Sons of the Pioneers

Artist: Sons of the Pioneers

LP: Cool Water
Song: "Cool Water"

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Song: "Timber Trail"

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We'll supposedly have highs in the mid-80s today here in Seattle, which isn't that hot for July, relatively speaking, but still it's plenty warm. I may not be a rovin' cowboy, but I'm a mailman now, a rovin' one even, and so I still need plenty of water. (We get messages on our scanner each morning reminding us of the signs of heat stroke.) I get a tall plastic glass of ice water from Starbucks each morning on my way to work, and then at lunch I hunt for an outpost where I can add a new batch of ice to it. I need to have water (water)...cool, clear water...for the afternoon. Naturally, this famous old country ditty by Sons of the Pioneers gets stuck in my head just about every day. LP liner notes by Yellowstone Chip, Montana's singin' cowboy, are included below. I hope when I'm a little older I'm still "puttin' on desert steak fries for the visiting dudes," (ahem!) so to speak.

 [ Sons of the Pioneers ] 

Earl Grant

Artist: Earl Grant

LP: Winter Wonderland
Song: "Winter Wonderland"

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Song: "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm"

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I'm still annoyed with myself for skipping the entire month of December here, and not getting to post any holiday records. But since we finally got a big batch of snow today that basically brought the entire city of Seattle to a standstill, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to pop in and post something wintry with sleigh bells! 

True, this 1965 MCA-15001 Earl Grant LP (you probably remember it as MCA-236) is technically a record for the yuletide holiday, but Earl does throw in a few tracks that aren't about Santa, the baby Jesus, or about December 25th in particular. They are simply about freezing your ass off in the snow, which is what we're all doing here in Seattle today!

Earl Grant, born in Idabel, Oklahoma in 1931, is an incredibly talented musician who, sadly, died in a car crash at the age of 39. And even though I realize it's absurd to focus on his sexuality (he was gay—who cares!), you have to admit it's fascinating, and rather surprising, that in 1958 Earl himself came forward to declare that he was "versatile" upon the release of his very first LP! 

[ Earl Grant: January 20, 1931 — June 10, 1970 ]

Bobby Womack [1944-2014]

Artist: Bobby Womack

LP: BW Goes C&W

Song: "Don't Make This the Last Date"
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Song: "I Take It on Home"
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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.

The Deputies

Artist: The Deputies

LP: Ringo

Song: "Ringo"
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[ listen at 45 rpm ]

Here's yet another .50¢ record from last week's foray into the "as is" bins at Everyday Music on Capitol Hill. The particular deputy who handles lead vocals on "Ringo" sounds lethargic and even a little bored, so I tried playing it at a faster speed, which turns this gloomy gunfighter ballad into a chirpy Frankie Laine song that you can actually dance to. I like that the album's title has been riddled with bullets.

Trío Colquemarca de Chumbivilcas

Artist: Trío Colquemarca de Chumbivilcas

LP: Los Bravos...¡Chumbivilcanos!

Song: "Corazón Apasionado"

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These tres guapos elegantes are from the southern Peruvian province of Chumbivilcas, which you can read about here. Spanish-language liner notes are included below, along with a warning that anyone who copies this music will go to prison for six years. The record contains 12 songs and I only copied one. Does that mean I only have to go to prison for six months?

 

 

 

 

John Schneider

Artist: John Schneider

LP: 7" single

Song: "It's Now or Never"

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Here's something I found while cleaning out my singles bins the other day to make room for new records. If you've ever wondered what it would sound like if Bo Duke covered Elvis—well, here you go. You can read all about the song here, and about John Schneider here. And now I'll go put this one in a thrift store, where it belongs.

