheless, David Houston went on to record several tracks that became hits, and by fifteen, I was okay with the story lines.

David Houston lived a short life. He suffered an aneurysm in 1993 and passed away. He was a huge star in the late sixties/early seventies, an artist who would have continued to carry on.

Here is his 1970 hit (very few live performance videos exist of David, mainly those in which he performed duets with Barbara Mandrell, so appreciate this for its music):



And then, of course, there was Merle:


My memories of Ray Price will always be tied up with my dad. There was a time when my dad was my hero, back before the "bad things" happened. Childhood memories are like a hand print on one's brain. They're stamped there for perpetuity. "My" Ray Price was a singer of three-part harmony songs and twin fiddles. The Ray of 1970 was a sort of a betrayal. 

I didn't like this song. I do now. I like it "sort of". It's a Kris Kristofferson song. Kris Kristofferson, at one time, was the most prodigious songwriter in country music. He's no Merle, but he's different. Kris said things that nobody else said in quite the same way. If I was to emulate anyone, as an amateur songwriter, Kris would be the one.

For The Good Times:



Charley Pride is an artist who appeared seemingly out of nowhere. I first became aware of him in 1967 (?) with "Just Between You and Me", which is one of the most excellent country songs ever written. He was just a guy on the radio who sang good songs. By the time Alice and I attended the immortal Merle Haggard concert in 1968, we'd learned that Charley was Black, so we weren't shell shocked when he took the stage as Merle's opening act. Granted, it was odd for a Black man to sing country music, but if he was country, we were okay with that. 

By 1970 we'd settled into a state of comfort with Charley. The production values on his recordings could have used some improvement, but he was still recording good songs:


Johnny Cash had a network TV show on ABC, and Alice and I watched it with religious fervor. I wasn't even a Johnny Cash fan. I was more fascinated by the Statlers. who sang harmony and by Carl Perkins who, by then, was relegated to a backup player in Cash's band. The most memorable thing I remember from Johnny's show was a song called, "I Was There" that featured the Carter Sisters and the Statler Brothers; a gospel song that those in the know label "call and response".

"Sunday Morning Coming Down" was yet another Kristofferson song. I was in my second year of Spanish, so I actually translated this song into the Spanish language as an exercise. I can't listen to this song without hearing, "no fue mal". 


I love Marty Robbins. The first concert I ever attended, when I was five, was a Marty Robbins concert. My mom took me. I have no recollection of how that came to be. I didn't even know my mom liked music. I'm guessing the concert venue was the Grand Forks Armory. I have a vague memory, like a dream, of Marty strumming a teeny guitar. That's all I remember, except for after the show, when Mom tried to cajole me to go up and get Marty's autograph. I was mortified at the prospect and I flatly refused. I note that she didn't get an autograph, either.

I got the opportunity to see Marty again, sometime around 1980, this time in Duluth, Minnesota. We were on vacation, with -- what do you know? -- Mom and Dad. I also had two tiny boys by that time. Not as tiny as the guitar Marty liked to play, however. By then, I wouldn't have been too embarrassed to get Marty's autograph. I would have been sort of embarrassed, but I still would have done it, had we not been perched in the nosebleed section of the auditorium. By the time all of us made our way down to the floor, Marty was no doubt back on the bus, zooming down I35 on his way to the next stop on his tour schedule.

Marty Robbins was a helluva entertainer. I, as a rule, don't like a lot of goofing around by the artist I've paid dollars to see. But Marty was funny. Not in a "canned jokes" kind of way, but in the way he interacted with his audience. He was one of the few artists I've seen (and I've seen many) who seemed to actually enjoy performing. Most of those I've seen treat a live performance like a paycheck they're begrudgingly obliged to dance for. (Randy Travis is an exception to that rule.)

This is, by far, not one of my favorite Marty Robbins songs, but heck...it's Marty:


On the other hand, there are a handful of artists I never connected with. I never could quite figure out Conway Twitty. The blue-haired ladies loved Conway. Of course, they also loved Elvis. Maybe when I'm eighty I will grow an appreciation for Conway Twitty. I'm keeping an open mind. I can't put my finger on what it was -- he did have some good songs. And his early recordings with Loretta Lynn were damn good. 

