since everyone is carving out their own board real estate for these, and we all know im such a follower:



Wayne Raney - Songs of the Hills (King Records/1949-ish)





a bit of toots trivia: mr. raney started the Poor Boy label with my grandpappy

Thanks...this looks interesting. I was midway through an upload of something for you on Saturday morning and my internet crapped out. I haven't had time to figure out what the issue is. I'll try to get it uploaded soon. I changed my mind three or four times on what to up but I think I've settled on something.

cool...can't wait

I don't know that I have a really detailed review in me yet but I'm listening to it now so I thought I'd at least post some overdue thoughts. It's a pretty cool little record and one that was a good pick by Toots in that it's mostly up my alley but is definitely not something I'd have come across on my own. I posted about a year ago about how country seems to be one of the few genres where no one is really doing a very good job in reissuing all of the important albums let alone lost classics. I'm not sure why so few pre-70's country studio albums are in print but if you can't find many Porter Wagoner/Loretta Lynn/Bobby Bare albums, there's probably not much hope for a big Wayne Raney reissue campaign not that he's not deserving.

I guess you'd loosely describe this as country but there's a fair amount of acoustic blues tossed in the mix and a little bit of early rock n' roll too. Speed up the guitar a little bit on Jack and Jill Boogie and I might think it was a Chuck Berry cover. That said, I strongly prefer the more straight country material on here like the great opener "Why Don't You Haul Off and Love Me" (which is really great and sets an unfair standard as the opener), "I Was There" and "Burning Your Love Letters" which sound like they could be lost Lefty Frizzell songs. If the whole album sounded like those three, I'd have a hard time taking it out of my stereo. Still, there's not really a bad track on here and it's a welcome addition to my collection that will make a nice soundtrack to some summer whiskey sippin'.

Thanks Toots.

you're welcome

glad to know it's not gonna land in your recycle bin in the near future

i particularly like the wittiness in the lyrics...to wit, "i know she's mean and hateful / she'd die before she'd run / she drinks carbolic acid / and she totes a gatlin gun" on I've Sold My Soul and Adam (..."come and get your bone...")

maybe i'm reading too much of my generation's sensibilities into it, but the innuendo on Adam seems unmistakeable. (knowing my grandpa and his pals, that's probably exactly what he meant.)