COUNTRY MUSIC CLASSICS
Doug Davis
Owner/Publisher/Manager/Editor/
Writer/Gopher/Chief Cook & Bottle Washer
Thursday April 23rd, 2015
CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE AT www.countrymusicclassics.com -
http://www.countrymusicclassics.com
Email: Classics@countrymusicclassics.com
STORY BEHIND THE SONG
Most songs are written because the writer or writers intended to write a song
but according to Wayne Carson - Conway Twitty's 1982 number one "The Clown" was
not one of those tunes!
Wayne commented "I was visiting my friends Charlie Chalmers and Sandra Rhodes in
Arkansas and we had spent the day fishing plus some talking and drinking. By two
the next morning we were sitting on the front lawn and we were down to just
talking and drinking. We walked down to the river. I looked at Brenda Barnett
with her wet hair down in her face and I told her she looked like a little
clown. And within just a few minutes - "The Clown" was written."
Conway Twity recorded the song for his Elektra Records album "Southern Comfort."
The single entered the country music charts January 30th, 1982 and made the top
of the list on April 17th.
It was Conway's 64th charted song and was on the charts for 17 weeks.
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q: I thought George strait and quit the music business but my daughter says he
has a new record. Is that true?
A: Strait retired from touring but not from recording. He has just released
his first single for the year and has signed a five album deal with his longtime
label MCA Records.
Q: I've heard about a new Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard album titled "Django
And Jimmie." Does that title mean something?
A: The title track of the new project is about Django Reinhardt, who
influenced Willie's guitar playing and Jimmie Rodgers, one of Merle's heroes.
Q: I heard the radio folks talking about Hank Williams Jr. and a downtown
Nashville gig. What is that all about?
A: Hank Jr. headlined the April 10th NRA Country Jam on Lower Broadway in
Nashville, Tennessee and dew an estimated 70,000 visitors
Q: A group from our church is planning a trip to Dollywood this summer. Do you
know of any gospel concerts scheduled?
A: Dollywood has scheduled "Rock The Smokies" a contemporary Christian event
on September 5th and the "National Southern Gospel and Harvest Celebration"
October 2nd thru 31st.
Q: My brother in law says years ago he wrote a song titled "I'm A Victim Of
Life's Circumstances" and someone stole it from him and had a hit record. I'm
sure he didn't write the song but do you know who did?
A: According to the record books, "Victim Of Life's Circumstances" was written
by Delbert McClinton and was a number 40 hit for Vince Gill in 1984.
Q: I know the old song "Blues Stay Away From Me" has been recorded by several
singers but has anyone had a hit on that song?
A: Eddie Crosby, The Delmore Brothers, Owen Bradley, and Chris Austin had
charted versions of "Blues Stay Away From Me."
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A T T E N T I O N: R A D I O S T A T I O N S:
Our short form daily radio feature, Story Behind The Song is now
available to radio
stations.
NOT AVAILABLE TO INTERNET STATIONS)
The feature is available at no charge.
For information, email me at
classics@countrymusicclassics.com
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NUMBER ONES ON THIS DATE
1945
Smoke on the Water - Bob Wills
1953
Your Cheatin Heart - Hank Williams
1961
Dont Worry - Marty Robbins
1969
Galveston - Glen Campbell
1977
Shes Got You - Loretta Lynn
1985
I Need More of You - Bellamy Brothers
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THE CHICKEN COOP.
By: Jack Blanchard
Here is the way I remember this adventure.
We didn't think they had rednecks in New Jersey.
We were wrong.
We had just finished a concert at the classy Garden State Art Center,
and were looking on the map for our next booking...
a place called The Chicken Coop, in Vineland, New Jersey.
We pulled into the gravel parking lot
and up to a wooden barn-like building.
The lot was almost full of trucks.
The crowd was there... waiting for us.
We went in and I heard somebody say,
"Get a load of this bunch" about us.
We had longish hair and this was 1970.
The stage had a chicken wire screen
so the patrons could not throw anything solid at us.
I sneaked a glance at the crowd
and told our guitar player, Wayne Bridge,
to get out his steel instead of the lead guitar.
People were all either scowling, laughing, or sneering at us,
or so it seemed in my imagination.
We got plugged in
and opened with a fast country shuffle beat.
The folks were surprised but sort of quiet.
We didn't now what to expect.
At the end, the applause was deafening!