I attended a concert in my hometown around 1992 - 1993. It was a three-fer:  Vince Gill was the main act, for me at least. Also on the bill was George Jones. And then there was Conway. I'd seen George Jones and Tammy Wynette in 1968 when they were still flirting and hadn't yet left their respective spouses. Strangely, Tammy's then-husband played backup for her on that show. Well, it was country music...

So, after Vince did his set and George did his, I decided it was time to leave. I didn't stay to see Conway. Shortly thereafter, Conway died. I kind of regretted I hadn't hung around long enough to see him perform. I felt a tiny bit guilty, disrespectful.

Conway (nee Harold Jenkins) had his biggest, bestest, hit in 1970. This song defined his career:


Speaking of career-defining songs, I guess 1970 was the year for that. I could recount my attendance at a Loretta Lynn concert...okay, I will.

I was, I will guess, nine years old. My sister was getting married. She'd moved to Fort Worth, Texas, to be near her fiance, who was a Texan. Dad, Mom, my little brother and little sister and I had taken the long car trip from Minnesota to Texas in our trusty Ford Galaxie, the car Dad was so proud of. Amidst all the wedding festivities, we all attended a concert at Panther Hall. Panther Hall was distinctly Texan. Long, long dining tables, where one was seated next to complete strangers. The entree was steak. Just steak. One did not get a choice in the matter. It was steak. Waiters hovered about. Our waiter asked me what kind of dressing I wanted on my salad, and I said, "none". "No salad?" he asked. "No, no dressing.". Yes, I ate my lettuce plain. I did not like foods then. I might have liked toast. 

Panther Hall was "dry", or something. One had to bring in their own booze. The waiters would serve "mix", and patrons would mix their own drinks with the whiskey they'd brought in with them. 

The featured act was Loretta Lynn and her band. I hazily remember hearing, "You Ain't Woman Enough", but I frankly was too focused on my lettuce to pay much attention. Somebody in our party went up after the concert and got Loretta's autograph. I remarked, upon spying the signed photo that it looked like it said, "Buffalo Lynn". Loretta apparently did not have good handwriting. 

In 1970 Loretta released her autobiographical single. I had some issues with the song, such as how she sang "borned" instead of "born". Additionally, the song was rather tedious. It was essentially a recitation of everything that had happened to her in her life, with no chorus. Also, she sang that at night they'd sleep cuz they were "tarred". Regardless, eventually a movie was made of the song and the book that followed, which began my longstanding infatuation with Tommy Lee Jones.

Coal Miner's Daughter:


These songs were not number one hits, but they bear mentioning, because, well, I like these guys...

Jerry Lee Lewis:


Buck Owens and Susan Raye:


Sorry, no live video, but I really, really liked this song...

Del Reeves and Penny DeHaven:


Here's David Houston with Barbara Mandrell, before Barbara became the precursor to Reba McEntire in the desperate claw to become relevant in the world of pop. Barbara Mandrell was so cute then. I wanted to be her:


No one should doubt how iconic and influential this duo was in the late sixties/early seventies. They were the golden fleece all duos yearned to snatch.

Porter and Dolly:



The first time I heard this next song on the radio, on a staticky signal out of Iowa, I fell in love. It was the perfect country song, sung by the best country singer in the world. I didn't know Tom T. Hall had written it, and I was surprised. Tom T. was the Harper Valley PTA guy, the guy who never felt a chorus was necessary to a song. I really, really loved Faron Young, but he was a troubled soul. I talked my dad into driving us up to the State Fair to see Faron in person, and I felt ashamed I'd forced him to make the trip. Faron was possibly drunk; or if not drunk, simply a bad performer. The concert was disillusioning. I didn't know then that Faron had problems and that it took him a while to get a good recording. I only knew the records themselves. I still love him, though. I don't care how many takes he had to do to get it right. I only care that I am in love with Faron's songs.

Sorry (or maybe not sorry) that there is no live performance video of this track:




This post has gone on forever, and it could go on for miles more, because 1970 is perpetually stamped on my brain.

I will end with this....

