I Hate Country Music, But Not Country Songs

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shame about the title

A country song that took on a new life ....

 

Specially written by this country song writing duo ... 

 

........... Ronnie Wilkins was originally from North Carolina ....

The Daydreams were a local act that played the famous Williams Lake Dance Club (located to the NW of Clinton, Nth Carolina) ...

The Daydreams just have to be the group that cut for Dial in spring / summer 1966 & recorded a Hurley - Putman - Wilkins song ....

... maybe It was even Ronnie that got them the deal with Dial ... he had songs that he'd written cut by 2 Dial acts in 1965 ...

I made a mistake in the article .... Curly Putman DID write the dreaded D-I-V-O-R-C-E ....

14 minutes ago, Roburt said:

I have the 2nd of these CD's ... anyone know (Mark Windle?) if the tracks on the 1st one are of equal quality (I guess they are as that was the initial compilation) ??

Sounds like quite a few of these selections started out as country songs.

The tracklisting of the first one looks quite good Sam Baker - Slow Down Baby

Sam Baker - He'll Be Sorry

Sam Baker - You'd Better Check What You Got

The Mighty Men - No Way Out

The Mighty Men - I Had a Dream

The Mighty Men - You Too Much

The Mighty Men - Somethin' Else

The Mighty Men - Don't Stop Now

Rudy Greene - Oh Baby

Earl Gaines - Let Me Down Easy

Earl Gaines - Show Me Something

Dee Brown - Bad Habit

Dee Brown - Heap of People

Eddie James - Reap What You Sow

Gene Allison - Walking in the Park

Bobby Lindsey - Sugar Booger Baby

Levert Allison - Can You Handle It

Levert Allison - The Shape I'm In

Levert Allison - You Made a World

Rodge Martin - When She Touches Me

Rodge Martin - Close My Eyes

Luvenia Lewis - Let Me Be the One

Luvenia Lewis - Not Strong Enough

Dottie Clark - Since I Fell for You

Roscoe Shelton - Yesterday's Mistake

With regards to the country - R&B link in Nashville, key country 'crossover' writers and producers through the 60s included Buzz Cason, Mac Gayden and Bob Johnston (under the disguise of wife Joy Byers for contractual reasons as the rumour goes). Some songs, like Freddie North's "The Hurt", has obvious country influence, though these writers / producers involvement with black artists often leaned very much more toward true R&B / soul than country soul. Their ability to crossover from country to soul in a more than token fashion, was testament to their true musicianship, though also often with Ted Jarrett in the collaboration, who had a desire to create a soul groove more akin with the cities of the north than some country hybrid.

Folk will be aware of Buzz / Cason work with Robert Knight, Joe Simon etc. as this perhaps represents their most commercially successful endevours as far as R&B went. Joe Simon on his SS7 stuff admittedly showcases the country-soul thing perfectly  (Mac Gayden wrote a lot of his material and managed him for a while). However people forget / don't immediately realise Gayden and Cason were also involved in some of the Hit / Poncello / Spar product. Some may/ not realise that Gayden wrote Herbert Hunter's northern classic, again demonstrating the desire to capture something that was happening elsewhere,  as already mentioned. The likes of "I was born to love you" were hardly favourites on Music Row in the mid 60s. As Gerry Fleming of Athens Rogues said of that period, "Nashville could eat its young", and labels were often  just too consumed by the country machine.

 

 

Mark, no doubt your new book will deal with these matters in full ....

... do you have any info on the Daydreams ??

 

 

Re the Daydreams, nope! Sorry...

 

Percy Sludge's take on Curley's "Set Me Free" (off the 68 LP 'This is Calarence Cater')  .... also done recently by Percy Wiggins & the Bo-Keys ...

 

 

Just like soul music, there is amazing & terrible country music, to say that you hate country music is a bit of a broad stereotype 

Country music and Southern Soul are inextricable.

Doesn't matter what anyone else tells me, I HATE country music ... makes me grate my teeth & stick my fingers in my ears, it's that BAD.

Here's a soul song that the country folk picked up on ... soul version; great ...  ....   .... country ... YUKKK ... 

 

 

Southern Soul and Country have a proud and deeply satisfying connection. A good country song, performed by a soul singer is often an unbeatable combination. There are dozens examples of such a happy union.

To each his own of course but to hate the timeless music of Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris and Johnny Cash strikes me as a little extreme. 

Hey Rob how can you not like Anita Carter and Hank Williams. Such a beautiful song and there is chemistry fizzing between them LOL! 

