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Drooling on the Pillow

Friday, December 16, 2005

Friday Nite Juke Box 

A Sluggo Joint
As long as I'm flinging esoterica up on the Big Board of Bytes, here's three cuts from an album called Swing West: Bakersfield. That's volume one; volume two was called Swing West: Guitar Slingers. According to Mr. Internet, neither of these albums are available anywhere, so this is your big chance. I have no idea where I got them.

The album is a compilation of late fifties, early sixties country music of a certain kind that came to be known as The Bakersfield Sound. Why there's no cut by Buck Owens, I have no idea. There's two cuts by a young and terrific Merle Haggard and the rest of the artists have either completely or all but disappeared down the mid-twentieth century cultural memory hole.

According to the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, Tommy Collins was born in Oklahoma and had a short, very successful career when he met a DJ and some record producers in Bakersfield. You Better Not Do That was recorded in 1953 for Capitol Records. He stayed hot until 1957 when he quit show bidness to enter divinity school. He died in 2000.


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Next up is The Farmer Boy's, You're A Humdinger. They're credited with helping to invent the Bakersfield sound. You can actually get one of their albums (including this cut) from Amazon.


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Finally, Red Simpson, with The Highway Patrol, a tune I first heard done by Junior Brown. He and Dave Dudley popularized the sub-genre of truck drivin' country music in the mid-sixties and he still plays in Bakersfield clubs.


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That's all for tonight. Next Friday, tune in for the Buh-buh-buh-Brahms Slamma-Jamma.
Posted by: Sluggo / 7:18 PM
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