Heintje

Artist: Heintje

LP: Best of All

Song: "Giddy Up My Pony"

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I just got back from Austin, Texas! It was my first time in the city, and I had lots of fun visiting friends, eating tacos, going to the Austin Film Festival...and of course I stumbled upon lots of neat records. I'll be posting some of those, but first I decided to try exorcising this nutty song about pony-riding, from Dutch child singer Heintje, since it's been stuck in my head for over a week. Born in Kerkrade in The Netherlands on August 12, 1955, Hendrik Nikolaas Theodoor Simons (aka. Heintje) became a superstar with his hit 1967 single "Mama" when he was just 12 years old. To counter the "goody-goody" mama's boy image he'd earned with his music career, Heintje threw his weight and considerable acting chops into films like "To Hell With School" and "Hurrah, the School Is Burning," which inspired waves of arson, vandalism and massive drop-outs at schools throughout West Germany. You can read more about Heintje here and go here to see a list of the young lad's film and TV appearances.

Tim Spencer Family

Artist: Tim Spencer Family

LP: Circuit Ridin' Preacher

Song: "Circuit Ridin' Preacher"

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Song: "Down Deep In My Heart"

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Song: "These Old Bones"

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Featuring songs written by family patriarch Vernon "Tim" Spencer, who was one of the founding members of The Sons of the Pioneers, this 1958 religious LP is loaded with catchy ditties. The album's title cut includes a refrain used by my favorite circuit ridin' preacher, Harry Powell, played by Robert Mitchum in the 1955 film "The Night of the Hunter." I'm also posting "Down Deep In My Heart" because, along with a nice vocal melody, it features some terrific instrumental bits with guitar and organ. "These Old Bones" is thrown in too, since it's relentlessly catchy and I'm pretty sure it features Tim's son Harold "Hal" Spencer on lead vocals. With that nifty suit and crew-cut, he's just about the cutest thing I've ever seen on the back of a record. You can read all about Tim Spencer and his family here, where you'll also find lots of neat pictures and some sheet music for songs Tim wrote. The "Circuit Ridin' Preacher" LP liner notes and a Spencer family photo are included below.

 [ Tim Spencer Family: Harold—Velma—Tim—Loretta ]

Slim Boyd and the Rangehands

Artist: Slim Boyd and the Rangehands

LP: Country & Western Hits

Song: "Cowpoke"

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My book group is meeting tonight to discuss one of my favorite novels, Sinclair Lewis' "Main Street." I read 260 pages this past weekend, finishing the book early Sunday evening. For our August meeting, the group will be reading "The Blind Assassin" by Margaret Atwood. I stopped by Half Price Books in the University District after my piano lesson last night to see if I could pick up a used copy. I found one, and of course I also poked around in the used LP bins for a bit. There's no listening station at the book store, but this $1.98 country record seemed to have a lot going for it: the LP cover art looks like it was lifted from the dust jacket of an old Nancy Drew mystery story; the back cover features an old-west lonely cowboy pencil drawing; the singer's name is "Slim Boyd" and he's got rangehands. I decided to go ahead and take a chance. When I got home, I discovered that I'd just purchased one of the neatest old country western records in my collection. Yeeeeee-Haaaaaaaww!

Lynn Anderson

 

Artist: Lynn Anderson

LP: Ride, Ride, Ride

Song: "Ride, Ride, Ride"

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Born in Grand Forks, North Dakota in 1947, Lynn Anderson learned how to be a country music superstar from her mother, Liz. After winning more than 700 trophies in horse shows when she was a tot (she's still an avid rider), Lynn went on to become one of country music's most popular singers of the 1970s—scoring several #1 hits and landing a bunch more in the top ten throughout the decade. Her 1970 country hit "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden" was her most popular—even making its way onto the pop charts, where it climbed all the way to #3. In 2000, the governor of Tennessee officially named June 15th "Lynn Anderson Day," and in three of the state's counties (and one in Kentucky), October 3rd has been set aside as a special day to honor Lynn Anderson's hair. After hitting a rough patch in the mid-2000s (she was arrested for several DUIs and for shoplifting a Harry Potter DVD), Lynn seems to be back on track, spending the past several years performing and winning awards. You can read more about Lynn Anderson here, see her complete discography here, and visit her website here for news, music, videos, horse pictures and more! The notes and photos from the back of her 1967 debut album are included below.

  

 [ Ride... ]

 

[ Ride... ]

  

[ Ride. ]