My father recently purchased that Time/Life “Golden Age of Country” CD set that Mickey Gilley hawks on TV. It arrived just last week, and ever since I’ve been waltzin’, yearnin’, yodelin’, and everything else that classic country makes you do without the final “g.” Seriously, in the early 1970s I was a little kid riding around with my dad in his shaky, tool-filled Volkswagen bus listening to AM radio country stations, so this stuff isn’t new to me.
I’ve rediscovered one amazing artist: 1950s honky tonk heartthrob Webb Pierce. He’s hardly obscure – he charted almost 90 hits over two decades – but people don’t talk about him much these days. (Pierce died in 1991). From my childhood I remember two of his most famous No. 1 hits — ”In the Jailhouse Now” and ”Back Street Affair” — but never connected his name with them. Now I’m on a Pierce bender, kicking back with goosebumpy tunes like ”Slowly,” ”Wondering,” and ”There Stands the Glass.” Alcoholism, adultery, incarceration, and despair never sounded so durn pretty.
Pierce even sang a tune about Fort Worth – “Cow Town” – that’s unfortunately one of his cheesier affairs. He sounds great, but besides the horrid backup vocals, he sings about the locals standing around smiling in white hats and brown boots. Ray Price’s later ode “Fort Worth, Texas” was an improvement.
