Classic Recording Sessions - On This Date (3/18)

Rose Maddox - 50 years ago
Monday, March 18, 1963 (1:30 pm - 5:30 pm)
Capitol Recording Studios, 1750 N. Vine St., Hollywood, CA
Rose Maddox: vocal • John Calvin "Cal" Maddox: guitar/vocal • Joe Maphis: guitar/fiddle • Roy Nichols: guitar • Ralph Mooney: pedal steel guitar • "Gentleman" Jim Pierce: piano •  Lawrence B. Wooten: bass • Gwynn M. Nichols: drums • Henry K. Vernon: unknown
Producer: Ken Nelson

50 years ago today, Rose Maddox entered the Capitol Studios in Hollywood, California to record these four songs. Rose didn't exactly set the world on fire during her time at Capitol, but she had a run of 14 Billboard charting hits from 1959 to 1964 and made some great sides. Two of those 14 hits were recorded at this session: "Down To The River" and "Somebody Told Somebody" - both #18 hits in 1963. "Down To The River" and "I Don't Hear You" are both Buck Owens compositions. Buck didn't play on these sessions, but they were, of course, duet partners at the time. In fact, Rose's very next session the following day was her second and last duet session with Buck. But we do have Joe Maphis (doubling on fiddle) and Roy Nichols on guitar - two of the west coast's finest players. Roy Nichols had a long history with Rose, playing as a teenager with The Maddox Brothers & Rose as his first professional gig. After subsequent stints with Lefty Frizzell, Cousin Herb Henson, and Wynn Stewart, Roy, as we all know, went on to be longtime lead guitarist with Merle Haggard & The Strangers. It all adds up to some great, spunky recordings by Rose Maddox & company that I find thoroughly enjoyable. I hope you enjoy them too...

As an added bonus, we also have a wonderful live version of "Down To The River" that was recorded at the Bakersfield Civic Auditorium as part of the Cousin Herb Henson Trading Post show. The song was released on an album of the show called Country Music Hootenanny. Rose's latest duet recording with Buck was in the charts at the time this was recorded on September 12, 1963, but this was her most recent solo hit. A couple months after this show, "Somebody Told Somebody" hit the charts. Hope you enjoy this bonus track...

Classic Recording Sessions - On This Date (6/11)

George Jones - 48 years ago

Monday, June 11, 1962

Columbia Recording Studio, 804 16th Ave. South, Nashville 3, TN

George Jones: vocal, guitar, other musicians unknown.

Producer: Pappy Daily

Any session that produces three top 20 hits (and two of them top 10) would have to be considered a pretty successful session. And that's just what George Jones did on this day in 1962. George was pretty fresh into his new label association with United Artists, and it was off to a great start. His first single for the label ("She Thinks I Still Care"/"Sometimes You Just Can't Win"), had both sides chart at #1 and #17 respectively, and he nearly repeated that success with a single released from today's session ("A Girl I Used To Know"/"Big Fool Of The Year") which charted at #3 and #13 respectively. That, and "Not What I Had In Mind" charted at #7 as well. That's a lot of numbers, but the point is, during this era George was really knocking them out of the park, and this session was particularly productive. "A Girl I Used To Know" was a song that George would revisit as a duet with Tammy Wynette in 1980, as "Just Someone I Used Know" which previously had been a #5 hit for Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton in 1969. There are those numbers again. The bottom line is, this is a really fruitful and enjoyable George Jones session. I hope you enjoy it too...

The three hits from this session, as well the rest of his United Artists singles are contained on Omnivore Recordings' recent release The Complete United Artists Solo Singles.

Song of the Day: "Just For The Children's Sake"

Miss Bonnie Owens

Tuesday, May 3, 1960 (2:00 pm - 6:00 pm)

Radio Recorders, 7000 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood 38, CA

Bonnie Owens: vocal; Billy Strange: guitar; Ralph Mooney: steel guitar; Gordon Terry: fiddle;

George French, Jr: piano; other personnel unknown.

Producer: Bob Keane

JUST FOR THE CHILDREN'S SAKE (Del-Fi 4142)

Jean Shepard

Thursday, July 14, 1960 (Session #9552, 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm)

Bradley Film & Recording Studio, 804 16th Ave. South, Nashville 3, TN

Jean Shepard: vocal; Grady Martin: guitar; Ray Edenton: guitar; Herman Bland: steel guitar;

Lightning Chance: bass; Buddy Harman: drums; Jerry Smith: piano; unknown: fiddle.

