Keeping Traditional Country Music Alive
We recorded a new CD for the store today. A tribute to Harlan Howard, and in recognition of country music that evolved from the Bakersfield Sound, many people would refer to these songs as country classics. We mixed it up a little bit with a track from Hank Locklin and a cut by Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler. Buck Owens cuts came from our "Buck Owens Sings Harlan Howard" CD, while Wynn Stewart (and Jan Howard) come from our CD "The Very Best of Wynn Stewart and Jan Howard." As a side note I loaned out my copy of Jan Howard's book "Sunshine and Shadow" but I highly recommend it for fans of Jan and Harlan.
Jan Howard and Wynn Stewart both have roots in Missouri. A Depression baby (born Lula Grace Johnson in 1930), Jan Howard knew poverty throughout her childhood in various small towns in Missouri and Oklahoma before becoming a Grand Old Opry star in the 1960s. Jan Howard is from West Plains Missouri. Wynn Stewart was one of the most important figures in the Bakersfield Sound. He was born in Morrisville, Missouri in 1934, during the Depression. He spent most of his childhood moving around the country with his sharecropping family. After World War II, Stewart spent a year working at a radio station in Springfield, Missouri called "KWTO". Morrisville Missouri is just north of Springfield off of Highway 13.
Here is the track list for our new CD. It is not available in stores, but you can hear it at Orchids and eBay in Windsor Missouri any time you are in town.
Track 1: My heart skips a beat - Buck Owens, Songwriter: Harlan Howard
Track 2: Heartaches by the numbers - Ray Price, Songwriter: Harlan Howard -- 1959--Ray Price's recording of "Heartaches By the Numbers" stayed on charts for 40 weeks
Track 3: Heartaches for a dime - Wynn Stewart version, Songwriter: Harlan Howard, recorded May 24, 1960
Track 4: Wishful Thinking - Wynn Stewart and Jan Howard, Songwriter: Wynn Stewart
Track 5: Tiger by the tail - Buck Owens, Songwriters: Buck Owens and Harlan Howard
Track 6: A little more like heaven where you are - Hank Locklin, Songwriter
Track 7: Wrong company - Wynn Stewart and Jan Howard, Songwriter: Harlan Howard, recorded February 24, 1960
Track 8: Under your spell again - Buck Owens, Songwriter: Harlan Howard
Track 9: The next time I'm in town - Neck and Neck is a collaborative album by Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler. It was released on October 9th, 1990 by Columbia Records.
Track 10: Playboy - Wynn Stewart, Songwriters Bob Morris and Eddie Miller, recorded May 24, 1960
Track 11: Above and beyond - Buck Owens, Songwriter: Harlan Howard
Many discussions include talk of being "too country for country," but today's traditionalists still keep the Bakersfield Sound alive. Ray Price is a master of 4/4 time and a walking baseline. While accomplished bassists will play bass lines using a variety of rhythms and a broad range of approaches to the harmony, elementary bass lines present the harmony of the song, and "walking bass lines" usually involve quarter-note motion.
Here is a YouTube video of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens talking about and sing about Bakersfield. Notice Merle's Telecaster as he sings "Momma's Hungry eyes."
I am old enough to remember the beginnings of the Bakersfield Sound as it came to California and developed from there. As Merle Haggard and Buck Owens worked the Holiday Inn in Modesto California, down through Oildale, Wasco, and Bakersfield, and the nightclubs of Los Angeles, country music made its mark. I saw Buck Owens and the Buckeroos live at the Hollywood Bowl somewhere around 1965. I also saw Ray Price in Long Beach California, and recently had a short discussion with Johnny Bush about that tour.
When songwriter Tommy Collins came to California, one of our featured songwriters, Harlan Howard, moved from Los Angeles to Nashville. It was not a take-it-or-leave-it clash between Nashville and Bakersfield. I think it was part stubbornness, part ego, and a little bit of a direction change for Nashville. Stubbornness because Bakersfield, known mainly for agriculture and oil production, was the destination for many dust bowl migrants and others from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and other parts of the Southwest. Regarding the direction change in Nashville let's use an example: Nashville cranked out songs like "By the time I get to Phoenix" and 'Honey" while Bakersfield had Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, The Maddox Brothers and Sister Rose, Waylon Jennings, and many others.
You can still hear Wilma Lee and Stony Cooper belt out "Big Midnight Special" if you listen to Willie's Place on XM satellite radio. Remember that the mass migration of "Okies" to California also meant that their music would follow and thrive, finding an audience in California's Central Valley region and beyond. If you ever listened to Merle Haggard's "The Roots Of My Raising" go back and listen to it again. It will be different the next time. Or perhaps you will like Merle's "Bar In Bakersfield."
It was fun to watch the Bakersfield Sound grow, even if you weren't from the Midwest, an Okie, or a country music fan. The sound just grew on you. Buck Owens and the Fender Company perfected the sound with the Fender Telecaster. Here is Buck Owens and Don Rich performing "Buckaroo" so you can hear what we are talking about. (wierd video but quality sound) Buckaroo was an instrumental that went to number one on the charts. If you want to see how to pick it check this video
Steel guitar licks that took the place of a lead guitar player were hard to miss, and the pedal steel guitar is the featured instrument on every one of our CD tracks. (The next time I'm in town might be an exception.)
My Heart Skips a Beat is a typical Harlan Howard masterpiece. The Telecaster lead-in stops for Buck's famous three beat wind up on the first words "Oh my heart" ... and off we go with a Bakersfield classic. Leo Fender came up with the telecaster, with pick-ups that would make it sound like a pedal steel guitar or lap steel, and Buck's band uses the Telecaster sound to compliment the driving steel and bass sound. A great country classic to have in the library.
Heartaches By The Numbers comes from the heart of Harlan Howard and was a huge hit for Ray Price and a few others. I remember the 1959 rendition and it did stay on the charts for 40 weeks. We listened to it on AM radio (KBBQ in Burbank, California) so we didn't hear much of the baseline. Ray still inspires country music traditionalists, although he did follow the Nashville idea of incorporating orchestras with his smooth opera-trained voice and the Cherokee Cowboys band. Johnny Bush and Willie Nelson played for Ray, and Ray Price started or inspired the careers of many others. He still does so today down in Texas. With a fiddle lead-in and a steel guitar break this country classic deserves a spot on this CD.
Heartaches For A Dime was a toss up between the Wynn Stewart version and the Buck Owens version, so we opted for Wynn Stewart because of his contribution to the Bakersfield sound. Some say Wynn was the first. "Wynn's sound was what influenced Buck and me both," Merle Haggard has said, "and in a strange twist of fate, his band was the heart of the old Frizzell band. Roy Nichols was part of the Lefty band, and he went to Wynn Stewart and ran into Ralph Mooney, who played the steel, and they were the basis of the modern West Coast sound."
