Showing posts with label gene watson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gene watson. Show all posts

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Me And The Seventies

 

I'm not sure why I have a love/hate relationship with the decade of the 1970's. Truthfully, it was the most impactful decade of my life. I was young enough to experience every moment; not yet so old that the years ran together like a muddy river.

I came of age in the seventies. I was still a high school girl from '70 to '73; I got married for the first time in 1974, and I became a mother twice over between 1976 and 1978. I also landed my first "real" job and quickly learned that work was something to endure rather than enjoy. It wasn't fulfilling; it was a slog ~ a slog of menial tasks and a morass of neurotic coworkers.

Maybe I've dismissed the 1970's because I didn't particularly like the person I was then. 

If "clueless" was an actual term back then, clueless was my middle name. I was painfully naive about life. Not that it was necessarily my fault. My family wasn't exactly The Cleavers. In fact, my dad, if he worked at all, played at being a part-time bartender. But truth be told, he spent most of his time planted on a stool on the other side of the bar he owned. Thus my mother was perpetually angry. She'd carefully mapped out a way to better their lot in life by abandoning farming and purchasing a business, a motel/bar combo, but she ended up doing all the work while my dad played. Everybody always knew my dad was an alcoholic, but he kept the demons at bay simply by the responsibilities of planting and harvesting the wheat and potato fields. Give him a bar right next door, however, and a woman who could be relied on to shoulder all the work, and he was lured to whiskey like a child offered candy from a pervert in a van. 

Thus my home life consisted of pots and pans slamming and a cold shoulder. I escaped to the quiet of my room and fashioned my own sanctuary. I had one actual friend and a handful of acquaintances I only interacted with in the school hallway or in whatever classes we happened to share. 

My inner life was consumed by the music I let wash over me. I collected albums and cheap electronics, like a JC Penney reel-to-reel tape recorder and a "stereo component set", which set me back an outrageous hundred dollars, which I'd amassed from my many summer hours of cleaning motel rooms. I stayed up 'til three or four in the morning during summer vacations, my ear glued to the radio, the third component of my new stereo setup. I tuned the dial to WHO and WBAP and if the heavens allowed, WSM. I fancied myself a singer and recorded three-part harmonies on my reel-to-reel. (I actually wasn't as bad as I thought at the time.) I typed up music "newsletters" on the manual typewriter I'd somehow claimed from my mom, who'd bought it with the intent of producing motel invoices.

My life was insular.

So, I never learned much of anything except how to swish out a toilet and make hospital corners. I could fry up a grilled cheese sandwich and stir together some Kraft macaroni and cheese, which I did whenever my mom was busy manning the motel desk and Dad was, naturally, indisposed. Nobody at home ever talked to anyone else. I had a little brother and sister, who I think I must have conversed with at some point, but they were little kids, after all. How much could we have in common?

I was on my own, a strange amalgam of independence and naivete. Anything I learned, I discovered through experimentation and failure. My mom never went clothes shopping with me or taught me about makeup. I employed my talent for observation to simulate what the other girls my age were doing and I mimicked them. 

I did learn how to smoke, however, all on my own. Smoking wasn't so much cool, per se, as it was another means of escape. 

The music that dominated my senior year in high school was an incongruent mix of country at home and rock blaring from the car radio of my best friend's beige Buick (No, I hadn't yet learned how to drive, either). Alice and I dragged Main Street on Friday and sometimes Saturday nights, singing along to Stuck In The Middle With You and Drift Away and The Joker.


 

Our tastes in country singles matched, too ~ Ride Me Down Easy, Southern Lovin', Here Comes The World Again. 


 

I met my first husband on one of those Main Street runs. I thought the friend he was with was better looking, but the four of us matched up more or less according to height.

My future husband was older and had lived on his own, so he knew how to cook, whereas I did not. I could man a mean vacuum cleaner, though. We married in 1974 and since no one we knew actually rented an apartment, the thought never even crossed our minds. Instead we trudged down the highway from my parents' motel to a mobile home lot and were bamboozled into paying far too much money for a 12 by 66-foot tin box. I was thrilled. Finally something of my own that didn't require proximity to two crazed ultimate fighters.

We furnished our home with a Sears green and white flowered sofa and a set of K-Mart tables, among other cheap amenities. K-Mart and Woolworth's were my go-to's for curtains and bedspreads and collapsible nightstands. I brought my bed and my TV from my motel hideaway. That first Christmas I plopped a two-foot plastic tree atop a table and decorated it with home-crafted ornaments (it didn't require many). We inherited a console stereo, which claimed one wall of the living room and after work I spun Emmylou Harris's Elite Hotel (loved that album) and one by someone named LaCosta, who it turned out was Tanya Tucker's sister. 


The communal radio at work was tuned to rock, so I still had one foot in that world. Sundown, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and Mockingbird were the order of the day.

(Not to state the obvious, James, but those drugs seem to really be kicking in.)



My first son was born in November of 1976. I worked up until his birth, albeit not at that soul-sucking job I'd landed right out of high school. Truly, that place was yet one more dysfunctional family, but I wasn't tied to them by blood, so I bailed. Where did I go? Well, shoot, back to Mom and Dad. In my defense, however, Dad was newly sober and had become an actual human being, and thus my mom was ninety per cent less frenzied. 

Once I delivered my son, however, I retired. I loved it. Achingly poor, yet happy. I knew it couldn't last, but I was willing to forego a Country Kitchen breakfast and a couple of new LP's if it meant watching my baby grow. Anyway, I still had the radio:



And I hadn't abandoned country completely.

(although this is kind of skirting the country line)

 

                                           (whereas this is definitely country)

In March of '78 when I became pregnant for the second time, we traded up to a fourteen by seventy-eight-foot mobile home with three bedrooms. Those extra two feet wide, boy, felt like a palace, Still a tin palace that sounded like Armageddon during a hailstorm

In December I gave birth to my second son and I knew my mom-time was fast waning.