Producer: Ken Nelson

FOR THE CHILDREN'S SAKE (Capitol 4425)

Bonnie Owens

Wednesday, August 3, 1966 (Session #14017, 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm)

Capitol Recording Studios, Capitol Tower, 1750 N. Vine St., Hollywood, CA

Bonnie Owens: vocal; probably - Merle Haggard: guitar; Ralph Mooney: steel guitar;

Jerry Ward: bass; other personnel unknown.

Producer: Ken Nelson & Fuzzy Owen

JUST FOR THE CHILDREN'S SAKE (Capitol unissued)

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that the b-side to "Lonely Little World" was another Harlan Howard song called "For The Children's Sake." For today's post, I thought I'd feature that song. We have three versions of it: the Jean Shepard flipside mentioned above, and two Bonnie Owens recordings. The first one is the earliest version I know of from 1960 for Bob Keane's Del-Fi Records, and it's a fabulous example of early Bakersfield, hard driving country. Bonnie re-recorded the song in 1966 after she had signed to Capitol, but this version was not issued at the time. This is another great Harlan Howard tune, and all three versions are outstanding country shuffles, which I really love. Hope you do too...

Song of the Day: "Lonely Little World"

Jean Shepard

Monday, March 21, 1960 (Session #9421 - 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm)

Bradley Film & Recording Studio, 804 16th Ave. South, Nashville 3, TN

Jean Shepard: vocal; Grady Martin: guitar; Ray Edenton: guitar; Walter Haynes: steel guitar;

Junior Huskey: bass; Buddy Harman: drums; Floyd Cramer: piano.

Producer: Ken Nelson

Just a quick and lonely little post today of one of my favorite Jean Shepard records. It's a song written by my favorite country composer, Harlan Howard. The b-side, "For The Children's Sake" (also recorded earlier by Bonnie Owens) was also a Harlan Howard tune. I've always liked Jean's country shuffles like this, and the pedal steel on this track by Walter Haynes is sublime. This record never charted, but I think it should have been a hit. It's a pretty obscure record, but I somehow ended up with two copies of the 45 over the years. Hope you enjoy it too...

Three Demos

Willie Nelson

Not sure yesterday's post resonated all that well, but I've decided to make today's post a follow up regardless. Today we have demo versions of three of the songs that were featured yesterday. It's an interesting trio as you'll hear three pretty different kinds of production here. "Crazy" is a fully arranged recording. As pointed out yesterday, the 4-hour session that Owen Bradley produced on Patsy Cline yielded just that one song. It seems they knew it was something special given that they spent a full session on it. Willie's somewhat sparse, but more fully realized demo might indicate that he (or his publishers) knew it was something special too. The song was reputedly written for Billy Walker, but he passed on it. It would be interesting to hear a Billy Walker version, but history might best have been served by his turning it down. "Three Days" is just Willie on guitar, and the demo for "Undo The Right" adds some nice, bluesy pedal steel. As far as I know, these recordings are all from 1961. One source shows "Three Days" as 1962, but given that his Liberty version was recorded at the September 1961 date, it seems unlikely he would have done a simple guitar demo after the fact. As I mentioned yesterday, this period of Willie Nelson is my favorite. I hope you all enjoy this further exploration into early Willie.

Classic Recording Sessions - Three Days

Patsy Cline

Monday, August 21, 1961 (7:15 pm - 11:15 pm)

Bradley Film & Recording Studio, 804 16th Ave. South, Nashville 3, TN

Patsy Cline: vocal; Harold Bradley: guitar; Grady Martin: guitar; Randy Hughes: guitar; Walter Haynes: steel guitar; Bob Moore: bass; Buddy Harman: drums; Floyd Cramer: piano; Jordanaires: backing vocals.

Producer: Owen Bradley

11037 Crazy

Willie Nelson

Tuesday, August 22, 1961

Nashville, TN

Willie Nelson: vocal, guitar; other personnel unknown

Tuesday, September 12, 1961

Nashville, TN

Willie Nelson: vocal, guitar; other personnel unknown

Three days for Willie Nelson:

Yesterday: Patsy Cline recorded "Crazy." Willie's big break as a songwriter came earlier in the year with Faron Young's recording of "Hello Walls." Now, Patsy Cline records what proves to be a

signature song both for her and for Willie.

