My daddy, who bore a striking resemblance to Hank, was fond of singing Hank and Jimmie to us when he had a beer in him.
I knew the words to all them songs before I went to school.
But I ain’t seen that clip of Hank for a long time.
Cuts to the bone, that one.
Great thread.
Hank Williams Sr. basically invented country music as we know it today. He is the originator, but I think Merle Haggard pretty much perfected the art. He is one of the truly great songwriters in any genre of music. Even if you think you hate country music, you owe it to yourself to spend an hour someday listening to Merle (not Okie from Muskokie). Johnny Cash was also a great artist and did so much to open hearts and minds to country.
As an earlier poster said, country music has to be experienced live to be really appreciated. The atmosphere of a real honky tonk does much to bring the themes of the music alive, but the stunning levels of musicianship casually on display is what does it for me.
[color=#0000FF]Johnny Cash helped me get out of prison
Long before Rodriquez stole that goat
I’ve been the rinestone Cowboy for so long I can’t remember
And I can do you every song Hank Williams every wrote.[/color]
youtube.com/watch?v=Fr0MJ-lrdZQ
[quote=“TheGingerMan”]
& not to mention my personal favorite:
George Jones.
Nothing like his poor drunk boy blues…[/quote]
‘White Lightning’
youtube.com/watch?v=Ggkrk5In … re=related
‘She Thinks I Still Care’
youtube.com/watch?v=aL4hXVAf … re=related
‘Still Hurting’
youtube.com/watch?v=do3nr4M7 … re=related
How many of you who stand above me have walked the streets of Bakersfield? Ah, two generations - Buck and Dwight - come together:
youtube.com/watch?v=WHxSh-Sv … r_embedded
And here’s the grandaddy of’em all, the singing brakemen, Mr. Jimmy Rogers. It’s amazing how he gets so much raw distortion out of an acoustic guitar in 1927 (or whenever) but that’s due to the poor recording quality. Anyway, it’s just freakin’ amazing:
youtube.com/watch?v=qEIBmGZx … r_embedded
Yo-di-leia-dee-ho!
And this is just pure songwriting genius, writ by an Oxford scholar (no, Johnny Cash isn’t the Oxford scholar). He also wrote “Bobby McGee”, Janis Joplin’s one good tune.
This old earthquake’s gonna leave me in the poorhouse. It seems like this whole town’s insane. On the 34th floor, a gold-plated door won’t keep out the Lord’s burning rain.
That song seriously scared me as a kid, with its insane Christian fundamentalist rhetoric.
One of the meanest, nastiest breakup songs of all time. Waylon Jennings getting sweet, sweet mental revenge:
youtube.com/watch?v=JANcTGe2 … r_embedded
And the most cold-blooded, meanest break-up song of all time - The Cold Hard Facts of Life. OJ Simpson’s favorite country song.
And OK, to ameloriate the raging, homicidal misogyny of the above songs, a couple of songs for the ladies.
Hey guys? Drunken sex is not necessarily appreciated by the wife.
youtube.com/watch?v=0x3vEjHl … r_embedded
Johnny Cash’s equally talented daughter. I honestly like a lot of her songs as much as her daddy’s. Particularly this one, which I like better than any Johnny Cash song - so shoot me. “Heartaches are heroes as long as their pockets are full” - that sums up every talking bar in Taiwan!
All the Federales say…
Townes Van Zandt was one of the greats, wasn’t he? Here’s Willie and Merle covering one of his best songs. This is a C&W song that’s more “Western” than “Country”, which is a rarity. Most country songs are very country as in Appalachia or Canada but not very Western.
[quote=“Quentin”]All the Federales say…
Townes Van Zandt was one of the greats, wasn’t he? [/quote]
Fuck me dead if Townes ain’t where my soul has always been.
I especially like this one, which I play every morning, or whenever I gotta be a slave to the grind of that great big wheel of social hypocrisy…
{audio only}
youtube.com/watch?v=2JGc2CvM0EQ
[b][i]Won’t say I love you, babe,
Won’t say I need you, babe,
But I’m gonna get you babe
And I will not do you wrong.
