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Feb. 3: I don’t know you from Adam, but if you’re gonna play the jukebox, please don’t play A-11.
Hank Cochran’s words, splendidly interpreted by Johnny Paycheck in the summer of 1965. He was covering Buck Owens, whose Together Again/My Heart Skips A Beat album the previous year included the song. To my mind, Paycheck’s version, recorded in New York with the instrumental backing of George Jones’ road band, outdid Owens’ in every way. I’m not alone in that assessment, apparently. Here’s Daniel Cooper of the Country Music Foundation:
- “The Jones Boys gave the track the Ray Price rhythmic treatment, but with suddenn stops and starts that added to the arrangement’s kinetic energy. With Paycheck singing like it might be the last single he’d ever have a chance to record, his recharged version of “A-11” jumped up and – for what was surely the only time in the 1960s – made Buck Owens sound dreary by comparison.”
This was Paycheck’s first hit in a half-dozen years of trying. His greatest success would come in the following decade, under the tutelage of countrypolitan maestro Billy Sherrill at Epic Records. But if you like pure, authentic honky-tonk music with a wild-eyed edge, find the CD collection titled The Real Mr. Heartache – The Little Darlin’ Years. And if you play “A-11,” there’ll be tears — of unbridled appreciation.
3 CHORDS A DAY 
4 comments
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February 5, 2010 at 6:07 AM
Paul W Dennis
Actually, what made Paycheck’s version stand out for me was Lloyd Green’s steel guitar work. I like Buck’s version of the song nearly as well as Paycheck’s
February 5, 2010 at 9:22 AM
3chordsaday
Paul, my reading of Daniel Cooper’s liner notes to the Little Darlin’ compilation indicates that Lloyd Green didn’t play on “A-11.”
Cooper says Paycheck and George Jones were playing a gig in NYC, and Aubrey Mayhew took advantage of his deal with RCA to use Victor’s Manhattan studio on credit to cut a Paycheck session for Hilltop Records. Jones agreed to let Mayhew use his band, in exchange for Mayhew’s securing some female entertainment at a party the night before. Paycheck rejected the four songs Mayhew had picked to record, saying he wanted to do others, including one (“A-11”) he’d heard on a Buck Owens album.
So, unless Green was a member of Jones’ band in 1965, I can’t see how he played on that record. Plus, the super-treble quality of the steel that Green employed on Paycheck’s later Little Darlin’ stuff is missing here. This is fine steel, but it doesn’t sound like Green. What stands out to me is the fiddle. From the sources available to me, I couldn’t determine who other than Paycheck played on the record.
If I’m wrong, set me straight!
February 7, 2010 at 12:43 AM
Paul W Dennis
You could be right about the steel – it doesn’t have the characteristic super-treble sound although I’ve heard Lloyd Green play in a less treble style. It could be someone like Hal Rugg – whatever the case the steel and fiddle did combine to make it stand out from Buck’s version
March 2, 2016 at 3:49 PM
Graham Reid
Steel player in question on this song was Sonny Curtis. He was the steel player with George Jones up until George and Tammy broke up. Paycheck was the bass player in George’s band until he left the Jones Boys in 1966 to go out on his own.