In rock, nothing much struck me. This track was considered "rock", but come on. It's Roy Orbison dressed up in a new package:


 I dipped my toe back into country music, kind of as a farewell to the decade.


 

In essence, despite all signs to the contrary, I grew up in the seventies. And yes, I did eventually learn how to cook. I also learned how real life works, how to stop apologizing for my talents; how to wrangle two toddlers into a car and motor over to the mall and come out the exit doors sane. How to soothe colic. How to fall in love with an unlovable dog who loved no one but me. How a clothes dryer works so much better if one occasionally cleans the lint filter. How linens dried on a fresh-air clothesline smell so delectable. How to coax houseplants to flourish. 

How a baby's giggle is manna from heaven. 

In ten short years I went from a self-involved, self-pitying victim to an actual grown-up human. 


I was the last person to see that coming.


 

Sunday, January 23, 2022

Dallas Frazier

 
 
The first time I saw Dallas Frazier's name was in the liner notes of Connie Smith's "The Best Of Connie Smith" album in 1967.

Thereafter, his name kept popping up, like on this one:

Before long his name was everywhere. As one who was coming to country music as a neophyte, I paid attention to "important" names. It seemed this Dallas Frazier guy was important.



 

So, I met Dallas Frazier via Connie Smith.

Frazier started out as a prodigy vocalist, at age fourteen, then went on to write novelty songs like Alley Oop, recorded by the Hollywood Argyles in 1957. It wasn't until he moved to Nashville that his songwriting career took off -- and boy, did it. Different songwriters dominated the country scene depending upon the era. In the late fifties/early sixties it was Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard. By the mid-sixties/early seventies Dallas Frazier assumed the mantle.

A few examples:


 

(rendered by the songwriter himself)
 

 
 
Naturally, this is the song that is Dallas Frazier's claim to fame:
 
(Oh, you like it; admit it.)

I readily admit I don't know every single song Dallas Frazier ever wrote. But this one is probably my favorite:

(sorry, no decent live performance to be found)

In 1976 Dallas Frazier retired from the music business and became an ordained minister, which is sublimely cool. As poetic as his written words were, I bet he gave a helluva sermon.

Dallas Frazier passed away on January 14, 2022, and the country angels cried. I'm sure he saved some souls along the way, whether through his preaching or via my preferred way ~ a crisp, succinct musical message.

RIP, Dallas Frazier.

Friday, August 14, 2020

2020 Country Music Hall Of Fame Inductees - Part 2

 

I have few quibbles about Hank Williams, Jr. being inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame, other than there are better and more successful artists who could have claimed that spot.

I am not a Hank Jr. fan, but then I'm not a fan of southern rock. I never "got" the Allman Brothers or any jam band, southern or not. Musical taste is personal and inexplicable. Hank has rabid, rabid fans who have been praying for his induction for decades, so good for him and for them.

There was a time, prior to his transformation, when he was still singing country music, that I rather liked him. He has never had a strong singing voice, more of a shout, but he recorded some very decent country tracks. Once he abandoned traditional country music, he did score three or four number one hits, which are the ones most non-country fans know: All My Rowdy Friends Are Comin' Over Tonight (or the Monday Night Football theme), Born To Boogie, possibly All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down). 

He did record a track I liked:

Don't get me wrong; I don't hate every Hank Jr. recording:


For those who are curious, Hank was an entirely different performer prior to his mountain climbing accident. Maybe that's why he always refers to himself in third person.

In his acceptance speech, Hank said, “Bocephus has been eyeing this one for awhile." It's like that Seinfeld episode in which Jimmy keeps calling himself Jimmy and all the characters think he's talking about a different guy. Elaine even agrees to go on a date with "Jimmy". I don't care for the affectation; maybe it's a way for Hank to keep himself at arms-length from his fans.

Maybe I'm wrong about Hank's success. My country music site of choice states he's had: 70 millions records sold, 5 total wins for Entertainer of the Year from the CMA and ACM Awards, 6 platinum records and 20 gold ones, 13 #1 albums, and 10 #1 singles. That's not what Wikipedia shows, but again I'm not going to quibble. 

I've attended many, many country concerts in my life. I've only walked out on one. It was the seventies and very few fans were aware that Hank, Jr. was now a "new" artist. None of his southern rock ditties were blasting out of the radio speakers yet. It was a shock -- the vast majority of the audience came to see the Hank we knew, and instead we were presented with a motley collection of Skynryd wanna-be's. Many of us left. In my defense, it was kind of false advertising. But I got used to the new Hank after a while. I may have even purchased the "Born To Boogie" single; can't remember.

So, congrats to Bocephus. I've got my fingers crossed for Gene Watson for future honors, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll settle for Tanya Tucker, though.




Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Record Collections

Ever know someone who's a collector? These are guys (and trust me, they're always guys) who relish the hunt, not the plunder. Of their approximately 978 record albums, they probably play five, tops.

That's how it is with collections. I'm guilty. I've collected thousands of individual tracks and full CD's through the years, but I mostly surf over to SiriusXM to be surprised. I recently retrieved my personal PC after months of working on a loaned company computer (thanks, COVID), and today I decided to remind myself of all the tracks I'd ripped.

After hours of deleting duplicates (one of the joys of retirement is infinite time), I decided to bestow stars upon the songs I like best...today. The dilemma is choosing between three and four stars. "I really like this track, but does it deserve a superior ranking?"

Five stars can be intimidating as well. Do I go with songs that are classic or just honor my gut and choose the ones I love? I went with love.