Lynn Anderson showed up on my adolescent radar by way of Lawrence Welk. My folks watched that ABC show religiously. I was beguiled by Lawrence's accordion player, who I thought was in the navy, because the V that crossed his chest looked like a navy uniform. I hadn't yet begun my accordion lessons, so I apparently thought Myron Floren somehow balanced that behemoth instrument between his hands; an unsuspecting strongman. (Yup, the V was the accordion straps, I, a short while later learned.)

Lynn was from North Dakota -- Grand Forks, to be exact -- just like me! In truth, she was born in North Dakota, but raised in California. However, that minuscule connection convinced Lawrence to hire her for his show. Lynn possessed the sweet voice of an angel. Truly. I loved Lynn's voice. Unlike the country fan latecomers, I knew Lynn Anderson before she moved to Columbia, when she was but a wannabe star contracted to Chart Records. 

To me, the move to Columbia spelled the downfall of her career, but of course, others would say, what in the world are you talking about? She had her biggest, career-defining hit at Columbia!

Yea, she did; that's true. But tell me; how many times are you willing to listen to this song?

Nevertheless, it was the giant song of 1970. Thank you, Joe South. I guess.

Lynn Anderson:




I'm guessing this has been the longest post I've ever written. I have lots to share about 1970. It was kind of a watershed year for me in many ways; ways I don't necessarily like to recall.

I gave the year short shrift, though. It was pretty awesome -- at least in the annals of country music.
















Saturday, May 6, 2017

Best Country Albums - Part 2


Since my last post, I've thought about other "Best" albums and wondered if there were any from an era other than the nineteen eighties. I've determined that eras are rather unfair. After all, as I've noted before, country albums were once simply a collection of one or two hit tracks combined with cover songs. I don't know if producers were lazy or they suffered from "we've always done it this way" disease. Most likely it was because country fans bought singles and albums were an afterthought -- a  way to put a pretty cover (in the case of female artists) on the rack and convince shoppers to buy the ninety-eight-cent '45 of "I Don't Wanna Play House". I bought a lot of Greatest Hits albums way back when, because other LP's were disappointing. A few artists pushed back -- mostly artists from Bakersfield. Some Nashville acts, too, transcended the status quo. Not many.

I've thought about how I even knew that certain albums existed at the time, and I realize it was because of WHO radio and Mike Hoyer. Mike was the overnight DJ on WHO in Des Moines, Iowa; and around two a.m. he'd slap an album on his turntable and play it all the way through. Touring acts would also show up in Mike's studio and perform songs live. In the sixties, it was Mike Hoyer and Ralph Emery on WSM who were the keepers of the country flame. And Bill Mack on WBAP in Fort Worth. Those three. That's all. My radio signal rarely caught WSM and I'd lie awake until three a.m. to try to catch WBAP. WHO, though, always came through loud and clear. That's how I knew what was what with real country.

All that said, I've decided to isolate "best" albums by the times in which they were recorded.

The Sixties

Ten years in country music is a long-ass mile. A lot changed in the sixties. Are we talking 1961 and Jimmy Dean or 1969 and Conway and Loretta? The sixties should actually be divided into the almost fifties/early sixties and the Merle Haggard slash Dolly Parton era. Nevertheless, here are some albums that were most likely the "best" of that time.



Here's the only video I could find, but trust me, this album was a cornucopia of superb country (I mean "country") songs:







Burning Memories is definitely a "best". Ray Price's album is one of my very, very favorites. I'm guessing it was released in 1965, smack dab in the middle of the schizophrenic sounds that assaulted our tender ears. Ray's smooth tenor was a soothing balm. And yet it tore at our hearts. I can find no live performances of any of the awesome tracks from this album, but give this a listen:



There was a time when we cheered live albums. Why? Maybe because Nashville sucked the soul out of every song it deemed to record and live albums were real life.

This live album was real:


Merle did impersonations and Bonnie flubbed the lyrics to her song and Merle said, "that's all right".

Merle live:


In the fifties, Patsy Cline and Faron Young and some other country stars performed at Carnegie Hall. That was considered curious. Apparently New Yorkers were too snobbish to listen to country music. Most were and are. That concert was most likely viewed as a novelty; something for the sophisticates to giggle about the next day. I don't know that any live recording exists of that concert. I personally would have loved it -- but I'm from the Midwest, after all.

