Country

Of all the country boogie songs (and there are many), perhaps the most unusual is Grady Martin’s hymn to the least fashionable style of men’s underwear – Long John Boogie. (more…)

I first heard Rose Maddox when my friend Steve England made a tape of old-time music – bluegrass, country, western swing and hillbilly boogie – after starting his club Son of Redneck with Jo Hagan. (more…)

Hillbilly boogie was a postwar hybrid popularised by white folk in the South and evolved into rockabilly in the mid-1950s. (more…)

Let’s talk about rockabilly. And let’s start the conversation with Hardrock Gunter. His debut single Birmingham Bounce is another entry in the pantheon of proto-rock’n’roll.

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Lefty Frizzell is one of the forgotten names of country music. But he was one of its biggest, most influential – and controversial – stars.

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Ernest Tubb once remarked that whenever one of his songs came on a jukebox, men in bars would turn to their girlfriends and say: “Heck, I can sing better than that.” And, agreed Ernest, “They’d be right.”

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Hank Williams once said that when it came to pulling power for the famously devout music fans of the Deep South: “It was Roy Acuff – then God.”

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Hank Williams was the first superstar of country music and the architect of rock’n’roll. This was the last song he recorded, in 1952. (more…)

Pussycat – Mississippi

28th September 2021 · 1970s, 1976, Country, Music

I know I shouldn’t but I love this cheesy country music pastiche by Pussycat – perhaps the only country-and-western chart topper by a Dutch group.

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J.J. Barrie – No Charge

26th September 2021 · 1970s, 1976, Country, Music

I love country music, especially old-time roots music with one foot in folk and one foot in the blues, and one hand dangling loosely in the waters of jazz. Now… 

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