UNDER-APPRECIATED ROCK ARTIST OF THE MONTH FOR MAY 2011: THE LONESOME DRIFTER
One of my favorite rock bands is the Cramps, founded in New York in the mid-1970's. They loved finding weird, obscure songs from the 1950's and 1960's and reintroducing them to the world in their albums and concerts, though their own original songs that were filtered through this sensibility are just as enjoyable. A series of CD's on Born Bad Records called Born Bad ' a/k/a Songs the Cramps Taught Us (actually that might be two different CD series; I've never been able to tell for sure) ' brought the original songs to the masses (as did a popular radio show by the band called The Purple Knif Show ' without an 'e', and pronounced 'ka-nif' ' that was later released as an album also). I have the first six volumes of Born Bad (and were they expensive, too, at $18 a pop); but the price has come down recently, so I might see about getting some more. (More about that another time). At any rate: Highly recommended.
Another cool thing about
the Cramps is that they were always about half women, half men. One of their drummers,
Miriam Linna met
Billy Miller at a record show in
1977; and their common musical interests led them to form a fanzine called
Kicks, dedicated to obscure
rock,
soul and
rockabilly. They are now married.
The term '
rockabilly' ' the word is an amalgamation of
rock and
hillbilly (an early term for
country music) ' was thrilling to me even before I actually knew what it meant. It was one of the earliest forms of
rock and roll and the first to be played primarily by white musicians, going all the way back to '
Rock Around the Clock' by
Bill Haley and His Comets. The roster of
rockabilly stars over the years starts of course with
The King,
Elvis Presley, along with
Carl Perkins,
Jerry Lee Lewis and most of the other artists at
Sun Records in the
1950's, plus
Wanda Jackson, Eddie Cochran and others. There was also a
rockabilly revival in the
early 1980's led by
the Blasters and
the Stray Cats. To this day, when a band wants a rawer sound, they will incorporate
rockabilly into their music.
A
1986 article in
Kicks on
Hasil Adkins caused a sensation, and
Norton Records ' named for
Ed Norton, the
Art Carney character on the long-running
Jackie Gleason TV comedy
The Honeymooners ' was born when they released
Out to Hunch later that year, the first of several albums collecting
Adkins's music.
Norton LP's are gloriously retro, sometimes with plain block lettering on their dull-orange labels, old-fashioned stiff album covers, and often long liner notes. I had heard the most successful of his singles on one of the
Born Bad CD's, '
She Said'; and even that one song demonstrates that
Hasil Adkins can burp and beep and howl his way through a song better than anyone this side of
Charlie Feathers (he is known as the '
king of rockabilly' and is the co-author of one of
Elvis Presley's earliest hit songs, '
I Forgot to Remember to Forget'). However, I didn't get an entire album until last year.
Hasil Adkins is a true wild man;
Allmusic calls him a 'rockabilly lunatic' and 'a frantic one-man band who bashed out ultra-crude
rock & roll tunes about sex, chicken, and decapitation into a wheezing reel-to-reel tape machine in a
West Virginia shack'. He was born in a small town there in
1939 and lived in obscurity for most of his life. After buying a
Hank Williams record, he naively assumed that
Williams was playing all of the instruments, since there were no other musician credits shown. By the time he figured out the truth, he had already taught himself to be a one-band band, so he stuck with that. When
rock and roll came along in the
mid-1950's, he jumped in with both feet. He released about 15 singles back in the
1950's and
1960's, though none were big sellers. In a charming affectation, he always mailed a copy of his records to whoever was
President at the time it came out; and
Richard Nixon sent him a thank-you note one time.
There's plenty more out there:
Allmusic reports that
Hasil Adkins released 5 or 6 songs about a 'lascivious but non-existent dance craze called âthe hunch'' ' collected in that first
Norton album,
Out to Hunch ' and another song about eating peanut butter on the moon.
Norton also released
Poultry in Motion, a full album of
Adkins songs that all have 'chicken' in the title.
Thanks to the exposure from
Kicks magazine and
Norton Records,
Hasil Adkins got to enjoy a minor celebrity status during the last 20 or so years of his life.
