Hank Williams

Artist: Hank Williams

LP: Hank Williams Sings Kaw-Liga and Other Humorous Songs

Song: "Nobody's Lonesome For Me"
[ listen ]

Since I'd visited Hank Williams' grave the previous day and had also stayed in the haunted Birmingham hotel where Hank reportedly spent his last night on earth (actually, Wikipedia says Hank spent his last night at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, so maybe I stayed at the hotel where he spent his next-to-last night. I wonder: Can a ghost choose to haunt anyplace they want, even if it isn't where they died?) Anyway, because of all that, it seemed fortuitous that I found one of Hank's LPs at Dr. Music Records in Fairhope, Alabama, a small and super-cute town across the bay from Mobile.  "Nobody's Lonesome For Me" was initially the B-side of "Moanin' the Blues," one of three #1 singles Hank released in 1950. "Kaw-Linga," this LP's signature tune, was released in 1953—the first of Hank's two #1 singles that were released posthumously. I would have posted that one too, but the lyrics aren't really appropriate for anyplace outside of FedEx Field in Washington, DC. Extensive notes from the back of the "Kaw-Linga and Other Humorous Songs" LP are included below, and you can read all about Hank Williams (the first one) on Wikipedia here and find his discography here.

[ Hank Williams: September 17, 1923 — January 1, 1953 ]

[ Dr. Music Records — Fairhope, Alabama ]

The Poppy Family featuring Susan Jacks

Artist: The Poppy Family featuring Susan Jacks

LP: Which Way You Goin' Billy?

Song: "Which Way You Goin' Billy?"
[ listen ]

Song: "Free From the City"
[ listen ]

Music fanatics (ones with good taste, anyway)  have got to do two things when they pass through Montgomery, Alabama. (They can do additional things too if they want, like visit the Alabama State Capitol.) The first is to visit the grave where country music legend Hank Williams is buried, which I did as soon as I pulled into town. 

The second is to stop by Montgomery's newest (and only) record store, RAD! Vinyl Records. I found some great stuff there, including this 1969 LP by The Poppy Family (featuring Susan Jacks). The group is originally from Vancouver, British Columbia—my own neck of the woods—but sometimes you have to travel far and wide just to find the gems that have been lying right under your nose! (Or something like that.) Anyway, singer Susan Pesklevits met guitarist Terry Jacks in the mid 1960s while performing on TV; they married and brought guitarist Craig McCaw and tablas player Satwant Singh on board to form The Poppy Family. They went international with the hit "Which Way You Goin' Billy?" in 1969 (it reached #1 on the Canadian singles charts, #2 in the USA, and peaked at #95 in Australia) and had several more hits in Canada in the following years. Sadly, the group recorded only two LPs, and Terry Jacks "released" both McCaw and Singh from the group before making "Poppy Seeds," which was LP #2. Not long after "Poppy Seeds" came out in 1971, Susan "released" Terry from their marriage and The Poppy Family was no more. You can read all about The Poppy Family (featuring Susan Jacks) here, and a photo and some notes from the back of their first LP are included below. 

 [ The Poppy Family featuring Susan Jacks ]

[ RAD! Vinyl Records — Montgomery, Alabama ]

Solomon Burke

Artist: Solomon Burke

LP: Electronic Magnetism

Song: "PSR 1983"
[ listen ]

Known as "The King of Rock 'N Soul," among other things, Solomon Burke was reportedly the first to use the word "soul" to describe the sort of music he and others were making in the early 1960s. A preacher by age 7 and a father at 14, Burke lived a full and fascinating life. Aside from becoming one of the greatest singers of all time (says Rolling Stone), Solomon also owned a chain of funeral parlors and had 90 grandchildren when he died in 2010. According to Wikipedia, "Perhaps more than any other artist, the ample figure of Solomon Burke symbolized the ways that spirituality and commerce, ecstasy and entertainment, sex and salvation, individualism and brotherhood, could blend in the world of 1960s soul music." My favorite story from Burke's Wikipedia page is the one about how he would sometimes hide a midget under his 15-foot cape when he walked out on stage. Once he was front and center, Solomon would cast his cape to the floor in a dramatic flourish. Then the midget, still hidden beneath the garment, would scurry off the stage, making it seem that Solomon's cape was magically whisking itself away. Anyway, this excellent 1971 LP, Burke's first for MGM Records, was reportedly a flop. I found it at the second and final Birmingham vinyl shop I visited, Charlemagne Records, which occupies the upstairs floor of a neat old two-story building in Five Points South.