One gigantic man in bib overalls yelled "SOOEY"
so loudly that I thought the P.A system had shut off.
Nothing hit the screen in front of us.
This bunch was great!
We shook a lot of hands
and they bought up our albums.
The club owner couldn't have been nicer.
He gave us a couple of cases of beer for the road
as a going away present.
We were hoping to go back some time,
but we never got up that way again.
They learned that you can't tell a book by its cover,
and we learned the same about them.
Jack Blanchard
http://www.jackandmisty.net
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myhillbillymusic.com, the largest streaming online radio station of classic
country music has affiliated with the A-1 networks. The affiliation means
myhillbillymusic.com is now found more readily by those searching for such
music. Simply go to a-1audionetwork.com/classiccountry/ to access or you can
still go to myhillbillymusic.com.
In addition to myhillbillymusic/a-1 classic country, our group also offers
mybluegrassfavorites.com, mymountainviewmusic.com (music of Mountain View,
Arkansas), a new site dedicated to classic southern gospel called
myhope1079.com.
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TODAY IN COUNTRY MUSIC HISTORY
Compiled by Bill Morrison
1900 - The New York Journal printed the word "Hillbilly" for the first time.
1926 - Marshall Claiborne, a one-armed fiddler made his final appearance on
WSM's Barn Dance.
1936 - Roy Orbison 1936~1988, singer, songwriter, guitarist born Vernon, Texas.
Roy was Elvis Presley's favorite singer.
1938 - Manuel, clothes designer for the stars was born Manuel Arturo Jose Cuevas
Martinez in Mexico. Manuel worked for Nudie in California, and marred his
daughter Barbara Cohn in 1960.
1938 - Roland White, of the "Nashville Bluegrass Band," was born in Madawaska,
Maine.
1939 - Ray Peterson, recording artist, born Denton, Texas.
1945 - Bob Wills topped the charts with "Smoke On The Water."
1955 - Mark Schatz, Bluegrass bassist, born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1956 - Elvis Presley made his debut appearance in Las Vegas, at the New Frontier
Hotel. The audience reaction was less than enthusiastic, and the second week of
the engagement was cancelled. Elvis would not return to Las Vegas for thirteen
years.
1957 - Dave Rich recorded "Red Sweater" for RCA.
1961 - Marty Robbins "Don' t Worry" went to the top of the country charts.
1968 - Aaron Barker songwriter, born San Antonio, Texas.
1969 - Glen Campbell' s single "Galveston" topped the charts.
1969 - Glen Campbell' s Goodtime Hour featured Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash,
Bob Newhart, Vicki Carr, John Hartford, and Glen.
1975 - Tom T. Hall recorded "Deal."
1977 - Loretta Lynn' s single "She' s Got You" went to #1.
1981 - Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins recorded their Live album
"The Survivors" at a concert in Stuttgart, Germany.
1988 - Mickey Gilley, Lorrie Morgan, David Holt, Cliff Dumas and Vickie Rae Von
were featured guests on Hee Haw. Jim Stafford served as co-host
1988 - Ocie Stockard 1909~1988, age 78, Western Swing band leader,
multi-instrumentalist, an original member of Milton Brown and His Musical
Brownies, and later played for Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, died in Fort
Worth, Texas.
1993 - Reba McEntire's MCA album "Rumor Has It." was certified Platinum.
1999 - Lee Roy Parnell, Billy Ray Cyrus, Garth Brooks and Rhett Akins surprised
Charley Daniels, and an audience of 13,000 fans, with their surprise appearance
at Charley' s ' 99 Volunteer Jam concert in Nashville, Tennessee.
2000 - The Library of Congress honored Johnny Cash and Ralph Stanley with their
"Living Legend" award.
2001 - Tim McGraw gave free performances in Nashville and New York to promote
the release of "Set This Circus Down."
2004 - Chuck Reeves, music director at KBUL in Reno, Nevada, married Debbie
Roszelle on Montgomery Gentry' s tour bus after a concert.
2005 - The Juno Awards Show was aired from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
2006 - Today would have been Roy Orbison's 70th birthday.