The interesting outcome of this experiment is the number of really mediocre tracks I ripped. I think I just wanted to own them. In case. In case a nuclear incident transpired and all I was left with (remarkably) was my personal computer. In the ragged aftermath I might have a hankering to hear Barbara Fairchild.

I own hundreds of physical CD's, but if I ever chose to pop one into my disc drive, I would need to be suffering from one-song withdrawals.



Instead I rely on my uploads.

My Windows Media Player is a really fun app -- it no longer allows me to rip CD's, so if I don't have something on my computer I really really need, I am forced to purchase it from Amazon, even though it's here, sitting on my shelf. Microsoft rocks. Today, in fact, I purchased "Dreaming My Dreams" by Waylon. I have no cognizance of why I never ripped it when my WMP worked, but clearly I did not. However, it was vital that I added it to my collection, because it is a five-star single.

The results of my star ratings? Well, there are approximately three Beatle tracks that merit five stars, although not the ones anyone but me would pick. Elton, too, represents. California Girls shows up as first on the list. Otherwise, I'm stone country.  George Strait has at least three; Gene Watson is a treasure. Then it's an eclectic mix, demonstrating my superior musical taste. Jerry Lee, Gordon Lightfoot, Johnny Bush, Highway 101, Mark Chesnutt, Marty Robbins, Ray Price. Roy Orbison.




Face it, it doesn't get much better than this:





I'm feeling good that I chose wisely.














Friday, June 5, 2020

One Week


Surreality.

It was approximately a year ago when I began marking "lasts"..."this is the last time I'll..."

My job has distinct seasons. Summer is more laid back and allows one time to think and create. It was approximately a year ago that I formed my events committee. My goal was to form a cohesive unit out of a gaggle of hermits who kept their faces glued to their screens 99.9% of the day. Together my work group devised activities that made people laugh and actually converse with one another. Also, food helped. Maybe the biggest mark I made on my department was the formation of the Star Catchers (not my name ~ it was a group vote).

As winter approaches, the department becomes busier and scurrier. There is much to be accomplished before the year ends, and long hours ensue. Many days I alighted at my office before sunup and left for home in the dark. This was not my favorite time of year. So, one of my countdowns was "one more year of reinsurance".

I naively thought I could count down other day-to-day activities, but that was before Corona showed up and made us all flee to the confines of our homes to work remotely. I'd envisioned a going-away party, during which I would tell everyone how much I treasured them and would miss them. Ehh. I guess I can email a few people next week.

Today as I was working, it suddenly hit me how much I know about what I do. I'm not normally a claim examiner ~ training is my responsibility ~ but in these times, I do whatever needs to be done. So as I was processing claims, I was transported back to the many weeks I sat next to a new employee in the training room and guided them through the intricacies of their brand-new job. I found today that I'm pretty good at it. Some like to know how to follow each step; the good ones also can intuit when to question something. It's not an easy skill to instill. Maybe it only comes with years and years of experience. In a week I can discard all of that, I guess. 

I feel inexplicably sad, but I must remind myself of the alternative. How many more years could I carry on with this? Every single thing has to end.

Tomorrow I shall go into the office for the first time since March 16. I will clean out my desk and dump my belongings into a cardboard box. The office is deserted, so I'll be able to say goodbye to my cubicle unimpeded. Tomorrow I will cry a tear.


Things I did this week:


  • I don't even know how Monday zoomed to Friday. This was the fastest week in history. 


Things I learned this week:


  • The Ace In The Hole SiriusXM channel is no more. It was delicious while it lasted.



So I did little and learned even less. That's how it goes when things are winding down. 













Saturday, October 5, 2019

"Country Music" ~ What Ken Missed


At the outset, Ken determined that the focus of his country music series would be Johnny Cash. I don't know why, but I can guess. As a non-country fan who probably is a subscriber to Rolling Stone Magazine, Cash took on a sheen; became a sort of demigod in Burns' eyes. Ken needed someone to wrap his episodes around, and who better? Cash led a melodramatic life. He had it all ~ family tragedy, rockabilly roots, substance abuse, infidelity; plus he sired a hugely successful daughter. The continuum.

The commenters on the one country music site I frequent invariably mentioned their dismay with Burns' absorption with Johnny Cash, to the exclusion of many deserving artists. It's a shame, really. A lost opportunity.

I've already talked about the complete disrespect shown to George Strait, but there are others.

Here, to me, are the most glaring omissions:

Jerry Lee Lewis ~ Ken spent a lot of time, quizzically on Elvis Presley. Not once was there a time when Elvis was even remotely country. His label-mate on Sun Records, however, not only is one of the most phenomenal artists of all time, but Jerry Lee Lewis actually had a successful country career. Nowhere in this eight-part series did Jerry Lee get a single mention. And, unlike Elvis, Jerry Lee actually loves music, country or otherwise. Jerry Lee is not a caricature.



Ray Price ~ We caught a glimpse of Ray Price somewhere within episode five or six, or something. I don't remember, but it was in the context of talking about some other artist. Had Ken been at all curious, he would have found that Ray Price was the country singer of the fifties and early sixties. No, not Hank Snow or Roy Acuff ~ Ray Price. And since Ken seems to have a fascination with Nudie suits, who better? But let's be frank:  Willie can thank his lucky stars that Ray Price recorded Night Life, and Roger Miller would not have had a career at all without Invitation To The Blues. Bill Anderson? How about City Lights? I could go on, but Ray can speak for himself:



 

Don Gibson ~ I'm not a fan of Don's singing, but that's not what made him iconic. He wrote many of the songs that were heavily featured (by other artists) in the series: I Can't Stop Loving You (Ray Charles), Sweet Dreams (Patsy Cline); as well as (I'd Be A) Legend In My Time (Ronnie Milsap) and Just One Time (Connie Smith), and many others. To feature those artists and not include the man who wrote the songs is inexcusable.