[ Solomon Burke: March 21, 1940 — October 10, 2010 ]

[ Charlemagne Records — Birmingham, Alabama ]

Big Maybelle

Artist: Big Maybelle

LP: The Amazing Big Maybelle

Song: "I Will Never Turn My Back On You"
[ listen ]

Birmingham, Alabama is one of the neatest cities I visited on my Southern Road Trip back in April. Founded after the Civil War as a new center of industry, the city grew in leaps and bounds during its first few decades, earning the nickname "The Magic City" for its almost instant emergence as one of the biggest and most important cities of the South. Birmingham reached a peak population of 340,887 in 1960, but has been dropping in population since then as the steel industry declined and people moved to the suburbs. The city's population was just 212,237 in 2010, but efforts are underway to revitalize the downtown core in order to lure residents back so that the city will begin growing magically once again. You can read more about Birmingham, its history, economy, earthquakes (!), and the role the city played in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s on Wikipedia here. Birmingham also features some neat old statues perched atop buildings and hillsides, like this one and this one, paying tribute to the city's glorious industrial past.

I visited two record stores in Birmingham, both located in the artsy 5 Points South neighborhood. The first, Renaissance Records, is a classy and slightly cluttery place with decent prices and a very friendly lady working there on the evening I stopped by. This terrific LP by Mabel Louise Smith (aka. Big Maybelle) is one of the things I found. I'm guessing "I Will Never Turn My Back On You" was likely recorded in the 1950s, since that's when Maybelle was at the peak of her popularity, but according to this online Big Maybelle biography and discography, this "Amazing Big Maybelle" LP was released in 1973. Born in Jackson, Tennessee in 1924, Maybelle made it to the big-time in the early 1950s with hits like "Gabbin' Blues," "Candy," and "My Country Man." The hits stopped flowing by the end of the '50s and Maybelle died in Cleveland, Ohio in January of 1972 after slipping into a diabetic coma. You can read more about this amazing woman's life and career here and here. 

 [ Big Maybelle: May 1, 1924 — January 23, 1972 ]

[ Renaissance Records — Birmingham, Alabama ]

Bobby Womack [1944-2014]

Artist: Bobby Womack

LP: BW Goes C&W

Song: "Don't Make This the Last Date"
[ listen ]

Song: "I Take It on Home"
[ listen ]

I'm interrupting my ongoing and seemingly endless marathon of postings of stuff I found on my Southern Road Trip to remember talented singer, writer, and musician Bobby Womack; he passed away last Friday at age 70. Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1944 to Friendly and Naomi Womack (he was a musical minister at the local Baptist church; she played the organ), Bobby first made music with his brothers in a group called, appropriately, The Womack Brothers. Bobby mastered the guitar and went on to play with other musicians (he's featured on Aretha Franklin's "Lady Soul" LP) releasing his first solo record, "Fly Me to the Moon," in 1968. Bobby was making regular appearances on the pop and R&B singles charts in the early-to-mid 1970s, finally going Country & Western with the album featured here, released in 1976. (Unfortunately, none of Bobby's C&W songs were hits.) While battling drug addiction and numerous health problems in the decades that followed, Bobby continued making glorious music—his latest, to be released sometime later this year, is titled "The Best Is Yet to Come." You can read all about Bobby Womack's life, career and his complicated personal life (ask him about the time his wife shot him after catching him in bed with her teenage daughter) on Wikipedia here. You can find his full discography here and there's a moving obituary for Mr. Womack on the Rolling Stone website here.

Bobby Womack

[ March 4, 1944 — June 27, 2014 ]

We will miss you, Bobby.

Hi Rhythm

Artist: Hi Rhythm

LP: On the Loose

Song: "Superstar"
[ listen ]

After leaving Huntsville on Wednesday afternoon, I headed south toward the little Alabama town of Arab, where there's a record store Ashley and Andy at Vertical House Records had told me about. Arab is a cute little place with a funny name that provides some humorous signage that makes it seem like the town segregates Middle Easterners, who have to use separate recreational facilities from everyone else. 

The Arab record store, called The Spinning Groove, would have been more aptly named The Scratchy Groove. Quite a few of the records I was excited to find there were so scratched up or moldy that I ended up putting them back in the bins for someone else to buy. Also, a water leak in the ceiling above the R-Z portion of the Soul/R&B section had pretty much completely ruined all those records. I tried to browse through them anyway, but the record covers were all moldy and stuck together and when I tried to pull them apart they would rip. Still, I found a few neat records starting with A-Q, including this 1976 LP by Hi Rhythm, also known as the Hi Rhythm Section at Hi Records in Memphis. 