About ten years later Buck Owens took a chance and showed up at Carnegie Hall with his Buckaroos. It's impossible to understate the importance of Buck Owens to country music in the sixties. There were two competing factions -- the "Nashville Sound", watered down "listen to us -- we're really not country!" and Bakersfield. Bakersfield won. One could argue that if not for Buck Owens, there wouldn't have been a Merle Haggard. It's been posited that Buck stole his songs from unknown songwriters. I don't know the truth. Regardless, Buck Owens' claim to fame is that he created a "sound". Crunchy telecasters, drums not buried; not muffled. Drums keeping the beat as they should, for the two-stepping couples in the honky tonks. Heavy on the steel, thank you. Alcohol and tears go hand in hand, and nothing cries like a steel guitar.

Here is "the sound", from the Carnegie Hall album:


Before I finish out the best of the sixties, here is one album that I would consider a "best".

Lynn Anderson, before she scooted on over to Columbia Records, recorded on a little-known label called Chart. One could argue that the move to Columbia was the best thing that ever happened to Lynn. After all, that's the label on which she recorded Rose Garden. I would postulate that in the move Lynn lost her soul. In the sixties I wished I could sing like Lynn Anderson. She sang like an angel. Her new husband, Glenn Sutton, may have been chart-savvy, but he never brought out the best in Lynn's voice. 

This was her best:



Here is a sampling:




The Seventies

I seriously thought this was a sixties album. Well, it was on the cusp, released in 1970. Country duos began seriously with Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton. They set off a whole seventies trend -- Conway and Loretta, Mel Tillis and Sherry Bryce, Hank Williams, Jr. and Lois Johnson. Suddenly duets were hot.

This duet album was the best:



This album had so many good songs, it's difficult to pick just one. YouTube has made it easy for me, however. There are only a couple of videos available. Here is one:


Ronnie Milsap was a product of the seventies, and he was huge. I saw Ronnie in concert with a couple of other artists I don't remember. That's how he dominated. Take a great singer, add some great country songs, stir in some piano and a whole lot of soul, and you have Ronnie Milsap.







Gary Stewart entered the country scene like a tornado. Who was this guy, and where did he come from? Suddenly he was just there. New country artists were rare. Country music was a continuum. George Jones had "The Race Is On" and then he morphed to "A Good Year for the Roses". Faron Young could never do better than "Hello Walls" and then he found a new producer at Mercury Records and soared, with songs like "Wine Me Up". But they'd always been there. I only vaguely remember the first recording by Merle Haggard, but it seemed he'd always been around. In the seventies new artists, brand-spankin' new, just showed up. All I had available to me was my radio. There was no YouTube or Pandora. Country TV was Hee Haw, if we could stand it. No Nashville Now. No CMT. 

And suddenly there was this guy:


Gary Stewart's story is a sad one. I prefer to remember his music:


Things that should not be forgotten are. It took a guy from New Jersey to remind Nashville what country music was all about. I was so parched for good music in the seventies, it was a revelation to find someone good. Really good. Eddie Rabbitt, like Gary Stewart, died young. But damn! We should not forget either of them. And Eddie? Well, if you love a rainy night or you're driving your life away, thank him.



Rocky Mountain Music was far above anything any country artist released in that seventieth decade.


And there you have it -- the sixties and seventies "best", wrapped up in one lonely blog post.  

I liked seeing Eddie and Gary and Porter and Ray again. Old friends. 

I miss them.




Saturday, August 1, 2015

Lynn Anderson


“I am a huge fan of Lynn’s,” Reba McEntire said. “She was always so nice to me. She did so much for the females in country music. Always continuing to pave the road for those to follow."

In the country music world of the sixties, there were essentially two tiers of female artists. The top tier consisted of Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, who got all the press, good and bad. The second tier, and the chart gobblers, were Connie Smith and Lynn Anderson. I'm not saying Connie and Lynn had more top ten hits than Tammy and Loretta, but I'm also not saying they didn't. Look it up.