On an impluse, I ordered another
Norton Records LP at the same time, a
2010 compilation of a man from
northern Louisiana who calls himself
THE LONESOME DRIFTER called
Eager Boy (subtitled: '
Rockabilly and
Hillbilly Bop from the Vaults of
Ram Records 1958-
59!'). If nothing else had sprung from there,
northern Louisiana would still be renowned as the home of the
Louisiana Hayride radio show, the direct antecedent of the even more legendary show from
WSM Radio in
Nashville,
The Grand Ole Opry. However, this fertile musical landscape was also the home of artists as varied as the
avant-garde (and anonymous) band
the Residents, musical entrepreneur
Dale Hawkins (whose song '
Suzie Q' was one of the first in the genre called '
swamp rock' and was also the first hit song by
Creedence Clearwater Revival), and a wealth of
country stars like
Trace Adkins (no relation to
Hasil Adkins, as far as I know),
Tim McGraw and
Hank Williams, Jr. (father
Hank Sr. was from
Alabama). The man born
Thomas Johnson in
Bastrop, LA was inspired by the founders of
country and western like
Jimmie Rodgers,
Hank Williams and
Bill Monroe; and his dream was to appear on the
Louisiana Hayride.
Ram Records was the hub of
rockabilly music in
northern Louisiana and also seemed to be about half women, half men ' much rarer in those days. Guitarist
Mira Smith, with help from her cousin
Alton Warwick started the
Ram Recording Co. in
Shreveport; and this was where
Thomas Johnson and his band headed.
Mira gave him a poem called '
Tear Drop Valley' that was written by two of her friends, and
Johnson set it to music and recorded it at a studio in a small radio station nearby.
Mira later decided to start her own record company called
K Records (named for her sister
Kathleen Smith).
Meanwhile,
Thomas Johnson got a poem from an insurance salesman in his hometown called '
N----r Boy', about someone who had big plans for his life.
Johnson changed the title to '
Eager Boy', though in the original, the lyrics have a real poignancy: After listing his dreams in the verses, including wanting to become
Senator and maybe even
President ' just like the current
President Barack Obama ' the chorus line is: 'But everybody treats me like a toy / Because I'm just a n----r boy'.
Chuck Berry's landmark hit '
Johnny B. Goode' ' which has a similar theme about someone with big dreams, come to think of it ('Maybe someday your name will be in lights / Sayin' âJohnny B. Goode tonight!'') ' also has a hidden history. The first verse originally went: 'Deep down in
Louisiana close to
New Orleans / Way back up in the woods among the evergreens / There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood / Where lived a colored boy named Johnny B. Goode / Who never, ever learned to learn to read or write so well / But he could play a guitar just like a-ringin' a bell.'
Chuck changed the lyric to 'country boy' to ensure that the song could get a wider acceptance.
The liner notes on
the Lonesome Drifter LP ' written by
Kicks and
Norton Records co-founder
Billy Miller ' says of his best known song: 'â
Eager Boy' epitomizes full throttled
rockabilly ' a cocksure lead vocal and trigger-happy guitar riding atop a solid slap bass rhythm'. He continues: 'â
Eager Boy' arguably stands as
rockabilly's high water mark, rightfully commanding a king's ransom among today's collectors'. As an example, in the week ending
May 20, 2010, the original
'Eager Boy' 45 was the third highest selling vinyl record on
eBay, bringing an astounding $5,100.69.
No matter how great they are, the problem with reissuing music from obscure artists like
the Lonesome Drifter who have only one or two singles to their name is that there usually aren't a lot of songs in the vault to pick from. The
Eager Boy album does include three different versions of both sides of his first single,
'Eager Boy' and
'Tear Drop Valley'; I might add though that I didn't mind hearing a one of them. However, the other 11 songs on the album are equally astonishing and could have easily formed the basis of a colorful career.
The Lonesome Drifter has some lovely reminiscences within the liner notes on the
Eager Boy LP; they conclude: 'The last show I did was in
1960.
