Country Used To Sound Like This

From The Vaults

This is old country music, anthologised by Decca, for whom these recordings were made, and there is one track called “Pork Chop Stomp,” I had to mention that right at the outset, “Pork Chop Stomp,” which goes into the list of Great Song Titles, and with lyrics to match.

Pork chop stomp
Pork chop stomp
Pork chop stomp
Pork chop stomp
(repeat…)

Country music in those days was pretty close to folk music, pork chops notwithstanding, though, as a friend of mine so poetically put it, as you get into the 70’s it starts to sound more and more like CJOB, referring to the radio station everyone’s parents listened to back in the day.

This is another one from the West K Library, and I saved here all the tracks dating up to the mid 50s, except one, which is by Red Foley. The remainder of the tracks I have here and there, either on collections of their own, like Brenda Lee, Bill Anderson, Patsy Cline et al, or scattered about in their proper times.

So many of these show up later by others, “Cattle Call” by Eddy Arnold, “Just Because” by Elvis Presley, “Walkin’ The Floor Over You” by Ernest Tubb (again) and by Jerry Lee Lewis, “Bile Dem Cabbage Down” by the Smothers Brothers, honestly, with the title rendered simply “Cabbage,” “The Eyes Of Texas” which is just “I’ve Been Working On The Railroad” with different words, Elvis did that one too. “You Are My Sunshine” is one song that I’ve genuinely never liked, I don’t know why, and here it’s done by its composer Jimmie Davis who was actually the governor of Louisiana; the song was salvaged as a reference in the Statler Brothers’ “Do You Know You Are My Sunshine” which is as good as the referenced song is bad. Bad? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just too darn jolly.

Lots of entertainment here. Any collection that has Cousin Emmy & Her Kinfolk can’t be all bad, can it?

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Stuart Hamblen and His
Covered Wagon Jubilee:

• Texas Plains

Tex Owens:

• Cattle Call

Curley Fox:

• Listen To The Mockingbird

Milton Brown and His
Brownies:

• The Eyes Of Texas

The Carter Family:

• My Dixie Darling

Leo Soileau's Rhythm Boys:

• La Bonne Valse

Rex Griffin:

• The Last Letter

Clayton McMichen's
Georgia Wildcats:

• Bile Dem Cabbage Down

Riley Puckett:

• Short Life Of Trouble

Tex Ritter and His Texans:

• Singing In The Saddle

Buddy Jones:

• I'll Get Mine Bye And Bye

Bill Carlisle's Kentucky
Kookoos:

• Sparkling Blue Eyes

Cliff Bruner And His Boys:

• Truck Driver's Blues

Jimmie Davis With Charles
Mitchell's Orchestra:

• You Are My Sunshine

Ernest Tubb:

• Walking The Floor Over You

Johnnie Lee Wills and
His Boys:

• Milk Cow Blues

Floyd Tillman and His
Favorite Playboys:

• They Took The Stars Out Of Heaven

Cousin Emmy And Her Kinfolk:

• Ruby

Hank 'Sugarfoot'
Garland:

• Sugarfoot Rag