In my research today, I came across a site where a guy listed his thirty-six favorite female artists from the nineteen sixties, and he didn't even include Lynn Anderson! Number one, I didn't even know there were thirty-six female artists during that decade (well thirty-seven, ahem), and number two, the dude is either a hater or a dweeb. He even listed Jeannie C. Riley, and she only had one hit!

But that's sort of the story of Lynn's career. It seemed to me at the time that she didn't garner respect from the Nashville establishment - of course, they hated Buck Owens, too, because like Lynn he was from, of all places, California! And don't even get them started on Bakersfield's Merle Haggard, although they pretty much couldn't ignore him after awhile (snicker). Connie Smith was always placed on a pedestal, as she still is, and rightfully so. I love Connie Smith. It didn't hurt, though, that she had the backing of Bill Anderson, a songwriting and Nashville god. Meanwhile, Lynn just kept racking up the hits.

People remember Lynn Anderson, if they remember her at all, from her nineteen seventies hits. I prefer the tracks from her Chart Records days, before she moved on to bigger, shinier Columbia Records. Chart Records was an independent label that had the good taste to sign artists who were languishing without a deal, for no apparent reason other than that some of them were from California. LaWanda Lindsey, whom you've no doubt never heard of, had her first hits on Chart Records, before, like Lynn, moving on; in LaWanda's case to Capitol. Look her up sometime. Needless to say, I was a big Chart Records aficionado.

Lynn was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota (like me) to songwriting parents, Liz and Casey Anderson. Liz wrote "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers" for Merle Haggard. He liked the song so much he named his band after it. Liz also wrote "I'm A Lonesome Fugitive" for Merle. As a kid, Lynn's family moved to California (gasp!) and Lynn later became a featured vocalist on the Lawrence Welk Show (Lawrence, like me, was from...well, you get the gist.) As an aside, my mom always claimed she was a cousin, a few times removed, of Lynn's. I never did obtain definitive proof, so it may be a wishful fable.  Oh, and my last name, too, is Anderson. Whoo! Eerie! (kidding).

There was never a time that the Lawrence Welk Show wasn't thought of as cheesy. I certainly considered it so. But Mom and Dad loved it. Again, it was the sixties, so there were three major broadcast channels. Therefore I am willing to cut Mom and Dad some slack. But honestly, where was a young California girl to go to launch a singing career? She wasn't seasoned enough to join Buck's stable (oh, that doesn't sound good - I mean, stable of artists). So, network exposure? Why not? She was the only good thing about the show, except maybe for that ragtime piano player, who fascinated me as a kid. Yea, I took accordion lessons, too; no doubt my dad's decision was influenced by that damn show. Thanks, Dad. If I remember, when I wasn't snoring into my floor pillow, Lynn only got to do one number per week, but it was the highlight of that snooze-fest. And Lawrence seemed to like her.

This show was where Lynn introduced some of her first hits.

Like this:



Wow, she looks like a little kid here! I was such a dork, I learned all the words to this song.

 Okay, one more. Both of these songs were covers, but what the heck? (I never learned how to do this, by the way.)



Yes, she is lip-syncing both of these, but maybe Lawrence didn't have a steel guitar player. Also, I guess a drum kit isn't the only thing that has a "high hat". But it was the conservative sixties - conservative in some corners, including my parents' living room.

Soon Lynn moved on to bigger things like Hee Haw? I guess you had to be there.


Liz Anderson wrote this song, along with many of Lynn's early hits. 

Naturally, all the songs I love have no live performance videos. Lynn was at her best on ballads. She had the voice of an angel.

Here's one (just pictures, sorry):



One more:


When Lynn married Glenn Sutton and moved to Columbia Records, somebody (I'm not pointing fingers) picked out for her some inferior material.

It didn't start out too badly:


At least this track had a banjo (when banjos weren't de rigueur, like they are now, to prove that country artists are actually country - doesn't really work).

She even dusted off an old Johnnie Ray torch song from the fifties (yea, I don't know how I know that, either):


No respect.