Don Rich ~ I've heard Buck Owens' recording of Together Again when he sang harmony with himself. Trust me, Don Rich hit that song out of the park. There wasn't enough focus on iconic bands overall in this series. The Strangers (and Bonnie Owens' contribution to Merle's sound) received no mention. The declaration that Roy Nichols was in someone else's band when Merle snatched him up went mostly unnoticed.

Don Rich was the heart of the Buckaroos, and if Buck was still alive, he'd say the same. Everything changed after Don died. He was the bandleader, he was the Telecaster master, he was the harmony singer extraordinaire.



Gene Watson ~ Country music was soooo in the doldrums in 1975. We had Tanya Tucker and...well, that's about it. I was working a menial job that allowed me to carry my portable radio around with me when I heard Love In The Hot Afternoon, and I was transfixed. This guy could sing, and he hadn't even yet shown off his best stuff:



Glen Campbell ~ Glen wasn't just some guy who had a network television show, but that's what one would glean from Ken Burns' dismissive reference to him. In the late sixties, one could not flip on their radio without hearing a Campbell song, ad nauseum, I would add. But damn ~ he deserved some love in this series, and he got zero.



Marty Robbins ~ come on! I know Ken is not a country aficionado, but Marty Robbins? Did Ken at least watch Breaking Bad?



Tanya Tucker ~ She was thirteen and I was seventeen and hotly jealous when my radio started playing Delta Dawn. Ken talked about Brenda Lee (who I love), but no reference to this phenom? Ken, Ken.



There are other niggling points, but these are the standouts to me; in addition to George, of course, who deserved far better. I could forgive a few, but it seems so obvious to me that country icons, regardless of whether they did or didn't sing about prisons, shouldn't have been ignored.

A couple less seconds about Johnny's Rick Rubin recordings and a few more about artists that country fans revere could have sent this series into the stratosphere.




Saturday, April 6, 2019

On The Cutting Edge ~ Country Music 1975



I don't know if I was obstinate or if I just liked what I liked.

In 1975, everybody was fixated on Rhinestone Cowboy and stupid-ass CB radios that no one actually owned except long-haul truckers. Sure, I bought some of the singles seizing the charts (I bought lots and lots of '45's, because they were one of the few things I could afford), but my tastes ran to more obscure, and by "obscure" I mean stone-country tracks.

I was newly married and non-pregnant, although I did possess a preternaturally pampered dog (my first baby). I was loose and carefree, so when my mom and dad proposed a car trip to Texas to visit my sister, I said, why not?

Long car trips sound romantic in novels and memoirs, but they're just basically....long. Kansas wheat fields shed their fascination after approximately five minutes. The most exciting part of a thousand-mile trip is the "Truck Stop - Two Miles Ahead" road sign. Ahh, bathrooms and a short stack of pancakes! One has to play it carefully, however ~ don't drink too much coffee or Dad'll be grouchy when you beg him to pull off at a rest stop just ten miles down the road.

Dad loved driving his jaundice-tinted Lincoln. Ever since he acquired actual money in his late forties, he treated himself to a new car every year when the leaves began to mutate and crumple. The Lincoln was a butt-ugly conveyance, but roomy! Four people (and one dog) could ride comfortably with room for about four more. In the front seat, Mom and Dad rarely conversed except when, after scouring the map, she'd yell, "Turn here!" and he turned the wrong direction, and she'd scold, "I said here! Here!" I mostly ignored the clamor ~ it was business as usual between them. We did a bit of backtracking on the Texas quest, but no real harm was done, except to Mom's blood pressure reading.

(lost)

Unlike the tin can I drove, the Lincoln at least had radio speakers in the rear window deck. Although FM radio was a "thing", Dad always tuned the car radio to the closest AM station in proximity. Listening to music through radio static is a lost art. One has to listen really closely.

This is a song I liked. Forgive the "elderly" David Allen Coe performance, but the only other live set I could find was even sweatier and substance-fueled:




Asleep At The Wheel was a big act in Texas, but in North Dakota, it was "Asleep at the what??" As we meandered further and further south, this song buzzed through the speakers a lot:


Dad always turned the volume knob on the radio as high as he could for this song, and I like it because I like my dad:


Recent Hall of Fame inductee Ray Stevens released a wondrous album in 1975 ~ Dad even had an eight-track cartridge of it, and Dad only owned four eight-tracks. I think I actually bought a few eight-tracks myself, but the technology was asinine. A song would abruptly stop right in the middle and one would have to eject the plastic behemoth and flip it over to hear the second half of the song. And by then, the mood was totally lost.

Here is a track from that album ~ no live performance to be found ~ but still...



The quality of this video is extremely poor, but Tanya Tucker was hot, hot in '75, and I liked this one:


BJ Thomas's voice is like honey; there is no denying. This definitely wasn't stone-country, but who could resist?




There were three brand-new voices in '75, and here is one:


Here is two (no live video performance to be found):



We made it to Fort Worth, Texas fully intact. My sister Carole made up the sofa bed in her den and took Mom on a shopping excursion to Kroger's. She pulled her coffeemaker off a high shelf and brewed up some Folger's for Dad each morning. My dog wasn't happy with Carole's dog and just wanted to get the hell out and go home (my dog was a bit of a snob). We sauntered over to a nearby lake and ordered catfish from a roadside stand (the absolute worst, most vomit-inducing excuse for "fish" I've ever had the displeasure of biting into. The hush puppies were good, though.)

As for country music, I mentioned there were three new voices in '75. Here is the best:


As unassumingly goofy as my dad was, I sure miss him. I'd travel down the road with him anytime.



