* (restored)
- A Camp – The Bluest Eyes in Texas
- Billy Joe Shaver – Old Chunk of Coal
- Blaze Foley – Clay Pigeons
- Blaze Foley – If I Could Only Fly
- Blaze Foley – Let Me Ride in Your Big Cadillac
- Bob Dylan – Not Dark Yet
- Bobbie Gentry – Ode to Billie Joe
- Bruce Springsteen – County Fair
- Buck Owens – Under Your Spell Again
- Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn – After the Fire is Gone
- Daniel Johnston – Country Song
- Daniel Romano – Hard On You
- Dave Dudley – Six Days on the Road
- David Allan Coe – Longhaired Redneck
- David Allan Coe – You Never Even Called Me By My Name
- David Allan Coe – Take This Job and Shove It
- Dean Martin – Houston
- Deana Carter – Strawberry Wine
- Dolly Parton – Jolene
- Eddie Noack – Psycho
- Eddie Noack – Dolores
- Eddy Arnold – Make the World Go Away
- George Jones – If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will)
- Gillian Welch – Elvis Presley Blues
- Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman
- Glen Campbell – Galveston
- Guy Clark – Dublin Blues
- Guy Clark – Let Him Roll
- Hank Thompson – A Broken Heart and a Glass of Beer
- Hank Williams – I’m So Lonesome I could Cry
- Hank Williams – I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive
- Hank Williams – Lonesome Whistle
- Hank Williams – Lost Highway
- Hank Williams – There’s a Tear in My Beer
- Holly Golightly – An Eye for an Empty Heart
- Holly Golightly – On the Fire
- Holly Golightly – Black Heart
- Hurray For the Riff Raff – Blue Ridge Mountain
- Jerry Jeff Walker – Pissin’ In the Wind
- Jessi Colter – Why You Been Gone So Long
- Jessi Colter – I’m Looking for Blue Eyes
- John Prine – In Spite of Ourselves
- Johnny Cash – Cocaine Blues
- Kitty Wells – It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels
- Kris Kristofferson – Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down
- Lee Hazlewood – I’d Rather Be Your Enemy
- Lee Hazlewood – Long Black Train
- Lindi Ortega – Tin Star
- Loretta Lynn – Fist City
- Loretta Lynn – The Devil Gets His Due
- Loretta Lynn – Rated X
- Loretta Lynn – One’s On the Way
- Loretta Lynn – Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind)
- Los Lobos – La Pistola Y El Corazon
- Lucinda Williams – Metal Firecracker
- Lyle Lovett – Closing Time
- Marty Robbins – Big Iron
- Merle Haggard – Going Where The Lonely Go
- Merle Haggard – The Bottle Let Me Down
- Merle Haggard – Are the Good Times Really Over
- Nanci Griffith – Love at the Five and Dime
- Nick Cave – Red Right Hand
- Nikki Lane – Gone, Gone, Gone
- Patsy Cline – Sweet Dreams
- Patsy Cline – Strange
- Patsy Cline – Leavin’ On Your Mind
- Ray Wylie Hubbard – Drunken Poet’s Dream
- September 67 – What’s Wrong With Alice
- Shakey Graves – Only Son
- Steve Earle & The Dukes – Burnin’ It Down
- Surgill Simpson – Long White Line
- Tanya Tucker – Blood Red And Goin’ Down
- Tanya Tucker – Delta Dawn
- Tompall Glaser – Lovin’ Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)
- Townes Van Zandt – Waiting Around to Die
- Townes Van Zandt – White Freightliner Blues
- Townes Van Zandt – Pancho and Lefty
- Townes Van Zandt – Tecumseh Valley
- Townes Van Zandt – Don’t Take It Too Bad
- Waylon Jennings – I’ve Always Been Crazy
- Waylon Jennings – Stop the World (And Let Me Off)
- Waylon Jennings – Singer Of Sad Songs
- Widowspeak – True Believer
- Willie Nelson – Night Life
- Willie Nelson – Bloody Mary Morning
- Willie Nelson – Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
- Willie Nelson – Funny How Time Slips Away
- Willie Nelson – Hello Walls
- Willie Nelson – Crazy
The Mother’s Best Flour Radio Show w/ Hank Williams
*