I can't blame Glenn Sutton for Lynn's omnipresent hit from 1970. She picked that one out all by herself. Written by Joe South to be sung by a man, Lynn was enamored by it and insisted on recording it during a session which had fifteen minutes left and no more songs to record. I didn't like the song then; I don't like it now. But that's just me. It's...monotonous? And imagine hearing it fifty times a day on the radio. One would get sick of a song real fast, even one they initially liked.

Nevertheless, this recording cemented Lynn's career. So, who am I to quibble?


Some of the Lynn Anderson albums I own?





(It really doesn't look this goth in person.)





I most likely own more. 

I am a Lynn Anderson geek. I love Patsy, I love Tammy, I love Connie Smith; but I never felt the personal connection with them that I did with Lynn. Time (decades?) goes by and we get distracted by life. I hadn't listened to a Lynn Anderson track in years. And then I read that she'd died. She was only sixty-seven; far too young. Lynn had some hard knocks along the way; I'm not interested in rehashing those.

A lot of artists don't get their due. I don't know why that is. I don't believe Lynn got hers. She only drew attention when she became a pop star. Everybody missed the beautiful country recordings that came before. Well, not everybody.

Memories come tied with raffia - often pretty, sometimes rough to the touch.  This news is rough, but the music is so pretty.





















Friday, July 20, 2012

Kitty Wells ~ A Good Life

Kitty Wells, the queen of country music, died Monday, July 16.  She was 92 years old!

It's hard, now, to imagine a country music world without female singers, but there was a time.  1952, to be exact.

To say that Kitty Wells opened doors for women singers is an understatement.  Without Kitty, there would be no Loretta, no Tammy, no Dolly, no Shania; certainly no Carrie or Taylor.

Apparently, in the world of country music, in 1952, women weren't only to be seen and not heard, they weren't even supposed to be seen!

Kitty only recorded her signature song in order to earn the $125.00 that the recording session paid.  She was a wife and a mom, and was looking forward to getting off the road, and staying home.

If only she'd known.


How many girl singers have covered that song?  Which ones haven't?

This is my favorite cover.  Why?   Well, there are four legends on this recording (sorry, no video to be found):



Tonight, I thought I'd let a couple who have followed in her footsteps pay their own tributes to Kitty:






Rest in peace, Kitty.  What an admirable life.






Friday, January 13, 2012

Making Life Simpler


Well, that's rather a misnomer, isn't it? Life is never simple.

I am of a mind, though, that life would be simpler without so much "stuff" to clutter it up.

I'm not certain, but the evidence tells me that, when I was in my twenties, I pretty much saved everything. That was brought home to me recently when my oldest son delivered about six or seven boxes of junk, once belonging to me, that he had been storing in his garage. Yes, junk.

I've been on a remodeling kick of late, so in conjunction with that, I needed to go through those boxes, to see if per chance there might be something I'd actually want.

Well, here's what was in those boxes of "treasures". About 50 picture frames of various sizes (I've always been a sucker for picture frames; don't ask me why); some random photos of people I couldn't pick out of a lineup if my life depended on it; a copy of Life Magazine, "The Year In Pictures, 1986"; three sizes of embroidery hoops, along with a couple packages of unfinished cross-stitch projects; a few of those cheesy CD's ~ you know, "The Best Of...", which were actually re-recordings of songs that you really loved in their original form, but you don't so much love the re-doing of them, twenty years after the fact. A copy of National Geographic from March, 1987; the cover story titled, "North Dakota ~ Tough Times on the Prairie". Guess we can't say that now, can we??

A microphone that I think was part of my reel-to-reel tape recorder, which I haven't a clue where that is, but I would kind of like to have that. A super-8 movie camera and projector. That's cool and all, but what I am really searching for are the actual super-8 films that I shot of my kids when they were little. A movie projector without movies is sort of worthless. I will find those movies; I think they're in the back of our closet somewhere. I'll be transferring those to DVD, just as soon as I can pinpoint their location; I'm thinking in two to three years, at the most.

An instamatic camera inside its very own faux-leather carrying case with the initials CJL pasted on the back of it. AND with a film still inside it! I'm giving that back to my son, and I hope he gets the film developed. That sort of mystery is just the kind of thing that I find ultimately cool.

