Welcome to the second page of my all-too-brief survey of classic honkytonk music and hillbilly boogie, two blues-influenced country styles that took off after the Second World War. The records reviewed here are (sadly) all on CD, which means a lot of great old stuff that has yet to be reissued won't be included here. Still, I think you'll like what you see. I'm not trying to be super-complete in this section, just to point out some albums that I think are particularly tasty, and maybe recommend some artists that you might not have checked out yet.
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Wayne Raney "Songs From The Hills" (King)
Harmonica player and guitarist Wayne Raney was a big behind-the-scenes pat of the rhythmic ooomph of the Delmore Brothers sound, as well as many other hillbilly records on the King label. This album collected a bunch of his solo material, including his big hit, "Why Don't You Haul Off And Love Me?" All the music on here is pretty top-notch, and the disc is well worth checking out. The biggest surprise is that the CD version on Highland Records (one of many heirs to the King catalog) has really good sound quality, certainly better than on the LP reissues of the early '80. Highly recommended.
Jean Shepard "Honky-Tonk Heroine: Classic Capitol Recordings: 1952-1964" (Country Music Foundation, 1995)
For my money, Jean Shepard was the greatest female country singer of the 1950s... Musically, her records are uniformly solid right up through the late '60s, and she had the perfect "country" voice. This collection is incredible -- it brings out the best of her hard-nosed honkytonk sensibility. Shepard specialized in "heart songs" -- hard luck tales of love pining for love -- but she seldom played the same sort of whiny, emotional doormat roles as other "girl" singers of the era. Shepard's tunes tended to be morality lessons, but angry ones, as she pointed an accusing finger at unfaithful lovers and cautioned other young women not to fool around with married men. Her assertive, sometimes rather blunt approach is a clear role model for the stuff Loretta Lynn did in the '60s, although Shepard seldom took on overt novelty songs, like the ones Loretta specialized in. It's always kind of amazed me that such an uncompromised female viewpoint was given such latitude in the conservative atmosphere of the early Nashville scene, but I guess it's hard to knock such undeniable talent. This is still the only significant US reissue of her work out there... and it's well worth looking for!
Jimmie Skinner "From The Beginning To Fame" (Binge Discs, 1997)
Jimmie Skinner "22 Greatest Hits" (Highland Music, 1997)
One of the great overlooked Jimmie Rodgers-derived honkytonkers of the 1950s, Skinner's best stuff is still sadly unavailable here in the States. He had some fair-sized hits on Mercury Records during the 1950s, but sank out of sight in the early '60s. Some of his oldies, such as "I Found My Girl In The Good Old USA", are present on the Highland CD, but sadly they are not in their original form -- these seem to be re-recordings with dubious sound quality. Thank goodness for the German label, Binge Discs, which has put together a killer collection of Skinner's best stuff, recorded between 1949-1961. The hits aren't on here (presumably to avoid a lawsuit), but the slew of lesser-known tracks is just as great, if not greater, to listen to. The debt to Ernest Tubb is obvious, although Skinner, with a voice that often clumsily breaks out of his blusier phrases, has an endearing quality all his own. Plus, the material is just great. The early songs include a lot of snappy, hard luck and cold-hearted lyrics as well as sappy heartsongs galore. Later on, as country adapted to the rock era, Skinner's stuff took on a bouncy lope, as on tracks like "Don't Let Your Love Get You Down". The major labels aren't likely to reissue much of Skinner's work anytime soon, so this import disc is definitely worth looking for.
Wynn Stewart -- see artist discography
Hank Thompson -- see artist discography
Floyd Tillman "The Best Of..." (Collector's Choice, 1998)
One of the great old pioneers of Texas honkytonk, Floyd Tillman was a honkytonk legend's honkytonk legend, an expressive and compelling singer, as well as the guy that Willie Nelson looked up to when he was starting out as a songwriter. Tillman's musical style was profoundly understated and influential. Half Ernest Tubb, half Bing Crosby, Tillman made the most of an unremarkable voice, blending his froggy tones with curlicued jazz phrasings that were seldom heard in the boozy honkytonk of the late 1940s. He was also the kind of singer who pours heartfelt delivery into the most maudlin lyrics, with impressive results. His waltz-time weeper, "I Love You So Much It Hurts" is one of the most sincerely melancholy ballads ever written; though released in 1948, it still holds a real wallop for the unsuspecting modern-day listener. Tillman also helped stretch the lyrical boundaries of country music: "Slippin' Around" was one of the first honkytonk songs to deal openly and sympathetically with the subject of adultery. In the 1950s, as slick-sounding Nashville took over country music, Tillman was left by the wayside, and by and large his music has languished out of print for decades. This new CD, with 24 tracks, greatly expands on the scarce Best Of and Columbia Historic Edition LPs which came out in the '70s and '80s. It's a treasure trove of the best that country music has to offer -- highly recommended!