Willie Mitchell, who ran the label in the 1970s, employed the Hi Rhythm Section for backing on releases by Al Green, Ann Peebles and others who recorded on the label. Hi Rhythm was comprised of three Hodges brothers—Charles, Leroy, and Mabon—along with Howard Grimes on drums and Mitchell's stepson, Archie Turner, on keyboards. Though Charles Hodges went on to become an ordained minister, the group does still get together from time to time. In fact, Archie Turner and Howard Grimes stopped by The End of All Music in Oxford, Mississippi two months ago—just a few weeks after I was there on April 7th! They were in Oxford with their new group, The Bo-Keys, who are also going to be playing in Portland, Oregon on July 4th! You can read more about Hi Rhythm on Wikipedia here and go here to read about Hi Records. Individual photos of the Hi Rhythm guys from the back of their LP are included below, but I'm not sure who's who, aside from Howard Grimes. If anyone out there can clear this up, it would be appreciated.

PS. I was bummed to hear just now on NPR that Mabon "Teenie" Hodges passed away in Dallas, Texas this past Sunday, the day after I posted this LP. RIP Teenie Hodges, and condolences to all those who knew and loved him.

[ Hi Rhythm, relatively recently ]

L to R:

Leroy Hodges, Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, Archie Turner, Charles Hodges, Howard Grimes 

w/ Willie Mitchell (seated)

[ The Spinning Groove — Arab, Alabama ]

Vinicio Franco

Artist: Vinicio Franco y su Conjunto Tipico Cibaeño

LP: Merengues — El Principe del Merengue

Song: "Tocame La Campana, Maria"
[ listen ]

Song: "La Chiva Blanca"
[ listen ]

Huntsville, Alabama is one of the friendliest cities in the South! I found Vertical House Records online while researching stores to visit on my trip. It looked amazing (it's located in part of the old Lowe Mill building), but to my chagrin, the store is only open Wednesday through Saturday, and I was going to be driving through northern Alabama on Monday and Tuesday. About a week before leaving Seattle, I called and left a message on the store's answering machine to let them know of my predicament and to see if there was any way I could browse through Vertical House Records on a day they're usually closed. I wasn't really expecting a reply, but thought it was worth a shot. I figured that if I did hear from anyone, it would probably be along the lines of: "Sorry to hear we'll miss you. Hope you'll come back through our neck of the woods sometime when we're open. We'd love to meet you!" Instead, within an hour I received a text message from the store's owners, Andy and Ashley. They were currently on vacation on Italy! They said they would be returning to Huntsville on the Monday during my trip and would be happy to meet me at their store on Tuesday afternoon! 

I arrived in Huntsville at about 6pm on that Tuesday, and Andy and Ashley were both there at Vertical House Records to meet me. Andy gave me a quick tour of the place, then let me dig through the bins while they were hanging out with a friend at the front of the store, drinking beer and listening to music. I joked with them about how awful it would be if, after everything, I browsed for two hours and then sauntered out the door saying, "Thanks, but I didn't really see anything here that caught my eye." But anyone who knows me will know that there wasn't any danger of that happening. In fact, I was only able to browse through the "International" section as well as the A—G part of the "General" section before hunger overtook me (and before I began to worry that I was going to keep Andy and Ashley there until midnight). Though I definitely feel the need to return to Vertical House to browse through H—Z, I found lots of wonderful stuff in the time I was there—like this merengue album by Vinicio Franco.

Born in September of 1933 in Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, Vinicio first began singing in nightclubs to entertain tourists in the mid-to-late 1950s; his first recording was made in 1957, titled either "Shut Me Sail" or "Shut Me Off the Candle," depending on which language translation tool you use. In a career spanning 60 years and counting, Vinicio Franco has performed in places like New York City and Miami in the USA, as well as throughout South America and Europe. Vinicio's "Merengue" LP, his first, was released in 1960. My copy, though not sealed, is in mint condition and was still in shrink-wrap, with a purple "Dominican Republic" ink stamp on the back! I especially like "La Chiva Blanca" ["The White Goat"], where Vinicio makes animal sounds. You can read more about Vinicio "El Principe del Merengue" Franco in Spanish here and here, and you'll find English-ish translation of the Wikipedia page here. There's a relatively recent video clip of Vinicio Franco performing here:

Vinicio Franco on YouTube:

[ "Los Algodones" ] 

 [ Vinicio Franco ]

[ Vertical House Records — Huntsville, Alabama ]