p.s. Hey. I think this super fun and contextually adventurous guest-post by Chris Dankland might well be the only time in the history of this blog that county music had a post wholly or even partly to itself, so that seemed like a great reason to bring it back. Thanks from the future, Chris! ** Steve Erickson, The idea of being convinced by you to listen to Ariana Grande is interesting. I did not know about that spanking new album by Ka+ until now. Obvs, I will check into it. Ka is actually standing there in that pop up store working retail? ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha, thanks, D! ** Misanthrope, Thank you, bud! Based on my limited experience with LPS, he seems like a lad who could keep it together for 4 1/2 months easily. Did the writing commence? ** Shane Christmass, Hi, Shane. I’ll get back to you pronto. Brain scrambling weekend. I did miss your Thom comment, darn. That no-man’s land between doing the p.s., checking it for typos, and launching can be dangerous. I’ll go find it. That mag does look interesting. I’ll scour it. Everyone, Shane Christmass alerts us all to an interesting looking new journal out of Melbourne called Sleaze Magazine. ** Nick Toti, Hi, Nick! I did miss that news. How did that happen, I wonder? I do pretty wide searches when I make posts, but I somehow zigzagged around that or didn’t recognise what I was seeing or something. Thank you. That’s extremely interesting. Everyone, Nick Toti offers some breaking news on Doris Wishman that didn’t make it into the post. Check this out (here’s Nick): ‘Apparently the supposed “lost version” of Night to Dismember was something of a hoax. Details are muddled, but it seems that maybe Wishman made up the story about it being destroyed so that she could instead make some quick cash by reshooting it with a porn actress looking to broaden her acting horizons. The original version was recently rediscovered and uploaded to youtube. The story can be read here in greater detail. Or the direct link to the video here‘. Thanks, man, about the Lincoln Center thing. I’m super psyched. How are you? What’s up? ** _Black_Acrylic, Yeah, I kind of only barely knew about her until last week. Interesting about the march, of course. So wha’s the situation right now? Is Scotland gearing up for/planning another referendum re: independence? ** Jamie, Chequered flag, Jamie! Mm, no, I’ve watched a couple of her movies. They were … most charming. I had the predicted quiet, worky weekend. Zac gets back tonight. That’s a shame about the shitty carnival. It’s hard to fuck up a carnival, but I’m weird. But, hey, you wrote the kids play! My head is full of fireworks, good fireworks. Awesome! Mega-congrats! May it blow the self-appointed arbiters of kids’ theatrical intake away! Ha, the 6th Beatle. Nice one. May your Monday launch a lucrative franchise. Baby porcupine love, Dennis. ** Kyler, Hooray! A seat is filled! Thanks a lot, man! Yes, Jeff’s book’s star was a victoire for literature at large. Where are you driving to in Massachusetts and why? I’m trying to imagine what CD you could be playing on your car stereo that would both please you and not so involve you that you forget the rules of the road, and I can’t think of a single thing. Something shitty but mildly diverting, I guess. ** Bill, Hi, B. I’d never even heard of her until last week which I guess means I need to retune my radar to allow for the glories of trash. I’m 100% sure PGL will be shown in SF, but I don’t know when or how yet. Ooh, I really, really, really like ‘As lens, awry’! And what a great title! The vocals are completely effective. Everyone, May I recommend you drop everything else for 1 minute 51 seconds and listen to the great Bill Hsu’s spooky and brand new track ‘As lens, awry’? Do that here. You’ll thank him, me, and the universe at large. Go, Bill! ** Okay, the post is intro’d and the rest is up to you. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
@ Bill, I really dig As lens, awry very much and yes, that title is to die for. The track is small but perfectly formed.
