Phoebe White: Country Music Through and Through
James Akenson Folks are always looking for The Next Big Thing in Country Music. Some folks are looking to SAVE Country Music. Despair and anxiety about the state of Country Music is not at all new. The despair over Bro Country with the likes of Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line, the lack of […]
The Hank Williams Connection
Andrew Smith This single, 33-track CD comprises versions of Hank Williams songs by other artists, ranging from hard-core country to rockabilly and popular (including big-band) music. Its release in late 2023 marked the centenary of Hank’s birth (on September 17, 1923) and, arguably, close to the anniversary of his death, purportedly on January 1, 1953. […]
Sanford Clark – Rocks
Andrew Smith This Bear Family 31-track CD highlights some of Sanford Clark’s output between 1956 and 1967 for their “Rocks” series. Best known for his hit, The Fool and a minor hit follow-up, A Cheat (both with guitar by Al Casey), Clark was a pleasant-voiced rockabilly and country performer who was associated for much of […]
Bill Carter – Ramblin’ Fever
Andrew Smith Bear Family have issued yet another interesting, budget priced, and fully documented double-CD set with this release. Bill Carter, its featured artist, recorded country and rockabilly music from 1953 until 1961. He was born in 1929 in Arkansas; his family moved to Oklahoma in 1937 and then California in 1943. He performed locally […]
Augie Meyers – High Texas Rider
Andrew Smith Augie Meyers features on another album in Bear Family’s On The Honky Tonk Highway series. Perhaps best described as “Texas Country,” tracks on this entertaining 26-track album run the gamut from anthems to Texas (Deed To Texas, Deep In The Heart Of Texas, Sun Shines Down On Me In Texas, High Texas Rider), […]
On the Honky Tonk Highway with Jeannie C. Riley
Andrew Smith “She was an excellent singer, a true singer, in the same league as Patsy Cline or Connie Smith in terms of range, clarity, and expressed feelings,” wrote Martin Hawkins about Jeannie C. Riley in the booklet accompanying this outstanding Bear Family reissue. “She was the real deal, a genuine country sounding singer but […]
Gary Williams – The Traveling’ Blues Boy
Andrew Smith I was introduced to Gary Williams during late 1970s when I imported his A Tribute To Jimmie Rodgers vinyl album on the German Folk Variety label (FV 12013). (Folk Variety was the forerunner of Bear Family.) At the time, there were two other Folk Variety albums of his (My Reflection, FV 12004, and […]
Willie Nelson – Bluegrass
Andrew Smith Continuing in the tradition of mainstream country singers who have recorded “Bluegrass” albums – from Rose Maddox (Sings Bluegrass, 1962), Porter Wagoner (The Bluegrass Story, 1964), George Jones and Melba Montgomery (Bluegrass Hootenanny, 1964) through Carl Smith (Sings Bluegrass, 1971), Buck Owens’ album of Bluegrass standards (Ruby, 1971), the award winning Dolly […]
XMAS, MOJO, Bob Dylan, Bobcats, and a Good Bit More
James Akenson Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat. Well, not really since we won’t even order one from a mail order catalog like Mackenzie. It may be September, but out here on the Ponderosa time flies. It will soon be time to think about the outside Christmas lighting and then a tree in […]
On The Honky Tonk Highway with The Brother Boys
Andrew Smith The Brother Boys, founded in the late 1980s by Ed Snodderly and Eugene Wolf, are from East Tennessee. They’re still active today, performing music that has been described as “new hillbilly”. Alana Nash characterised it as “a smart amalgam of the tongue-and-groove vocal harmony of the Wilburn Brothers, the lonesome quality of […]