Andrew Smith
Crying My Heart Out Over You
This CD was released by Bear Family in 1993, and I’ve had it since then, but after listening to it again, I decided it warrants a review, especially since Bear is now selling it at a bargain price.
For hardcore, intense honky-tonk country music, Carl (1927-1992) and Pearl (1927-1998) Butler are hard to beat, and I and numerous others regret Bear Family not getting around to reissuing their 1960s output in a multi-CD box set, although Carl is represented by Bear Family’s A Blue Million Years and I Wouldn’t Change You If I Could (with the Webster Brothers). Carl and Pearl’s output on Columbia was well known for Don’t Let Me Cross Over but it’s their Sundown In Nashville that first turned me on to them; and I especially remember importing their gospel album Avenue Of Prayer in the 1970s.
This compact disc was recorded in the 1970s in Nashville with first-rate accompaniment (Joe Edwards, guitar; Jim Baker, steel guitar; Joe Zincan, bass; William Ackerman and D.J. Fontana, drums; Jerry Rivers, fiddle, and Willie Rainsford, piano). Produced by David McCormick in Nashville’s Monument Studio, it resulted in the Pedaca album Country We Love. (The Ernest Tubb Record Shop also released this album as Crying My Heart Out Over You, on the Ernest Tubb Record Shop label. This isn’t surprising since David McCormick was associated with the Ernest Tubb Record Shop).
Songs include a re-recording of Don’t Let Me Cross Over, Cryin’ My Heart Out Over You, Garden Of Shame, If Teardrops Were Pennies and others. As Ernest Tubb noted on the original sleeve notes, “Carl and Pearl Butler are pure country and have stuck to it;” and we should be grateful to Bear Family for reissuing them. The current price of only $5.60 represents a 68% price drop from $18, so if you don’t have it and like hardcore honky tonk music, I’d advise you to snap it up before it’s deleted.
