By Steve Rhodes
In sum, Comcast’s “Music Choice” channels provide a nice overview of most – not all – genres in the universe of popular (and not so much) music. This hour from the Classic Country channel illustrates how much of a primer these channels can be on each respective category. Plus, the trivia is phenomenal.
I’ve added some value from Wikipedia, YouTube, etc.
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May 29, 2008
3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
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1. He Stopped Loving Her Today/George Jones.
Indeed one of country’s classic songs by one of its classic artists, this was released in 1980, though it sounds like it was made 20 or 30 years earlier.
“The song was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee at CBS Studio B,” according to the song’s Wikipedia entry. “The recording process was lengthy. Jones was frequently intoxicated and later said in an interview that the four spoken lines of the song had to be recorded over and over because he could not speak without slurring his words.”
Jones himself wrote in his book:
“In the 1970s, I was drunk the majority of the time. I had drunk heavily for years and had pitched benders that might last two or three days, but in the 1970s, I was drunk the majority of the time for half a decade. If you saw me sober, chances are you saw me asleep. It was a five-year binge laced with occasional sickness from sobriety . . . Some folks think they’re in pain if they’ve had one too many cocktails the night before. They have no idea how it feels to have one too many pints. It’s like going through a violent food poisoning with an ax in your skull.”
“The song is about a man who loved a woman so much, it killed him when she left,” Jones writes in his book. “He said he would love her until he died, and only on his deathbed did he stop… [producer Billy Sherrill] said he was unable to sleep the night after first hearing the song. But he thought it was incomplete… [Songwriters Curly] Putnam and [Bobby] Braddock killed the song’s main character too soon in their early versions. Billy kept telling them to kill the guy at a different time and then have the woman come to his funeral. The writers thought that might be too sad, and Billy did, too. But he knew the song, on a scale of one to 10, was about an eight. He saw it as a potential 11.”
2. Roll On, Big Mama/Joe Stampley
Classic truck drivin’ music that hit No. 1 on the Billboard Classic Country chart in 1975.
well, the feel of the wheel delivers me
from a life where I don’t wanna be and the diesel smoke
with every stroke sings a song with a heavy note
3. The Wurlitzer Prize/Waylon Jennings
Just so sadly beautiful.
4. Real Love/Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers
A #1 country single that also reached #91 on the pop charts, this is hardly a country classic in any real sense of the term. While tuneful, it’s studio gloss bespeaks the state of country circa 1985; it sounds like the lost theme song to a Dudley Moore movie.
5. I Don’t Wanna Play House/Tammy Wynette
I don’t wanna play house; I know it can’t be fun
I’ve watched mommy and daddy
And if that’s the way it’s done
I don’t wanna play house; It makes my mommy cry
‘Cause when she played house
My daddy said good-bye.
This song – written by Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton – won the 1967 Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.
Embedding has been disabled, but you can still watch what looks to be a 1967 performance of this song by a young Tammy Wynette on YouTube.
6. You Still Move Me/Dan Seals
Classic suckdom.
7. Daydreams About Night Things/Ronnie Milsap
I’m having day dreams bout night things
In the middle of the afternoon
And while my hands make a living my mind’s home loving you
You can see some dude do his own cover of this song; it’s not terrible.
8. Dixie On My Mind/Hank Williams Jr.
All the stations up here don’t sign off with Dixie,
The way they did in sweet home Alabama,
The people here don’t sip Jack Daniels whiskey,
The way they do in that Tennessee mountain land.
I’ve always heard lots about the big apple,
So I thought I’d come up here and see,
But all I’ve seen so far is one big hassle,
Wish I was camped out on the Okachovee.
Oh well. Don’t need a Southern man around anyhow.
9. Orange Blossom Special/Johnny Cash
This is how you lose your New York blues, Junior.
Well, I don’t care if I do-die-do-die-do-die-do-die
10. Amos Moses/Jerry Reed
Listen to the funk!
Paging Sly Stone . . .
11. I Fall To Pieces/Patsy Cline
You want to act like we’ve never kissed.
12. Hard Times/Lacy J. Dalton
This piece of fluffle hit #7 on the country chart in 1981.
13. Somebody Should Leave/Reba McEntire
Somebody should leave
But we hate to give in
We just keep hopin
We might need each other again
Ugh. I’d rather one of you shot the other just to watch them die.
14. I Ain’t Never/Mel Tillis
Bringin’ us back home. Here’s a version by the Oak Ridge Boys.
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Posted on May 30, 2008