Some sleeves of baseball cards, all from the Minnesota Twins, circa 1987 (their championship year). I'm sincerely hoping that these belong to my son, because I don't remember being dorky enough to collect baseball cards back then, even though I was sort of a Twins fanatic in those years.

Record albums. A whole lot of record albums. I thought my son had given me all of them awhile back. Apparently not.

That's the one thing that brought a lump to my throat. Why? Well, the thing is, when I was about 16 or 17 years old, I couldn't just buy a record album on my Visa card (cuz, you know, I didn't have one, and frankly, in 1971 - 1972, Visa cards didn't actually exist).

No, I had to save up my pennies to buy an album, and I was only making seventy-five cents an hour, so you do the math.

So, I pretty much wore out those albums. I'd study the covers. In fact, I drew facsimiles of some of them (I was into drawing back then; a hobby I abandoned shortly thereafter).

So, those albums, when I saw them again, brought back a ton of memories for me. They took me back to that room, that component stereo system that I saved and saved to buy. The fact that I couldn't really sing along with the songs on those albums without disturbing whoever might be lodging in the room next door. But I really, really wanted to sing along, so it was a conundrum.

It wasn't even so much the songs on those albums. It was the albums themselves.

So, I thought I would post some pictures of those albums. Just because. The flash sort of obscures some of the pictures, but I still like them. And these, by the way, are Part II. I got the first box of albums awhile back, and I think I will post pictures of those later.

These are some that hold a whole bunch of memories for me..





















It seems from these photos that I was a huge Dolly Parton fan. Not necessarily. But it was the late sixties/early seventies, and you couldn't turn around without bumping into Porter and Dolly. Seriously. Porter by himself. Dolly on her own. Porter and Dolly, singing some of Dolly's scribbles. We were all sort of relieved, frankly, in 1973, when Conway and Loretta decided to get together, just for the variety, if nothing else.

It was basically Porter & Dolly, or the Statler Brothers. That was 1970 through 1972, in a nutshell.

I can't explain it, but seeing those album covers kind of stabs at my heart. I guess you had to be there.

So, simplifying my life involves purging superfluous stuff, and stuff that at one time meant something to me, but just doesn't anymore.

The things I have on display in my computer room now are, pictures of family, my dad's AA book and his watch, a letter from my mom, pictures of people and things that hold a special place in my heart, and some funny stuff ~ cartoons ~ because we need to remember that life, and we, are sort of ridiculous.

And what do we need, other than the people we love, and the music we love?

I think that's about it.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Songwriter Liz Anderson


Songwriter Liz Anderson passed away on October 31.

You may not know her, but you do know her songs.

After all, what would've Merle Haggard named his band, if not for this song:



And you probably thought that Merle wrote this one, but he didn't:



Apparently, embedding the video for this song has been "disabled by request" (of someone ~ I always wonder about that), but Liz wrote this for Merle and Bonnie (when there still was a Merle and Bonnie):

Sure, Liz wrote a lot of songs for her daughter, Lynn Anderson. What mother wouldn't? And what daughter wouldn't say, "Hey, Mom. I need some hit songs. Can you write some for me?" Lynn had a built-in hit machine, right at home.

Like this one:



No performance video for this, but this is another big Lynn Anderson hit (and what a sweet voice!):



There were a lot of songs written for Lynn by Liz. Unfortunately, these are all apparently relegated to the dark ages, because you can't find any videos. Nor can you even find the CD's. I seriously don't get it. Good music is good music.

When Lynn was signed to Chart Records, those albums were some of the best country albums ever. Now they're not even worth a re-release?

I looked, and I looked, but I couldn't find the album titled, "Songs My Mother Wrote", except for this link.

But if you are even slightly interested in the history of good country music, you could do way worse than buying this:

The other thing, besides great music, that endears me to Liz Anderson (and to Lynn Anderson, for that matter) is that she is from Grand Forks, North Dakota, just like me.

And, for what it's worth, I am apparently related to Liz and Lynn (at least that's what my mom and my aunt told me, and they wouldn't lie).

So, ignoring the obvious lack of palpable evidence, trust me. Liz Anderson was a great country songwriter.

And she even recorded some songs, occasionally.

Here's one that I found:



And Merle says, thank you for giving me a name for my band.