Showing posts with label jim ed brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jim ed brown. 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.


 

Friday, June 19, 2015

Jim Ed Brown

Relics? I suppose. I prefer "gems".

Jim Ed Brown died June 11 at the age of 81. For those of us of a certain age, we well remember Jim Ed. No, I'm not old enough to remember the Browns when they were topping the charts, but I know their songs, and you probably do, too. A family trio, Jim Ed, Maxine, and Bonnie, had a monstrous hit in 1959.


For something a bit peppier, here are Jim Ed and Maxine (Bonnie's whereabouts are unknown) doing "Looking Back To See", which was later recorded by Buck Owens and Susan Raye (more relics!):


But I didn't get to know Jim Ed until 1967, when he began a string of solo hits, starting with this one:


If 1967 is too mind-blowing for you, maybe you'll recognize the name Alan Jackson from his Under The Influence album:


But enough about the youngsters. In 1970 Jim Ed had another hit with the song, "Morning". Alas, there is no embeddable video to be found, but trust me, it was a good song. If you'd like to view a live performance, here it is.

My fondest memory of Jim Ed Brown was a 1973 graduation road trip I took with my best friend, Alice. We cranked the windows down and the radio up and sang along with "Southern Lovin'". Naturally, I can't find a live performance from 1973 (because video didn't exist then?), but here is a later performance (doesn't quite do the song justice):



Later Jim Ed teamed up with Helen Cornelius and they scored some major hits, including this number one recording from 1976 (oh, I was a mom by then!):


Of course, there were the inevitable rumors about the duo - I don't know what's true or not true, and don't care. But frankly, they were both a little long in the tooth by that time to worry about "having" to get married. Nevertheless.

If you watch Jim Ed in this video and others, you'll notice his easy way with a melody. Perhaps it was familial, genetic - all the better. A good singing voice is made up of good genes, let's face it. Lots of us love to sing, but few of us can without a stretch (speaking for myself).

Jim Ed Brown was one of those artists who was beloved in Nashville, not as a relic, but as a gem. Witness the Bluebird Cafe (the real one, not the "TV" one) tribute, featuring Jeannie Seely, Mo Pitney, and Jimmy Fortune (of the Statlers):



Rest in peace, Jim Ed. Say "hey" to Alice when you see her. In fact, you two should do a duet. She knows all the old songs, just like me.













Saturday, October 25, 2008

The CMA Awards - 1977

Hey, are you still with me? I'm still here, counting down the CMA awards for each year. You thought I'd give up by now, didn't you? Ha! I haven't! Hey, I'm going to at least get through the seventies. And who knows? Maybe I'll even go on to the eighties!

What can one say about 1977? I don't know. I barely remember it myself. I guess I was busy changing diapers and being pregnant. That kind of takes your mind off music.

I think at that time I still had the console stereo (with the velvet inserts) that I'd been given by my parents. I'm thinking we moved up to the Bang & Olufsen sometime in 1979. On credit.

So, if you asked me to recall who actually were the big country music stars in 1977, I honestly couldn't have told you. Of course, I've looked now, so I know. The years kind of ran together for me around that time.

The sort of nice thing about that time period was that an artist could be famous for "awhile" before that fame was snatched away from them and bestowed upon the newest "thing". Unlike now. "Oh, Keith Urban? He's so 2007." At least in the seventies, they gave people a couple or three years.

Thus, some of the award winners were "repeats" from previous years. Such as:

VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

The Statler Brothers


INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR


Roy Clark

There was a new contender, however, for VOCAL DUO OF THE YEAR, which was sort of refreshing, after several years of Porter & Dolly and Conway & Loretta.

Jumping on the bandwagon of "duet singing" this year were good old Jim Ed Brown (of the Browns) and his partner Helen Cornelius.

Remember this one?



