Feb 15, 2014

Saturday Night Music: Johnny Paycheck

From the Archives: Top 10 Country Songs Most Soccer Moms Would Not Be Fond Of


ORIGINALLY POSTED JUN 26, 2011

Top 10 Country Songs Most Soccer Moms Would Not Be Fond Of

Here's a countdown of 10 country songs that would not weigh easily on the sensibilities of most mainstream country radio listeners (now anyway - the Wagoner song made it to #2 in 1967). Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Can you imagine this playing on the radio after Taylor Swift's latest ditty? Me neither.

Hank and pals scream in honor of a "music artist" who frequently took a dump on stage and played in it (to put it nicely) and was also known for wallowing in self-drawn blood (to put it nicely again).

08. "Holding On So Tight" - Gary Floater (portion of the song at this link)
This ode to "punching the clown" might not rest easy on radio programmers' palates.

Lucinda has never been bashful about middle-aged sex. "Now I've got your sweetness all up in my hair"... TMI Lucy!

Unreasonable figures?

Pink champagne, candlelight, surprising the wife (and her lover ...with a knife!!)

Rodney's a born romantic, huh ladies?

03. "Delia's Gone" - Johnny Cash
This shockingly cold and violent song from the Man in Black is all the more disturbing because of who it's from.

I guess if you're as ugly as Coe, you've got to lay on the charm thick.

Hank returns to the countdown with this wordy-durd filled rant against Nashville, offering to put male and female sexual organs back into country music (were they ever there in the first place?) The D-word and the C-word get ample airtime.

Feb 14, 2014

YouTube Gems: Robert Ellis

From his new album The Lights From the Chemical Plant, here's Robert Ellis (currently doing shows with Jason Isbell) with "Steady as the Rising Sun." RIYL: Isbell, Robbie Fulks, Todd Snider, Jason Eady.

Album Review: Jimbo Mathus - Dark Night of the Soul


Jimbo Mathus is a redneck poet. Dark Night of the Soul is his latest edition of backwoods verse and it may be his strongest yet.

It opens with a simple piano and Jimbo's wild-man southern soul-singing before kicking in with a Muscle Shoals bass-line on the title track. The tune never really cuts loose musically, but Mathus' full throat delivery is all you need to know he means business.

"White Angel" follows that up with a slow burning southern rocker about a cocaine addiction. Whoever he's singing to isn't being judged, merely presented with the sad truths of his dependent existence. This song and the sadsack lament "Tallahatchie," later on the album, were co-written by our dearly departed pal Robert Earl Reed. They are passionate monuments to Reed's talent and heart.

"Writing Spider" is a powerful and deceptively simple look at faith, loss and regret. Jimbo's strength as a writer who can project universal questions onto simple moments is on full display here. Imagine William Faulkner wrote a Tom Petty song.

My favorite cut on Dark Night is "Medicine." It's a loping, trippy portrait of a man about to run smack into a wall of drug withdrawal. "Hey doctor, bring me my fix" he yearns, with the dawning realization that sickness is creeping in quickly.


Dark Night of the Soul presents all facets of Jimbo Mathus: soul-singer, folksy storyteller, strutting rocker, country songwriter - there's little he can't do and sound like a master doing it. The most gripping thing about this record is just how little Mathus holds back. He's found his groove and is barreling headlong and breathlessly forward.

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Dark Night of the Soul is out this coming Tuesday (2/18) and can be purchased on Amazon and the Fat Possum site.

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