Living’s mostly wasting time
And I’ll waste my share of mine
But it never feels to good,
So let’s don’t take too long.
You’re soft as glass
And I’m a gentle man;
We got the sky to talk about
And the earth to lie upon.
Days, up and down they come
Like rain on a conga drum
Forget most, remember some
But don’t turn none away.
Everything is not enough
And nothin’ is to much to bear.
Where you been is good and gone
All you keep is the getting there.
To live is to fly
Low and high,
So shake the dust off of your wings
And the sleep out of your eyes.
Goodbye to all my friends
It’s time to go again
Think of all the poetry
And the pickin’ down the line
I’ll miss the system here
The bottom’s low
And the treble’s clear
But it don’t pay to think to much
On things you leave behind.
I will be gone
But it won’t be long
I will be a’bringin’ back the melodies
And rhythm that I find.
We all got holes to fill
Them holes are all that’s real.
Some fall on you like a storm,
Sometimes you dig your own.
The choice is yours to make,
Time is yours to take;
Some sail upon/dive into the sea,
Some toil upon the stone.
To live is to fly
Low and high,
So shake the dust off of your wings
And the sleep out of your eyes;[/i][/b]
Shake the dust off of your wings
And the tears out of your eyes.
A thread such as this is lacking without a linking to the melodious Texas crooning and smooth musicality of Junior Brown - My Wife Thinks You’re Dead
I do hope y’all click on more of Mr. Browns videos and see a mighty fine guitar player and song stylist.
Thank Ya kindly…
[quote=“Quentin”]All the Federales say…
Townes Van Zandt was one of the greats, wasn’t he? [/quote]
Mbarrassing. I always thought that was an Emmylou Harris tune. She definitely sang it the best though. OK, well, she definitely had the best hair.
In honor of one of my favorite George Jones songs, I ordered a Porterhouse steak tonight.
[quote]I come here to tell you all I’m ragged but I’m right.
I’m a tramp and a rounder And I stay out late at night.
A Porterhouse steak three times a day for my board.
That’s more than any rounder in this whole town can afford.[/quote]
The greatest D-I-V-O-R-C-E song ever (and no, it ain’t Tammy Wynette):
[quote=“Quentin”]The greatest D-I-V-O-R-C-E song ever (and no, it ain’t Tammy Wynette):
youtube.com/watch?v=04RJyFCg7ks[/quote]
Ahem, you may not have noticed, psssssst: satire and talk about great C&W don’t really mix well in polite public (for the same reason that it ain’t legal anymore to shoot fish in a barrel…or should be illegal anyway). 
If you’re really interested in the greatest D-I-V-O-R-C-E song ever, then you wanna hear Iris DeMent’s youtube-less “Easy’s Getting Harder Every Day.” If you’ve ever survived the death of a relationship you were invested in 110% - and watched helplessly as this tragedy played out over a couple years or so on America’s Great Plains, a place with a sky so big that everybody really does come to think radio towers send other signals and straight to the id - then you gotta have a cold cold heart indeed if’n yer knuckles don’t whiten up a bit at this:
We make love and then we kiss goodnight,
He rolls over and he’s out like a light.
But I ain’t mad about it, we got nothing to talk about anyway.
The lights are blinking on the radio tower.
And I lie awake and stare at them for hours and hours,
‘Cause easy’s gettin’ harder every day.
When it comes to losin’ the lonely, that’s just about as good as it gets in country music, you ask me. ymmv.
Great post Flike.
Thanks.
Despite my rich cultural and musical heritage of my particular state, I am envious - there is no greater homage to a state in the Union than this little ditty, the magnificent “Blue Moon of Kentucky”:
youtube.com/watch?v=ffhqOy_A … r_embedded
Yes, sir, that is just about amazing. “Jazz for hillbillies” as they put it.