I was perusing the New York Times website the other day (yes, it's true!) and in the obituaries I saw the name Red Simpson. I thought, well, that's familiar. I vaguely remember seeing that name on lots of yellow and orange Capitol Records 45's back when I was young, stupid, and flush with life.
I didn't exactly know Red Simpson as an artist, but on those records, his name was etched in parentheses right underneath the song titles.
He was a writer. Nevermind the trucking songs, the CB radio tunes, which are a quaint snapshot of a decade most of us would rather forget.
Red Simpson wrote this song, and damn.
You know how much I love Dwight, but here is how I remember this song:
Red also co-wrote this next song with Buck Owens. I'm not going to diss on Buck, but he was known for pilfering tunes, so I'm guessing Red truly wrote this song. I used to hate it -- truly I did -- when Buck and his Buckaroos would show up on my TV screen, and Buck would do his shoulder-shrug. I thought, wow, what a half-assed song! But that might have been my love/hate relationship with Buck Owens. It wasn't exactly Red's fault.
Red was entwined with the Bakersfield Sound. Yes, that was actually a (C) capitalized thing -- Buck, and Merle Haggard (especially).
I figured he at least warranted a tiny bit of recognition -- for all the 45's I spun -- with his name on them.