Friday, March 30, 2018

1975 ~ More Life and Country Music


I write a lot about the sixties, because like most people, my teenage years were my most momentous.

Life, however, did not stop when the next decade began. If the mid-sixties were tumultuous, the early seventies were just as confusing; perhaps even more so. Unlike kids today who are twelve-going-on-twenty, I was nineteen-going-on-twelve. I was wholly unprepared for life, but impatient to get it started. I missed out on a lot of stuff in my teen years due to the jittery dysfunction of home life ~ things like how to grow up to be a regular person. I appropriated bits from my best friend's family dynamic and combined that with daydreams of how things were supposed to work.

I operated on instinct. I was trying to cram six years of learning into six months. Every little experience I tucked away for future reference.

My life in a nutshell:
  • I graduated from high school.
  • I got a job.
  • I found a boyfriend.
  • I got married.

Things went wrong from the beginning. 

My first "real" job (which means, not working for my parents) turned out to be an echo of the same queasiness I'd fought so hard to get away from.

My boyfriend (soon to be husband) was a mismatch from Day One. I knew it, but did nothing to stop it, because I needed to get away.

I (and by "I", I mean I) picked out our new home ~ a nice 14 by 60 mobile home parked on the sales lot that had black-and-white linoleum and harvest gold appliances and long-looped green shag carpets. I didn't even know one had to pay an electric bill or a gas bill or lot rent. Or pay money for food. My parents didn't have love, but they had money. Thus, while my mom insisted that I purchase my own clothes for school, I never had to lay out one thin dime for anything except my reel-to-reel tape recorder and my JC Penney component stereo.

I took my teenage bed to my new marriage home and someone (in-laws, I believe) gifted us with a tufted Sears sofa. We filled in the other missing pieces with particle-board end tables and a round cardboard "bedside stand" that looked great as long as it was draped with an FW Woolworth table topper.

I quit the crazy State job after nine-or-so months and informed my parents I would now be back working for them. I can't believe they let me, but they had other fish to fry at the time, like my dad going berserk on booze and my mom trying to find a way to offload him onto somebody who'd lift her burden.

It wasn't all daisies and cumulus clouds working for Mom and Dad. I cleaned motel rooms. The weird thing was, I liked it. I liked working alone. It was the first time I'd ever been left with nothing but my own thoughts. It was heaven! I didn't have to answer to anyone. I had my portable radio that I carried with me from room to room, and I lived a life that I couldn't quite describe or put my finger on, but it felt like freedom.

1975 was my bridge year. I wasn't yet pregnant ~ I was still technically a kid. Life held possibilities, although I'd kind of smothered those by choosing to marry the first guy who asked me. My dream life, however, was completely awesome.

And the music on my radio was magical.

It's not so much that the music of 1975 was notable, but some of it was:




I didn't even like this song so much, but I remember it:


These were songs that, when I talked to the people in my life, they could not relate to, but they nodded and pretended they understood. My mom liked Conway Twitty and my dad didn't like anything except "Paloma Blanca". My husband was a go-along, get-along kind of guy who didn't understand this whole music thing, but mollified me.

BJ Thomas had captivated me in 1968 with his "Eyes Of A New York Woman", and now he was singing country. Country fans were as snobbish as rock fans, except country was more like a secret club. Even in '75 one did not advertise that they liked country music. To admit it would subject oneself to a cultural shaming. So, "we" disdained any artist who appropriated country -- John Denver, especially; but also Olivia Newton-John, even though we secretly sort of liked them. To me, BJ Thomas sounded country, and "the sound" was prime.


There was a new guy who appeared on my radio. He reminded me a bit of Jerry Lee, and he played piano like Jerry Lee Lewis, too. Die-hard country fans know authenticity when we hear it. Gary Stewart was authentic. It makes me sad to watch Gary's videos, because life did not turn out well for him, but he was, for a brief moment, a star. And he deserved it.


Another guy who showed up in...well, technically, 1974...but was huge in '75, was Ronnie Milsap. I always think of Gary Stewart and Ronnie Milsap in the same parcel, because they (contrary to what you may have been told) were the the most shimmering stars of 1975.


Female singers didn't spring up like male singers did. The ratio of male country artists to female is approximately 95 to 1. Really -- make a list.

I was at home, kneeling on my green shag carpet, fiddling with the dials on my console stereo, when this voice piped through the radio speakers. I was puzzled. She wasn't Dolly, nor Loretta. I didn't know who the heck she was, and I knew everybody. I didn't know her because she was new. Soon to be "not new". I rushed down to my local Woolworth's store and purchased, for $3.99, her album called "Elite Hotel".


Everybody thought Ray Stevens was a fool, including Ray Stevens. He was a novelty act, albeit a clever one. At my rancid State job in 1974, I was subjected to "The Streak" approximately 20,152 times on the radio. But Ray could do other stuff, when he set his mind to it:


 
It's difficult to describe the pop culture of the mid-seventies to someone who was not there. We had our radios and our TV's, and that's it. The big three networks would only feature country artists who weren't too "country", "Hee Haw" aside (CBS would soon purge that program). The only place we'd ever see country artists was on variety shows, but they were all abuzz with Jim Stafford and, of course, novelties.

Here are the top two country singles of 1975. You can guess how I felt about them:




I didn't begin to like Glen Campbell until somewhere around the 2000's. As for CW McCall, well, we don't hear a lot of covers of "Convoy", do we? And just for the record, nobody had CB radios. Nobody.

Music was my lifeline in 1975. I was adrift and didn't even acknowledge it. Like all of us, I sauntered through my days focused on inconsequential things. Life hadn't exactly turned out right, try as I did to make it so. All I had that made any sense was music, and I don't dwell on that time. I hurt for the semi-person I was then.

Maybe that's why I don't pen a lot of posts about the seventies.






