You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2009.
Click to hear "Daylight Saving Time"
Click to hear "Falling Leaves"
Oct. 31: Most know “Everybody’s Grandpa” as a series-long cast member of Hee Haw. But that was far from his only claim to fame. Here are two sides of the banjo-playing comic performer, each a song of the season.
Click to listen
Oct. 30: Merle Haggard, a former inmate at California’s San Quentin penitentiary, wrote several prison songs in the early phase of his career. This one, about a fellow inmate who’d escaped, killed a state trooper and was executed, was released 42 years ago today, on its way to the top of the charts.
Click to listen
Oct. 29: This song, laid down on this date in 1973, was a watershed in Waymore’s years-long battle with RCA for creative control of his recording career. Had the label had its way, Jennings’ first Billboard chart-topper might never have been released — because it was cut in an independent studio, not at RCA’s complex on 17th Avenue in Nashville.
To listen, click here then click "play"
Oct. 28: Back in the day, country labels would pair singers on their rosters and release duet records. Sometimes those impromptu acts would catch fire, as when Loretta Lynn lost Ernest Tubb as an occasional singing partner and gained Conway Twitty. Sometimes they wouldn’t. Here’s one that did, as “One By One” gave Kitty Wells the second No. 1 record of her short career and Red Foley his 10th in 1954.
Click to listen
Oct. 27: Floyd Cramer, whose piano prowess provided a key element to the pop-leaning Nashville Sound, would have been 72 years old today. In honor of his birthday, here’s the first record on which he used the “slip note” style that would make him famous. It was a country chart-topper and a major pop hit as well.
To listen, click player below left.
Oct. 26: What a record this is, the first solo Top 5 hit for The Wilburn Brothers, cut 51 years ago today in Nashville. Teddy’s lead and Doyle’s harmony vocals, the unmistakable Don Helms on steel guitar, wonderful fiddle work by the great Tommy Jackson and a fine composition by Redd Stewart, Robert Charlebois and Sunny Dull — all combine for greatness.
Oct. 25: Born this date in 1912 in Hickman County, Tenn., Sarah Ophelia Colley went on to attend finishing school in Nashville, become an actress and create the character that would take her to fame as Queen of the Grand Ole Opry: Cousin Minnie Pearl. Here’s a routine from the 1950s, with the great Carl Smith in the role of straight man.