Her sister June married Johnny Cash so one of the great Country Music dynasties going on there.

Hank Williams achieved amazing things and died aged just 29 years old. Even if you don't like his music you have to respect his talent.

I'll find a chink in your armour eventually! LOL!

 

Both country and soul share the same roots - they're forms of folk music. While the term "folk music" has taken on a different meaning over the years to something involving woollen jumpers and homely rocking chairs, it originally meant exactly what it says - the music of the people.

Both are connected intrinsically by their common theme - that in the space of three minutes, or there abouts, each song exists to tell a story. Blues, of course, just like other folk music styles such as prison songs and gospel, is all about story telling, usually in a vernacular style - and from that comes soul. 

It's interesting to note that in the 2nd half of the 60s, Atlantic made a conscious move towards country soul/blues. If I remember correctly Jerry Wexler was interviewed multiple times in the likes of Billboard magazine on exactly this topic - and it was his deliberate choice to move Atlantic from New York and the soulful South to Nashville and thus helped create a type of music for white people thinking he was doing for the same deep-pocketed Caucasians that Berry Gordy did when he blanched Detroit's "soul music". 

For me it's just as important to understand "country" music as it is "soul" if you wish to get an insight into how the latter developed. They're both intrinsically linked to the culture of the USA, and the home of the music we love.

And the ultimate conclusion for me is that hating one because it's "white" in favour of the other because it's "black" just doesn't make sense. It's all about the folk.

 

 

12 hours ago, Russell Gilbert said:

And the ultimate conclusion for me is that hating one because it's "white" in favour of the other because it's "black" just doesn't make sense. It's all about the folk.

I don't hate country music coz it's made by whites ... I hate it coz it's crap.

I love most (the vaste majority) of Muscle Shoals recordings & just about all the muscians on those tracks are white ... BUT ... they're playing good instruments in the right way .... next to no country influence at all ......

Here's one that does have a country feel to the instrumentation but the vocals are pure deep soul .... so it's great .... has a CC 'Patches' styling to it at the start but then it becomes 100% deep soul ... ... 

 

 

On 29 August 2016 at 01:20, Roburt said:

Doesn't matter hat anyone else tells me, I HATE country music ... makes me grate my teeth & stick my fingers in my ears, it's that BAD.

Here's a soul song that the country folk picked up on ... soul version; great ...  ....   .... country ... YUKKK ... 

 

 

Truly woeful fodder. Doomed the moment the songwriters believed that " brambling " could seriously be introduced into a lyric  Artists and musicians not at fault as they no doubt went along with it for the money. 

Lee Fields & The Expressions faithful take on JJ Cale's Magnolia is how it should be done. Band/Producer even had the imagination to add pedal steel guitar, not used on the original, an instrument normally reserved for country music.

1 hour ago, Roburt said:

I don't hate country music coz it's made by whites ... I hate it coz it's crap.

I love most (the vaste majority) of Muscle Shoals recordings & just about all the muscians on those tracks are white ... BUT ... they're playing good instruments in the right way .... next to no country influence at all ......

 

so when Norman Putman, Jerry Carrigan, David Briggs, Earl Montgomery,  Donnie Fritts et al left Rick Hall at Muscle Shoals and re-located to Nashville they started to play 'bad' instruments in the 'wrong' way ??

..... didn't say that.

But I will say Charley Pride (a black guy) sounds awful to me ... WHEREAS ... Eddie Hinton (a white guy) sounds bloody great.

Whatever you say, I ain't gonna change my spots after all these years, so I'd just write me off as a lost cause if I were you. Don't like / won't like country music.

I'm not sure what you are saying really.......and i'll write you off if you like but I don't really see the point in you writing these extended articles about something you don't like, why not focus on something you do?

My article is about country songs recorded by soul artists ... I DO LIKE THESE ... ... ....  just not the C&W versions of the same songs.

Rob

This will be the one to snap you out of your "I hate Country Songs by Country Artists" comfort zone.

At first you may feel a little uncomfortable but then losing those shackles will be quite exhilarating.

 

The ex wife was a Country & Western fan.
The key word in the above sentence is 'EX'.

On 29/08/2016 at 01:20, Roburt said:

 makes me grate my teeth & stick my fingers in my ears, it's that BAD.

 

If you're hearing that here I'm shocked . . . . . . and disappointed!

She's talented, and beautiful, and a Brit. And she sends shivers through me.

(Type I HATE IT if you dare. LOL!)