Saturday, January 13, 2018

1975 And Me And Country


1975 was a bridge year for me. I'd experienced life in the real working world and found I didn't care for it. I was playing at being married but didn't completely grasp the concept. Shoot, I was twenty. Nobody should ever -- ever -- get married at age nineteen. In the seventies, though, it was expected. To be honest, I wasn't even quite nineteen when I got married. I became pregnant in early 1976, so nineteen seventy-five was the last time I lived life in a semi-independent state. I'd gone back to working for Mom and Dad, not so much because I'd failed in the outside world, but because I was more comfortable working alone -- without the drama. Yes, I was cleaning motel rooms, but I had my portable radio that I carried with me from unit to unit, and that was all I needed. Alice had moved on. She worked for the Bank of North Dakota, and frankly, things were never the same with her once I changed my life status by getting hitched. In my defense, at least I found a husband who wasn't two decades older than me, and my marriage lasted far longer than her ill-fated coupling.

Musically, I was alone. It's funny how one gloms onto music based on what others like or buy. Nineteen seventy-five was the first time since 1964 I actually had to rely on myself to choose what music to like or not like.

Not that the music was necessarily good, but one plucks the best from the paltry offerings bestowed upon helpless listeners by the local DJ. It's a misnomer that pop culture wasn't as pivotal in the seventies as it is now. In fact, it was probably more crucial, because there was so much less access to it. One would stay up way past one's bedtime (if they had to get up at six a.m. to get to work) just to see a particular artist on The Tonight Show, because this might be our one and only chance. Record it? On what -- my reel-to-reel? We endured a lot of sickly-sweet variety shows, sat through Gallagher's "comedy" act, simply to see ABBA lip-sync one song. I suffered through Hee Haw for the musical vignettes. Choice? There was no "choice", unless one "chose" to get up off the sofa and flip the dial on the TV to CBS or ABC.

Radio was the same. We had a country station. ONE country station. You took what you got, heard the same pre-recorded local news stories every hour on the hour. Found out that it was "partly cloudy" without even venturing outside whichever room we were currently sanitizing the toilet of, with our scrub brush and a can of Comet.

It's interesting to learn which singles hit the top of the charts in '75 -- and which ones didn't. Funny, the ones I remember best are the ones that didn't. The ones that did, I don't care if I ever hear, ever again.

Like this one:



I remember that Mom and Dad were enamored with this song and I don't know why. Three-chord songs can be great -- shoot, Merle Haggard even recorded a two-chord song that was extraordinary. But a three-chord song needs a bit of oomph -- something to break up the monotony. Freddy Fender's single didn't have that, unless one counts the tink-tinkling of a tiny sad guitar.

This next song would be good if it hadn't been sung by Conway Twitty. Readers of this blog know that I just never got on board with Conway. I can't put my finger on why exactly. People are people; some like chocolate; some detest it. Again, Mom (especially) loved Conway Twitty. Ish. But that was Mom.


I never gave the song a second thought until I watched George Strait perform it in concert. Then I thought, wow, this is a good song! (It's all about the singer, folks.)

Dolly Parton was recording odd things that had queer melodies. I guess it was a phase. "Jolene" was bad enough, but "Bargain Store" was worse. I won't subject you to any of these, but since she charted at number one with the thrift shop ditty, I felt an obligation to mention it. I essentially gave up on Dolly once she parted ways with Porter.

Just like now, even at age twenty I gravitated toward "country" songs. You know, there's country and then there's "country". There's a difference. True lovers of country music know.

I loved Gary Stewart the first time I heard him (and saw him). I was always drawn to artists who were a bit different; intriguing. Those who I wondered, "what's up with this guy?" Gary Stewart didn't have a classic country voice. It was a bit high for the rugged country stalwarts of the time. A tenor, I guess. Of course, I love Faron Young, who was also a tenor, so perhaps my ear is attuned that way. I also appreciated that he played piano. Gary had a sad life, and it's kind of a punch in the gut to know how it all ended. I saw Gary Stewart in concert once, from my perch in the nosebleed seats of the Civic Center. I'm really glad I did.

I don't know why he's not playing piano here, the way I remember him, but here is "She's Acting Single":


I'm not going to wait until the end of this post to feature the song that defines nineteen seventy-five for me. Writers (good writers) would say, save the best for last, but the song has been on my mind. There was this new guy, someone whose name I'd never before heard, that apparently my local DJ really liked, because he played this single a lot. No, it wasn't classic country. Yes, it was good -- captivating. I remember wheeling my maid's cart to the next room down the row and hearing the intro to this song squawk out of my radio; then hurrying into the room with my portable and flipping up the volume:


To me, Gene Watson is like Mark Chesnutt -- sorely underestimated. Except to those of us who know, really know country. If you want your guts ripped out, listen to "Farewell Party". I can't believe that "Love In The Hot Afternoon" only reached number three on the charts. I could have sworn, and that long-ago DJ could attest, that it was a number one -- with a four-decade bullet.

In 1975 I detested John Denver. John Denver was everything that country music wasn't. And to top it off, the stupid CMA rewarded him with the coveted Entertainer of the Year statuette. For what? Yelling, "Far out!"? I mean, come on. I don't know what exactly John Denver was -- my husband's friend could perhaps illuminate, because he loves the guy. My friend Alice also told me, in our sole telephone conversation in '75, about how she was "into" John Denver, and my brain registered, "okay?"

My hatred has since softened, as all hatred naturally does as the years tick by. Guys (and gals) I once detested, I've learned, actually have something to offer. One needs to knock that chip off their shoulder and truly listen. And I will admit (now) that this song had something:




Okay, hello? I just realized that Roger Miller is playing fiddle here, and Glen Campbell is strumming the banjo. What was this? Some kind of country super band?