Floyd Tillman "Country Music Hall Of Fame Series" (MCA, 1991)
Out of print, but well worth looking for, this collection includes material from Tillman's 1939-1944 on Decca... In his early years he wasn't as soulful or as croony as he got later on, and his style is still very close to that of to Ernest Tubb. He's still hella cool, though, and still one of honkytonk's great neglected artists. If you see this collection, snap it up.
Merle Travis "Sweet Temptation: The Best Of Merle Travis" (Razor & Tie, 2000)
A dandy 20-track collection of one of the post-war country scene's biggest stars... Travis invented a unique guitar picking style (known, oddly enough, as "Travis picking") that influenced the sound of Chet Atkins (and all country lead guitarists that came after him). Travis also perfected a showmanship that brought country's vaudeville tradition into an urbane, cosmopolitan mainstream, singing with a suave easiness that mirrored what Bing Crosby was doing in the pop world. He had several huge postwar hits -- all of which are on here -- and a witty, warm delivery that can later be heard in the bouncy honkytonk of his friend, Hank Thompson. This is a pretty nice collection -- a notch or two above a similar set put out about a decade ago by Rhino Records.
Merle Travis "The Merle Travis Story - 24 Greatest Hits" (CMH Records, 1989)
Decades after his '40s/'50s heyday, Merle Travis was still going strong, and throughout the 1980s, CMH Records captured him in a series of double-LPs which, unlikely as it seems, are now minor classics, and this CD distills the best of these latter-day recordings. Like the numerous post-war era radio transcription discs that are bubbling to the surface these days, this captures a slick, confident show-biz professional, a guy going through a well-set repertoire, but still able to infuse every performance with humor and warmth. The difference is that here Travis has an added aura of maturity -- he always projected the air of a master musician, but recording in his golden years added a philosophical glow to these old chestnuts. Perhaps you've looked at these old CMH albums and thought, "Yeah, sure... the old guy must have lost his edge by then...!" If so, you'd be very, very surprised at how sharp and vital these recordings are. Recommended!
Ernest Tubb "The Definitive Hits Collection" (Collector's Choice, 2001)
Breathe a sigh of relief -- at last, justice has been done! This is perhaps the single longest-overdue country reissue in America, since Ernest Tubb's recorded legacy is probably one of the most criminally neglected in all of popular music history. Tubb (or "E.T.," as he was affectionately known) was a major pioneer of Texas honkytonk, though he mostly stuck to the clean-cut family values side of the bar; singing love songs, love lost songs and novelty tunes. Tubb was also one of the biggest sellers Decca Records had in the 1940s and '50s. Although monumental, multi-box retrospectives have been mounted by Bear Family, back here in the States E.T. has been mostly left on the backburner for the last three or four decades. To a certain extent you can see why -- striking though his music is, the songs all do sound a lot alike, and at first glance the appeal may seem a bit limited. But Tubb was a phenomenally soulful performer, and with the exploding interest in country and roots music of all kinds during the last few years, it's always been a mystery why MCA Music has been so damn stingy about cashing in on the hard country goldmine of Tubb's back catalog. (MCA is the corporate heir to the Decca label, whose fortunes Tubb helped build in the 1940s...) The label has limited their domestic reissues to meagre single-CD releases -- now at last we get the strong, 2-CD set that should satisfy the curious and the collector alike. Classic, prime recordings from the early '40s rub shoulders with material from the '50s and '60s... Although his wonderful duets with Loretta Lynn are conspicuously absent, other collaborations with folks such as Red Foley and the Wilburn Brothers are included, along with a generous and intelligently-chosen selection of his extensive catalog. No country fan should be without this collection.