Margaret Lewis and all of them were on the bill. Like I said, I was a loner. I'd do my thing and cut and run. We used this fiddle player that night, and on the second song, he sounded like he was skinning a cat! I put my guitar across my shoulder and I quit right there. Pawned my guitar. I've regretted it ever since. But that played into the mindset of
the Lonesome Drifter, no good, a down and outer. I guess it added some to the mystery about me.'
Great story, no doubt. But really,
the Lonesome Drifter was late leaving the party if anything.
Sun Records had amassed perhaps the greatest aggregation of talent in the history of popular music and, not incidentally, had for my money the best looking record labels ever. In
1956, they were able to show off by hosting an impromptu jam session by the
Million Dollar Quartet, having a genuinely stupendous line-up:
Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and
Jerry Lee Lewis (
Sun-signed artists all, though
Elvis was by now at
RCA). Most agree though that
Sun had begun to lose its edge by the end of the decade.
As to the
Quartet,
Elvis was drafted into the
Army in
1958; when he returned to music two years later, his recordings were quite different and continued to evolve over time.
Johnny Cash became one of
country music's greatest artists; and
Jerry Lee Lewis made a similarly seamless transition to
country and is generally regarded as one of the premier piano players in any musical form. In the
late 1960's, I attended a traveling show of several
country artists put together by
Jim Ed Brown, if memory serves. It included one of the earliest appearances by
Crystal Gayle (
Loretta Lynn's younger sister) long before her hit song '
Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue', and
Roger Miller might have been the headliner; but what I really remember was the electrifying appearance by
Jerry Lee Lewis, still one of the most exciting concerts I have ever seen ' and the rest of the audience seemed to concur.
Wanda Jackson became the '
queen of rockabilly' when
Elvis Presley himself encouraged her to sing
rockabilly when she toured with him in
1955-
1956, but she began moving toward pure
country when she had an early hit song with the title track '
Right or Wrong' on her
1961 album
Right or Wrong. Near the end of the arc of her
rockabilly career, she recorded one of the songs on my
All-Time Top Ten, the sublime '
Funnel of Love' with her hot new band,
the Party Timers that featured a young
Roy Clark. This was yet another song that was introduced to me on a
Born Bad CD.
Rockabilly survives as echoes and grace notes in a dozen or more
rock and
country subgenres but, in its purest form, might be too kinetic and sinewy for the general public to bear for very long. Thankfully, in this modern era, nostalgia has morphed into what might more properly be called musical appreciation; and forgotten and unknown gems from all types of popular music are available to connoisseurs like never before. Reissue CD's from
Norton Records and many other labels abound with
rockabilly nuggets, as just one example.
Norton ' now celebrating its 25th anniversary ' has released at least 8 albums of
Hasil Adkins' music and continues to do so (the album I have came out in
2010 and wasn't mentioned in the
Wikipedia article on
Adkins until I added it); and several other record companies have also put out
Hasil Adkins albums. And now
the Lonesome Drifter has taken his rightful place in the
Norton Records archives.
* * *
The
Honor Roll of the
Under Appreciated Rock Bands and Artists follows, in date order, including a link to the original
Facebook posts and the theme of the article.
Dec 2009 ' BEAST; Lot to Learn Mar 2010 ' BANG; Record Collecting I Jul 2010 ' THE EYES; Los Angeles Punk Rock Mar 2011 ' INDEX; Psychedelic Rock (1960's) May 2011 ' THE LONESOME DRIFTER; Rockabilly
Nov 2013 ' CHIMERA; Women in Rock II Jan 2014 ' BOYSKOUT; (Lesbian) Women in Rock IV Apr 2014 ' HOMER; Creating New Bands out of Old Ones Jul 2014 ' MIKKI; Rock and Religion I (Early CCM Music) Sep 2014 ' NICK FREUND; Rock and Religion III (The Beatles) Mar 2015 ' PHIL GAMMAGE; Songwriting II (Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan) Dec 2016 ' THE IGUANAS; Iggy and the Stooges; Proto-Punk Rock Jun 2017 ' THE LOONS; Punk Revival and Other New Bands Dec 2017 ' SS-20; The Iguana Chronicles
