Song of the Week: George Jones -- Revenooer Man. RIP

The news just hit that George Jones died today. He was 81 years old. Here is an article we posted on the man and his music back in January of 2010. 

George Jones always scared me. Back in the '70s he was a dead ringer for cult leader, the Reverend Jim Jones. Dark glasses, overly sculpted hair, and an intoxicated swagger. Not cool. And his songs stank too (at least that was my opinion). Sometime when I was about 17, I ran across a Mercury Records release called George Jones: Rockin' The Country. For some unknown reason I picked it up and held it in my little hands and flipped it over a time or two. George Jones sure looked different here. He didn't have much hair, just a real geeky flat top. And he didn't have on those dark lens "mood maker transition" Foster Grant glasses that made him look like that creepy guy who hangs around the playground after school. For the low-low price of $3.00, I was able to carry it out of Barney's Records in Davis California and back to my not-so-swingin' pad.

It's a damn good record filled with upbeat rockabilly numbers and stellar production. It includes Jones' first (of many to come) #1 Country and Western hit, White Lightning (see video below). The standout on that record, however, is the fast paced Revenooer Man, our SOTW. I'm not sure of the history of the recording, but by the sound of it, I assume it was recorded in Bradley's Barn outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Moreover, I assume that my favorite Nashville session man, Grady Martin is on the baritone guitar here. Flip-side devotees may recall that we sang Martin's praises on his uncredited role on The Johnny Burnette Trio's mind blowing Train Kept-a Rollin' and on Johnny Horton's Honky Tonk Hardwood Floor.

On Revenooer Man, Jones and the session men, run through the tale of a G-man hot on the trail of moonshiners fleeing at a break neck speed. The tempo and the acoustic guitar intro are reminiscent of some of those early Everly Brothers songs, some of which were also recorded at Bradley's Barn. The baritone guitar harkens to early work of Johnny Horton. Jones' vocal style, like those of early Conway Twitty, clearly reveal his and the producers knowledge of the dominating presence of people like Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis who were taking away the younger audiences from the country stars.

In all my years of hitting clubs, I have never, ever heard anyone cover this song. White Lightning? A million times. Revenooer Man? Not once. What's up with that? Sit back and enjoy this scratchy recording of George Jones performing Revenooer Man.

See you on the Flip-Side.

Song of the Week: "Honky-Tonk Hardwood Floor", Johnny Horton

If you were to thumb through my record collection anytime after 1983, somewhere between John Lee Hooker and Howlin' Wolf you would find an old album from a balding man with a perma-5 O'Clock shadow spotted wearing a garish cardinal red suit. The man leaning against an Oak tree didn't look like a hipster musician. If you had to guess you'd probably peg that man for a life insurance salesman. At about this moment, you, like most of my teenage friends at the time, would turn to me with mocking laughter and say "what the heck is this? Johnny Horton?". It was always a tough record to defend. Ninety-percent of the record was filled with corny historical songs about gold mining in Alaska and the Bismarck sinking. But hidden in there was a real gem. It was his first single ever (from January of '56) and it was a hardcore honky tonk diamond called Honky Tonk Man. The same song that, at that same time of  the mid-80's would become a mini-hit for a budding young country musician named Dwight Yoakam. (Dwight and I knew what was cool even if others didn't!)

It took a lot of years but I finally mustered enough courage to dig deeper and see if this traveling salesman looking dude had any other honky tonk numbers. Did he ever. Horton (who, to the best of my knowledge, never heard a Who), it turns out had a real nice career for a couple of years cutting honky tonk numbers with limited success in Nashville and Louisiana before he struck gold with his history schlep songs at the onset of 1958.

Two solid years of brilliant honky tonk numbers, one after another. Very few of which make it onto the proverbial Greatest Hits records. Our Song of the Week is one of those numbers cut in his honky tonk phase. The song is 1957's Honky-Tonk Hardwood Floor cut for Columbia records in Nashville. Serious listeners (and the astute Flip-Side reader) might say, "hey, Morgan, this sounds kinda like the Johnny Burnette Rock-N-Roll Trio's work on Train Kept a-Rollin' that you wrote about a few weeks ago." Well, my clever friends, you are correct. That is because it was recorded with the same session guitarist; one Mr. Grady Martin.

Martin's guitar propels the song along with his dark low-octave runs that feel as if the middle has been chiseled out of the tone leaving only a low and high range. His lead is sublime in it's attack, tone and feel...and the echo is just right. Horton's acoustic, rhythm guitar is solid and the piano fills out the barrel-house feel with, as Horton says in the song, a "Jelly Roll". And what honky-tonk song would be complete without lyrics about...honky tonk: "You've got two black eyes that you picked up from a little guy the week before/So you swear off drinkin' but when you get to thinkin' 'bout the good times you had galore. You keep a-havin' your fun you lucky son of a gun on a honky tonk hardwood floor."

Shakespeare couldn't have written about honky-tonks any better. Nor could he sing it better than Horton who's voice is more than quite pleasing. Like Shakespeare, Horton died in a Texas car crash in 1960, limiting his career to four short years of recording (two as a honky tonk man, two as a gimmick singer). If you like this song, I suggest you check out any of his recording between '56 and '58.

That's it for this week. Merry Christmas.