@ DC, the Scottish appetite for #indyref2 is ever present and I’d certainly vote that way tomorrow, but it’s dependent on our First Minister Nicola Sturgeon choosing an appropriate moment to call it. She attempted that in the 2017 UK general election and kind of got burned as the SNP lost a whole lot of seats, and even then Scotland needs to get Westminster’s permission so it’s all very much up in the air. Throw Brexit into the mix and everything’s even murkier – I want an Independent Scotland within the EU but who knows wtf the public want?
@ Chris, I love the whole sound and aesthetic of this Day. Especially digging Kris Kristofferson – Sunday Morning Coming Down, a feeling I know all too well. Think I recall suggesting Porter Wagoner – The Rubber Room for my own recommendation, I hope you like.
I had never heard Lindi Ortega at the time this post was originally made, but now I have. But she seems closer to Lana del Rey than orthodox country music, at least in the sense that they’re drawing on similar influences: Roy Orbison, Julee Cruise, Angelo Badalamenti. She doesn’t have the same interest in singing from the POVs of different characters, and she’s a Mexican-Canadian woman whose lyrics are sometimes in Spanish. There’s an interesting singer, Becky Warren, who has made 2 DIY concept albums: the first is inspired by her real-life partner’s experiences as a soldier in Iraq and then adjusting to life in America with PTSD and the second, which hasn’t been released yet, based on interviews she conducted with homeless people. I don’t quite get the delineation between country and “Americana,” but people take it seriously enough that there are separate Grammy categories for the two genres. The latter often winds up meaning “country music for progressives who’d be scared shitless of ever encountering a Republican,” in practice.
I did go to the pop-up store and, yeah, Ka was handing out CDs, LPs and merchandise (including $170 hoodies) to customers from noon-6. For the time I was there, he seemed to be doing a brisk business. The new album comes closer to MF Doom territory than the Wu-Tang comparisons he usually gets, especially because it’s clear by now that he’s very interested in playing around with personae and he may never have lived out the tales of street life he mostly raps about. (I’d be interested in a song about life as the captain of a fire station in Brooklyn!)
I’m seeing Spike Lee’s BLACKKKLANSMAN tonight. As you may have read, Boots Riley wrote a 3-page open letter attacking the film’s politics over the weekend.
Well there’s One Whopper of a Story on the front burner today about Asia Argento It seems she RAPED her co-star in her movie version of “The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things” by literary grafter Laura Albert ( aka. J.T. Leroy) when the kid turned 17 and has recently PAID HIM OFF. As you might well imagine this does not sit well with the “Me Too” movement as Asia claims to have been raped by Havey Weinstein. WHOS’ ZOOMIN WHO?
What a wonderful post to wake up to this morning. I have never been into Country because it is such a foreign and scary culture to me. And also the fear that I get into the music/culture, I will fall into that rabbit/Alice hole and never come home again. Still, even I recognize that the individuals are highly admired, and rightfully so. Over the weekend, I have heard the poet Tom Clark was tragically killed in a road accident. In my teen years or young adult age, I remember reading his poetry. And liking his poetry a lot. I went through my library and it seems my Clark books disappeared. It’s sad, and it seems to have this morning’s post, it fits in the mood of a poet’s end, as well as the depth of country music.
Hi!
Mh, I hope the 10th try with the synopsis did the trick! Or maybe if you let it rest for a few days it’ll magically just write itself in your head and all you’ll have to do is type it up…? Do you have a deadline?
I laughed so much when I read your vision of the goth event because that was exactly, but perfectly, absolutely, exactly my own expectation too, haha. I’m glad it turned out to be a bit more on the quality side.
I hope you liked the Betyars song or even more so, the performance itself! They’re superb live! And they tour quite a lot abroad so I’ll keep an eye on their schedule and scream if they happen to go to France!
I had a long weekend because today’s a national holiday here (and Anita’s birthday!) which means that I’m pretty inspired after 3 days of movies and writing and music and free-style AND that it’s especially depressing to think about going back to work tomorrow. I felt like watching ‘The Devil, Probably’ today so I did just that and I planned to watch a Harmony Korine movie after that but it put me in such a different mood that I didn’t, in the end. I wrote instead.