Oh sure. They're singing in the old folks' home. And they're a bit long in the tooth to be worrying about unintended pregnancy. But still. You gotta admit, Jim Ed and Helen can still sing it. I always liked this song. It was kind of a throwback to those fifties pop ditties, albeit with a completely different subject matter.

FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR

Crystal Gayle


Hey, this song was all over the radio in 1977. In fact, it was so "all over the radio" that I don't really care to hear it ever again.

That said, it was certainly a big hit for Crystal (of the long, long, flowing locks). Crystal (nee Brenda Webb) is, of course, Loretta Lynn's kid sister. So, that did help her get a recording contract. But she pulled her own weight, at least with this song. But you've gotta admit, Crystal was mostly famous for her really, really long hair. Which is a weird thing to be famous for, when you think about it.

And it kind of put her in a bind, I would think. Even if she wanted to go with the latest "do", it would be extremely bad publicity for her. I don't think she ever had the option of cutting her hair into a "shag". And just think of the extra weight she was carrying around. Yea, when she was 21, it was no big deal. But now she's old and arthritic, and she's still hauling that hair around. Kind of a burden.

Anyway, here's a performance by Crystal (Brenda) from 1977 of, of course, Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue:



Sadly, I saw Crystal about a year or so ago, doing one of those PBS specials, called "Hits of the Seventies" or something, and you could really tell that she just didn't give a damn about that song anymore. Basically, she sang it like this: "dontknowwhenivebeensoblue......youvefoundsomeonenew.....anddontitmakemybrowneyesblue". But you have to sing it in a really slurry voice. As if you've had one too many apple 'tini's. Which is probably what it took to make her sing that song again. Can't really blame her.

INSTRUMENTAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

Original Texas Playboys


I can get aboard this! This is some really good music! Unfortunately, it was a couple of decades too late, but still! Bob Wills was famous in the forties and fifties. And here it was, 1977, and his band finally got an award. "Oops, we forgot!"

I think it was probably Asleep At The Wheel who reminded voters how good Texas swing music was. So, thanks, AATW!

This video is, of course, not the original Texas Playboys, cuz, first of all, it's from 2005, and secondly, they'd have to be about 108 years old to be still doing this, and I'm kind of leery about that. Anyway, here they are:



SINGLE OF THE YEAR

SONG OF THE YEAR


Lucille
- recorded by Kenny Rogers; written by Roger Bowling and Hal Bynum



It's easy to forget how huge Kenny Rogers was in 1977. Cuz it was over 30 years ago, after all. But, trust me, he was huge. I saw him in concert around 1980 in Duluth, Minnesota, and the stadium was packed. And this was even before "The Gambler". Kenny had a knack for picking timeless songs, and "Lucille" is timeless. Kudos to the writers!

And it's nice to see Kenny pre-facelift. I mean, have you seen him lately?? He's got those weird eyes, sort of like the depictions of those space aliens who've kidnapped people and taken them aboard their spaceship. I think Kenny has a guaranteed class action suit there.

The big winner of 1977 was indisputably Ronnie Milsap. Here's what he won:

ALBUM OF THE YEAR - Ronnie Milsap Live

MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR


ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR

Obviously, I've posted a whole bunch of Ronnie Milsap videos in previous posts, but here's one I haven't yet posted. I'm a big, big Ronnie Milsap fan, so I don't mind searching out Ronnie videos.



COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME

Merle Travis

This is a really poor video, but this is the guy who wrote "Sixteen Tons", so he deserves his moment in the spotlight. Merle also wrote "Dark As A Dungeon". I'm a fan of those dark songs, so I'm on board with this, absolutely.



Of course, this is the famous version. Tennessee Ernie Ford. That's kind of a relic of the past, isn't it? I vaguely remember when ol' Tennessee was a big media star. I was about 4 or 5 years old at the time. So, that's basically the dark ages. But here he is:



Here's Guy Clark's version of Dark As A Dungeon:



I really enjoyed this performance!

Thus ends our look back to the year 1977 in CMA history.

Not bad, eh?