Today: Willie is recording his first session for Liberty Records. "Touch Me" is recorded this day and

will ultimately prove to be his first solo hit - #7 on the Billboard country charts in 1962 (he

had a #10 hit with then-wife Shirley Collie earlier that year).

Tomorrow (well, three weeks later): Willie has his second session for Liberty that yields 10

wonderful songs that would be a big part of Willie's first album And Then I Wrote.

"Crazy" by Patsy Cline is an undisputed classic. It's here today more for context. The real focus of

today's post is Willie Nelson. Having Patsy record "Crazy" was obviously a huge break for Willie. It

would seem that Owen Bradley had high expectations for the song for Patsy as it was the only

song recorded on that Monday. I suppose it's doubtful that Willie was in attendance at the session,

but I'd like to think he was at least aware that it was happening. What's kind of incredible is that

the very next day was another pretty important career day for Willie - his first session for Liberty

Records which were his first significant commercial recordings. He had recorded several demos

in Nashville, some of which have been issued over the years, but aside from a few sporadic small

label records, this is pretty much where Willie sprang forth as a recording artist. As much as I

appreciate and respect Willie's later recordings that he's primarily known for, this early Liberty

stuff is definitely my favorite Willie material. The recordings were done on a somewhat limited

budget, so the arrangements are pretty sparse, but direct and full of feel. Willie's got his

incredible phrasing even this early (in fact, pronounced in more interesting ways at this point,

I think) and the end result is so cool it makes me want to light up a cigarette and slick back my

hair with Brylcream, or Pomade or whatever Willie was using on his hair back before it was

braided. I hope you enjoy these recordings as much as I do.

Coming back, again...

After reading Don's comment where he mentioned the Greenbriar Boys and Jimmy Martin versions of today's Charlie Monroe song, I thought it might be nice to add them as a little bonus post for today. So while I was at it, I decided to throw in a classic Country Gentleman version and another Jimmy Martin version, this time with Ralph Stanley.

Keep comin' back!

"I'm Coming Back But I Don't Know When"

The Country Gentlemen (1961)

The Greenbriar Boys (1961)

Jimmy Martin (1965)

Jimmy Martin & Ralph Stanley (1980)

Classic Recording Sessions - On This Date (5/26)

Lefty Frizzell - 50 years ago

Thursday, May 26, 1960 (7:30 pm - 11:00 pm)

Bradley Film & Recording Studio, 804 16th Ave. South, Nashville 3, TN

Lefty Frizzell: vocal, guitar; Grady Martin: guitar; Harold Bradley: guitar; Don Helms: steel guitar; Joseph Zinkan: bass;

Buddy Harman: drums; Floyd Cramer: piano; unknown: vocal chorus.

Producer: Don Law

Lefty Frizzell - 40 years ago (10 years later)

Tuesday, May 26, 1970 (6:00 pm - 9:00 pm)

Columbia Recording Studio, 804 16th Ave. South, Nashville 3, TN

Lefty Frizzell: vocal, guitar; Fred Carter: guitar; Walter Haynes: guitar; Weldon Myrick: steel guitar; Billy Linneman: bass;

Jerry Carrigan: drums; Johnny Gimble: fiddle; Jerry Smith: piano; unknown: vocal chorus.

Producer: Don Davis

Here are two 3-song sessions from Lefty that are exactly 10 years to the day apart. I guess you couldn't say either of these are exactly "classic" Lefty sessions, but the man never did anything not worth listening to. So while these aren't hits, they're still mostly enjoyable tunes, and we even get one song from the legendary Harlan Howard in "Watermelon Time In Georgia." It's an interesting comparison to hear the difference not only in Lefty in 10 years passage, but in country music in general. The '60s were an incredible period of change in all of music, but here you can hear the progression of the Nashville Sound over a full decade. The 1960 session is a snapshot of what was happening in country music in the wake of the rock and roll boom. These aren't the kinds of songs that we know Lefty for, but this kind of material was not uncommon for many artists of this era. By the 1970 session, country has gotten a little more comfortable with itself again, although the strings and vocal choruses are a far cry from the hits that made Lefty a star in the '50s.