Courtesy Bill Morrison:
<http://www.talentondisplay.com/countrycalMAR.html>
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VIEW FROM THE FRONT PORCH
By: Stan Hitchcock
For me, watching the Country Music Award shows of today is kinda like watching a
Science Fiction Movie...flash and Jumpin', weird hairdo's and tattoo's, music
that I never did get to understand the lyrics...but, they must be doin'
something right cause they sure do draw crowds. I enjoyed seeing old friends
like Reba and Alan Jackson but most of it seemed like it would have been better
served up on MTV...but, what do I know? It's not just a younger demographic and
new music...it's just a different business than what I spent 50 some odd (some
really odd, too)years, living it, dreaming it, singing it...you know, stuff like
that. I'm glad to see that all them young artists seem to be making lots of
money, and they surely have lots of fans, and I reckon they can dress and cut
their hair anyway they want...
But, I can't help but wonder if today's new breed of artists and musicians have
the same kind of experiences on the road that we did, in the 50's-60's and 70's.
Do they still have to drive all night, 5 to a car, pulling a trailer full of
gear, and finally get to the gig, pull up to the Honky Tonk in Louisiana or
South Texas, with the gravel parking lot, and you go inside to take your gear to
set up, and the stage is surrounded by screen wire, and you ask the Manager what
the screen wire is for, and he simply says, "To stop the thrown beer bottles
from hitting you." Uh huh, that's good security alright.
Or, like Bobby Lord and his band, in Oklahoma to play a Rodeo. The promoters had
a grand entrance arranged. They had the band, Spider Wilson and Hal Rugg being
two of them, set up their instruments and amps on a flat bed trailer with a
tractor hooked to it, and the plan was to have this long extension cord dragging
behind and for the band to start playing as the tractor pulled the movable stage
out to the center of the Rodeo Ring. Well, at Intermission when they were to
play their show, the announcer gave them a big introduction and the kid on the
tractor started the tractor...he evidently had visions of being a race car
driver or something cause he took out for the center of the ring at a brisk
pace..going over the rough ridges of the ring that the horses and bulls had
left...the band had time to hit about two licks on their instruments..and then
just grab their stuff and hold on for dear life for the ride. The bouncing got
Hal Rugg's steel guitar completely out of tune, one of the amps fell off the
trailer, the drums scattered in several directions, and Bobby Lord was doing a
tap dance with a mike trying not to fall off. The long extension cord came
unplugged, of course...and the whole big entrance was a circus clown fiasco. So,
for the first two songs, Bobby was hollering his songs into a dead mike, with
only Spider Wilson able to play a dead electric guitar, the bass player was
trying to get his amp back up on the trailer, the drummer was trying to put his
drums back in some kind of order, Hal Rugg would spend the rest of the night
trying to get his steel back in tune...and the crowd loved it all.
Or working on top of the projection booth of a drive-in theater in Illinois, as
I was with Loretta Lynn and The Wilburn Brothers, in 1964. It was in October and
a cold front had come through to drop the temps to about the upper 40's...and it
was raining. The people were sitting in their cars, motors running and heaters
going, with the little speakers hung on the inside of the windows..and when I
moved up to the mike, pretty well soaked with rain water, I opened my mouth to
sing the first words and fire jumped out of the mike, connected with my tongue
and lit me up like a Christmas Tree. Just another reason why you should never
use electric instruments and sound systems in wet conditions...Instead of the
words of my song...I let out a "S==T FIRE!!!!!" And the people in their nice
warm cars, turned to each other and asked, "What did he say?"
Or playing the nice club in Tampa, and right in the middle of my show, a group
of Professional Wrestlers who had just come in from their big Wrestling Show,
started throwing Midgets across the dance floor, in perfect time with my music.
Yessir, Midget Tossing was big in Tampa I reckon.
Or playing a show in Poplar Bluff, Mo, and when we got to the club, the local
Musicians Union had decided to protest the club and were not gonna let us
play...we played the show anyway, and a bunch of toughs were waiting for us when
we came out the front door to load up our instruments, and we had to fight our
way out of town. Not a good ending for a bad show night. When we finally got to
our Dodge Motor Home we found that they had busted in the door and trashed the
interior. Just another night of sweatin' over a hot guitar.
Maybe the world has changed so much in the intervening years that music does not
have those adventures, I don't know. But, that's how we had to grow up in the
music business in the glory years. I loved it. It's like the old drive-ins that
used to have the good lookin' carhops...gone, but the memory lingers on.
Stan Hitchcock
www.hitchcockcountry.com -
http://www.hitchcockcountry.com
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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. I will not
fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side.
Psalm 3:5-6 (NIV)
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