Another artist I think I saw once live really dominated the early nineteen seventies. I'd first heard Ronnie Milsap in 1974, with his Cap'n Crunch song, and he subsequently had hit after hit after hit. 

This is one of his best:


The first time I remember hearing BJ Thomas was around 1968, with "Eyes Of A New York Woman". His was a voice I tucked inside my pocket and pulled out when I wanted to hear a good, country-pop, but mostly (come on) country singer. 

This song was a number one in 1975, and you know it's catchy. Give it up! I even bought a Chipmunks album for my toddler son sometime around 1980 that featured this song. And divining music critic that he was at age two, he gave it two chubby thumbs up:




So, you can have your Outlaws and In-Laws and Jessie's. Oh, and don't forget your Tompall's. 

That's not what 1975 was for me. And since I was there, I have a say in the matter.

Oh, that picture at the top? Yea, I found this girl by accident. Maybe a snippet of a song played on my local station, and maybe I thought, hmmm, she sounds good! This gal was an album act. One could not experience Emmylou Harris without listening to a full album. "Elite Hotel" was the first of many Emmylou albums I would buy. 

The thing about Emmylou is, she didn't forget. She brought back the old, reveled in the new, but cherished what came before. I like that. Everything isn't new. Sometimes it's old and the old is a treasure. Maybe you just forgot to listen the first time.






Sunday, September 3, 2017

They Did Have Music In 1975

(Irony)

I was confused in many ways in 1975. I'd forgotten that until I took a glance at the top hits of the year, and then it all came back.

I was twenty years old, newly married; torn between my new home and my old, dysfunctional life. Funny thing about dysfunction -- you think you yearn to get away from it, but it pulls you back because that's your "normal". The thing regular people don't understand about kids of alcoholics is, you glom onto the familiar, as awful as it is, for dear life; because that's what you know. It's safe -- in a psychotic way.

I kept coming back. I'd tried the real world and didn't like it much. I'd had a regular job for a year; a job that pulled me deep into new dysfunction. I didn't know if it followed me like a heavy cloud or if the whole world was crazy. (In hindsight, I realize that, yes, the whole world is crazy; but I was young and naive.) Nevertheless, I fled -- back to the waiting arms of my parents who didn't exactly welcome me home, but who needed an able-bodied motel maid who could pick up the task with no training.

I wasn't ready to live my own life. I was scared of the world. I no longer had a best friend who'd slay the dragons for me. My marriage was one of convenience; a couple of kids who thought they could do no better. I had no connection to my husband. We struggled to tolerate one another. Mom and Dad were nuts, but they were at least nuts that I knew intimately.
Musically, life revolved around songs that other people liked. It wasn't that I didn't have definite tastes of my own, but I sublimated those, because I was a scared coward and afraid of being scorned if I expressed an opinion.

Mom and Dad had a long walnut console stereo in the corner of the living room. Dad was enthralled, for a while, with a guy who made a record imitating Richard Nixon -- David Frye, I think his name was. Dad thought Frye was hilarious. I found it tedious after the hundredth listen. 

The stereo also had a slot where one could shove eight-track tapes in. Eight-tracks were one of those failed musical experiments. Eight-tracks came on the scene just prior to cassette tapes. They were portable, if one had an automobile that accommodated them. The big drawback of eight-tracks was that the tape stopped smack-dab in the middle of a song and one had to flip the tape over and re-shove it into the slot to hear the rest of the song. That sort of ruined the whole musical experience. Dad had Ray Stevens and a couple of other artists I no longer remember. In total, he owned three eight-track tapes, so I heard Ray Stevens over and over and over.

In an effort to imitate a normal life, Mom purchased LP's that she played on the console. In my opinion then, Mom didn't actually like music -- she was a pretender. Today I have decided to give Mom a break. Who actually doesn't like music? Everybody likes music in some form. She did, though, seem a slave to the charts; as if she had no musical opinions of her own and had to rely on the words of the local DJ to tell her what was good. In reality, she was in love with Ray Price, who she considered a "hunk". I, on the other hand, didn't judge music by how the artist looked. Shoot, I thought Eddie Rabbitt was a country god, and he was ugly as sin.

My mom and dad played singles like this on their ugly coffin-like stereo console:





Mom was always buying records by artists like Billy "Crash" Craddock and Conway Twitty and Mac Davis. Usually they weren't even number one songs. I have somehow come into possession of all Mom's singles and I recognize only a paltry few. I think maybe she was simply a '45 collector.

Dad loved this next song. One of his idiosyncrasies was that he loved Latin music; all the better if the lyrics were in Spanish. Dad knew no Spanish, but I guess it just sounded nice to him.  


Thanks to one of Dad's three eight-track tapes, I love this next track still today:


After my work day was done, or after one of our interminable family gatherings, I went home and played the singles I liked -- on my own crappy (JC Penney) stereo -- which was, of course, better because it had detachable speakers and it didn't look like someone had just been sprinkled with holy water inside it.


Best song, bar none, of 1975:



Weirdly, Tanya Tucker has very few live performance videos on YouTube. Who does she think she is -- Prince? Nevertheless, in '75, Tanya was still a hot artist. I like this one (with guest vocals by Glen):



There was this new girl who appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. She was doing old songs (old songs -- even ones I didn't know). I bought her first album because I liked her sound; I knew nothing about her. Here is a sample (with guest appearance on mandolin by a very young Vince Gill):


Merle was still going strong. Unfortunately there are no live videos of this song, just like all of Merle's seventies hits. I don't know where he went, but he wasn't appearing on TV anymore. 


I won't feature songs by Ronnie Milsap and Gary Stewart, because I've recently featured them in other posts, but suffice it to say, the three big artists for me in 1975 were Gene, Ronnie, and Gary.