Ernest Tubb "Country Music Hall Of Fame Series" (MCA, 1991)
If you see this, snap it up. It's a very solid -- though woefully inadequate -- collection, featuring the original '40s versions of E.T. hits such as "Walking The Floor Over You" and "Letters Have No Arms," which are sublime. For years, this MCA disc was the only Ernest Tubb record in print domestically, outside of a few random releases on collector labels. Rhino Records and Rounder have both helped fill the void with specialty issues, but the only other alternatives are Bear Family's exhaustive bazillion CD box sets (and 144 Tubb tracks in a row might be a bit too much just about anyone...) or a few tasty LPs which came out on the Cowgirlboy label, which are out of print and hard to find anyway. Once you get hooked on Tubb, though, these sixteen tracks are hardly enough.
Ernest Tubb "The Best Of: The Millenium Collection" (MCA, 2000)
While Columbia and Capitol have been doing bang-up reissues of many of their classic country artists, MCA still treats this stuff strictly as cheapie budget label fodder. This 12-song CD is a prime, though rather embarrassing, example. In an era when fans have grown used to reissue CDs of 20+ songs in length, why even bother issuing an album as slight as this? I mean, really -- with somebody like Tubb, a dead artist whose company-owned catalog includes thousands of great recordings to pick from, why skimp at all? Sure, the sound quality and track selection is great... and the budget pricing is nice, but if you're a crazy record collector nerd, the real issue is shelf space: a 12-song CD is a hard sell in an era when the same six centimeters on your CD rack can just as easily accomodate a disc with twice as much material on it. Still, if you're new to Tubb's stuff, and you can't listen to any of the great old vinyl releases, I'd strongly recommend you pick this disc up, though a better bet would be the CDs listed above.
Hank Williams "40 Greatest Hits" (Polydor, 1978)
For many, Hank Williams is the ultimate honkytonk hero, and, indeed, you won't find me saying anything bad about anything he ever recorded. Of course, after his untimely death in 1953, old Hank has been a major cash-cow for the assorted record companies that have owned his material, and his catalog has been pretty thoroughly mined, combed over, remixed and repackaged over the years. Not until the very end of the vinyl era, though, was much thought given to releasing his music as he recorded it... Countless "fake" stereo LPs came out on MGM and other labels, with bad vocal overdubs and the like. It wasn't until this double LP collection (now a 2-CD set) came out in 1978 that the general public had a chance to hear Hank at his gloomy, hell-bent, bone-rattling monophonic best. Sure, there are your various fancy Japanese imports or collosal everything-he-ever-done box sets, but this collection really has most everything the average listener could want, including dozens of great hits such as "Hey, Good Lookin'", "Mind Your Own Business", "Why Don't You Love Me?", "Move It On Over" and "You Win Again". It's pretty awesome. Of course, if this isn't enough for you, there's still all that expensive stuff as well... but this should make you plenty happy, in a bummed out kind of way.
Hank Williams "Alone With His Guitar" (Mercury/Universal, 2000)
Keeping in mind what I said above, it's also pretty nice that super-cool discs like this can still pop up and surprise us all. This set of solo acoustic tracks has a lot going for it, not the least of which is that it is all in unadulterated mono and that the song selection tends towards lesser-known material, including Hank covering a lot of stuff written by other folks. These old demos and radio broadcasts give us a nice glimpse of Hank as a working artist, rather than just the country music demigod we all know and love today. Since I personally will never, ever be able to afford the fab rarities box set that this material originally appeared, it sure is nice to hear it on one single, affordable CD. Highly recommended!
Faron Young - see artist discography
Various Artists "HILLBILLY BOOGIE!" (Columbia Legacy, 1994)
Strictly speaking, this isn't all "hillbilly boogie"... there's an awful lot of western swing on here as well, and plenty of uptempo honkytonk. Regardless, this is some of the most enjoyable old country you're likely to come across, including tunes like "Beer Bottle Mama", "Drinking My Troubles Away", and the hilarious, meat-murderin' "Hamburger Hop". Big name artists like Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell and Johnny Bond share disc space with small fry such as Smiley Maxedon, Andy Reynolds, and Paul Howard & His Cotton Pickers. A budget-priced major-label release that matches the same snap, fire, and sense of humor as similar records on the Krazy Kat label. HIGHLY recommended!
Other Country Artists
Country Reissue Labels
Hick Music Index