How was your weekend? How are you? I hope you’ll have a great and fruitful week! See you on Friday, Dennis!!
David McReynolds R.I.P.
Dennis, Anything by Chris Dankland, even restored, is a treat.
The writing did commence. Even with all my energy and ambition, not a lot got on to the page, but that’s how those things go. I don’t know why I expect anything different. But I’m glad that what got out actually got out and it helps set the pace and the foundation for everything to come. So it was a good weekend. Thanks kindly, Big D.
Here’s My Favorite Country Cut!
Hey, no speeding ticket for a change! I was really careful (and had a beautiful red car, which is supposed to be stopped for speeding more than any other color). You’re right, there’s no CD I would bring that I don’t care deeply about. Listened to OK Computer, which you mentioned recently, as I returned to Manhattan. Always reminds me of Sarah – and I think I told you the story about the song “No Surprises” which ended her memorial in London. Most summers, I take a trip to the Berkshires to visit my old boys camp and Tanglewood down the road from it. The only good part of that camp was getting into the children’s chorus of a Menotti piece and I got to sing with the Boston Symphony – I was 11 and didn’t have to play baseball for a few weeks. So it’s a nostalgic trip and very beautiful there. It was cloudy today and I almost didn’t go…but when I swam out to the raft in the lake, I literally called the Sun to come out – and it stayed out the whole time I was on the raft – for about an hour. You had to be there, but it made the whole trip. Looking forward to Sep 5 – I’m sure there will be many seats filled!
Hey Dennis!
How’s it going? I haven’t caught up in forever, regretfully, how’s the ARTE show and the new movie coming along?
Killer post, I’ve been really getting into Takoma Records music lately (John Fahey, Robbie Basho) so I’ll definitely be giving this playlist a thorough listen. Thanks Chris!!
Also, the XRAY story got published!!! Woohoo!! Right here!!
http://x-r-a-y.com/shaver-by-nikolas-slackman/fiction/
So that’s pretty exciting. Hope you have time to check it out! If you have any criticisms at all, I’d love if you shared them. I’ve been working on more stories over the summer and am really excited to start seriously revising them and hopefully sharing them at school or whatever.
Hope yr Tuesday’s full of great writing and maybe as pleasantly terrifying as that truck full of rifle wielding cowboys pictured above.
That’s a pretty great C&W playlist.
Some of my favourites:
Slim Whitman – https://open.spotify.com/track/1T0QkAGLKsmzDV6zYhVyQ9?si=7JJIBarJRi-_Jq7oQpT2mw
Marty Robbins: https://open.spotify.com/track/62rmfpQuieSgCITPX819sR?si=16M5i5_PRjeI2WWPQNAb7Q
https://open.spotify.com/track/26pzbSdxi8DKtAjNQitHOc?si=Cg5GFSR2T_e8dc9tDPGo1Q
Conway Twitty:
https://open.spotify.com/track/2FPHyyvfLMIV8GkUWWwYl5?si=xGMMV9FiQJuqFlFTyaI8NA
Glenn Campbell:
https://open.spotify.com/track/6oXkUmLOdmsEQS4AlEIKZ8?si=J-g3jNKtQzubTkZUl7C_Pg
Also check out Plantation Records – did strange stuff like this DOA OD – https://open.spotify.com/track/0CN1d8orZO1FW5kGdGcVcw?si=UI12vtEGRT2qOvg4N_OZqQ
Also have a listen to the two volumes of ‘Modern Sounds on Country and Western’ Music’ by Ray Charles.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Sounds_in_Country_and_Western_Music
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=51pntJOwspg
Hi Dennis, shared your Doris wishman post with a film buff friend of mine, I think deep down he’s incredibly impressed with me but he’s too shy to say it.
I made a little preview for my Striptease zine. I’d be gratefull if you could share. https://bookssleeper.wordpress.com/2018/08/21/striptease-zine/