And, of course, Glen Campbell had the number one hit of the year, but if you want more of Glen, please see Still On The Line

Now, the elephant in the room:

Like many (most) country fans in 1975, I resented interlopers swooping in and collecting country awards. They were trying to change country. I didn't want country changed. I liked it just fine, thank you. It started in 1974 with a girl who had three names -- and she wasn't even American! Sure, "If You Love Me, Let Me Know" was catchy. She didn't, however, have a tear in her voice; and where was the twang? Yea, she would later go on to star in one of the guiltiest of movie pleasures of all time, but I didn't know that! I wasn't telepathic! And she won the 1974 CMA female vocalist of the year award! Over Loretta Lynn and Tanya!

Then it got only worse. In 1975, previous Entertainer of the Year Charlie Rich fetched a lighter out of his pocket and set fire to the card that announced the new award winner. (I just gotta say, that was one of the very best entertainment spectacles of all time. Kudos, Charlie!) 

I had an intense, fiery hatred for the new guy. I didn't know what he was supposed to be -- was he country or folk or some weird hybrid? He seemed to me like a pretender -- somebody who was trolling for award trophies. The very last time I talked to Alice on the phone, she informed me that she was really "into" this new guy, and I thought scornfully, well, she's gone over to the other side. How ironic. The person who'd originally tugged me into the bright light that was country had now become a turncoat. Thanks, and, oh -- enjoy your Roberta Flack records.

I can't say that I ever became a huge John Denver fan, but I grew to appreciate him. "Take Me Home, Country Roads" is a sublime song (although not written by John). This, however, made JD soar to the heights of country music stardom:




This post could have ended with John Denver, but oh no....

Much like eight-track tapes, 1975 was the year of completely unnecessary inventions. Remember those old K-Tel commercials for things nobody knew they wanted, and actually didn't want? The pocket fisherman was probably my favorite. Because one never knows when they'll be strolling down a sunny path on their break from the business meeting and thinks, damn! If only I had a fishing rod, I could reel in some of those tasty trout! 

And don't forget Mr. Microphone!


Well, CB radios were just as useless! From what I can gather, long-haul truckers used CB radios to tell other truckers where the "smokies" were hiding out. Not really germane for someone like me, who traversed The Strip about seven miles from home to work. And not exactly relevant for anyone. Regardless, CB's became the latest fad. They were like Rubik's cubes -- completely pointless and needlessly aggravating. The mid-seventies were a time of bumpkins who would fall for anything. Seriously. We loved lime green and orange. And afghans, preferably in orange and lime green hues. And shiny, slippery polyester. Honestly, the seventies, in my mind, are a low-hanging, foreboding cloud. They're best forgotten, as if they'd never happened.

Without further comment, here is "Convoy":


Can I be blamed for being confused in '75? It was a confusing, confounding time. I wasn't quite an adult, although I pretended to be -- yearned to be. Music was a bridge, albeit tottering, from my old life to my new. 

And it was about to get worse....

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Buying Country Albums Was An Exercise In Futility

...yet I bought them.

Most people probably can't relate to my particular musical circumstances. I was one of the diehard country fans in the nineteen seventies who was not enamored with Johnny Cash. That left me options that were paltry. Johnny Cash was a persona. He wasn't a country artist; he was a folk singer. His three-chord ditties could be done by anyone -- heck, even I did them and I was a putrid guitar player. His songs were boom-chicka, boom-chicka, boom-chicka, boom-chicka. That's it. If it wasn't for the man that Cash was, he probably wouldn't have even gotten a recording contract. Country music, to me, was twin fiddles, steel guitar, and a voice that cried. I was a purist in a sea of muddy productions that yearned to be "relevant", which wasn't the allure of country music at all.

Looking back, John Denver was probably more country than the so-called country artists of the era. The Eagles were more country than the country hit-makers. No wonder Olivia Newton-John won Female Vocalist of the Year at the 1974 CMA's.

I liked Connie Smith, Faron Young, Merle, Johnny Rodriguez, and Gene Watson. In my early twenties, I was a fossil.

The new gal, Barbara Mandrell, had potential. There's no denying she was cute. She was tiny with huge hair. She could actually play an instrument. She liked real country, until she didn't. By the time she was sleeping single in a double bed, I was over her. Before that, though, she did songs that were "updated" country -- still country, but bowing to the hipness of the nineteen seventies. I wanted to be hip, too, so I decided Barbara would be my new go-to girl.

She did songs like this:



And this:


So I bought the Midnight Angel album. It had one good song, and that was the title track. That was my life of buying country albums, yet I persisted. It was apparently important to have that album cover on one's shelf. 

I bought Dave and Sugar. That's a relic of the seventies, if ever there was one.



Country albums were a retail lie. Stick the number one single on it and the rubes will buy it. Three dollars and ninety-nine cents in the bank!

The only artist who was making actual albums in the seventies was Merle. 





You can't count "Wanted:  The Outlaws". That was a slapped-together conglomeration of outtakes, the brainchild of a prescient record producer.

Certainly there were some other stellar albums released during the decade.



...but sadly, very few.

If one was to purchase albums, to, I guess, have on their shelf (singles were so much more prudent -- no waste -- and by the seventies, marked down to eighty-nine cents), here are some of the better bets:











Folks who don't know think the seventies were Kenny Rogers and Willie and Dolly. In fact, those artists were "almost eighties". There was a long-spanning decade between Tammy Wynette and Janie Fricke. One had to root out the Crystals and the Sylvias from the Gene Watsons. And trust me, there was a world of difference. If only for Gene Watson, the seventies were worth the pain.

Music is music is music. The vast majority of it is bad. We need to remember the jewels.

I still don't know what I'll ever do with my Barbara Mandrell albums, though.