Country Club #8: I'm Moving On from Hank Snow to Ray Charles

I heard Hank Snow's "I'm Moving On" on Wichita's oldie country station early this week. It is one of the all-time best-selling country songs,one of three songs in the history of the Billboard country charts to spend 21 weeks at #1. But it is decidedly outside the usual parameters of the station which usually plays and artists about midway between today and 1950 when this one was first recorded.

As the song resonated in my mind through the week, I got to thinking that Ray Charles had covered it as part of his legendary 1962 Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. But it didn't show up in the track listings. Puzzled,I remembered the Charles made a follow-up second volume, which was also a tremendous commercial and artistic success. Still no luck.  I was beginning to doubt my encyclopedic language of American popular music, at least the parts I know, was a figment. A little more research showed I wasn't imagining things. Charles' version of "I'm Moving On" was released as part of his last album with Atlantic "Genius Sings the Blues" That makes. The song is structurally a blues with an added 8-bar chorus.

The Modern Sounds LPs marked a major turn in Charles' career towards pop music and away from r&b which he largely created. While Charles "I'm Moving On" is done as a rocker and doesn't sound out of place played after "What'd I Say," the arrangements on MSCW are standard big-band or string sections redeemed by Charles's great singing.

When Charles died in 2004, NPR and other media outlets concentrated on his the later part of his career when he crossed over to white audiences and ignoring his revolutionary role in black music, prompting me to ask "Was Ray Charles White?"

Washington DC Flowers

Washington DC is a city of power, politics, and corruption. It is also a city of museums,statues, and flowers. Here are a few pictures of flowers taken on a recent trip there.

Country Club #7: George Jones and the saddest song

George Jones died today. I thought the radio reports on NPR and elsewhere focused too much on his problems with alcohol and, admittedly decades long,episodes of bad behavior, and not enough on his artistry. Many say he was the greatest country vocalist, others say he was topped only by Hank Williams. "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is Jones' signature song. I love the soaring strings in the original but I've heard them enough today. In this live version listen to what the pedal steel does to fill that musical space.
Here is how Classic Tracks starts it's analysis of the tune

It's the saddest song, and the most mournful voice, and the most histrionic production and the cruelest punchline in the history of country music. But what a magnificent cry America had in 1980 when the first track of George Jones' album I Am What I Am became the brilliant, infamous superstar's first Number One single in six years.

Country Club #6 (Miranda Lambert)

Miranda Lambert is one of today's country who makes good music, something above and beyond the current formulas. Here is her hit "Mama's Broken Heart." It recounts how the narrator and her mother clashed over her breakup.

You might just be a lefty...

if when you start to do a search for "stone bridges" and Google suggests "Jay Lovestone."

Country Club #5: the best answer song ever?

Originally released in 1952, Hank Thompson's The Wild Side of Life became one of the most popular recordings in country music history, spending 15 weeks at No. 1 Billboard country charts, solidified Thompson's status as a country music superstar and inspired the answer song, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" by Kitty Wells. I think it may be the best answer song ever.It became the first Billboard #1 Country song by a solo female performer and made Wells a country music superstar.

The melody probably sounds familiar.It is a traditional folk song was used in the Carter Family's "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes" (1929)and Roy Acuff's "Great Speckled Bird" (1936).

Is Religion the Enemy of Feminism?

Wichita NOW hosted a debate between Rev. Robin McGonigle and Amanda Knief on March 5, 2013. Wichita NOW President Vicki Stangl moderated. McGonigle is Senior Minister at University Congregational Church in Wichita. Knief is managing director and in-house counsel for American Atheists.