Podcasts · 01/02/2018

Don Rich & Buck Owens, Part 2: Together Again Words often fail to express the connection that can exist between two people. In the friendship of Don Rich and Buck Owens, our notions of reality itself may prove inadequate. In another life, Don Rich may have been a star in his own right. In this life, he shared Buck Owens’ spotlight. Last week, we heard how they got there. This week, with spacetime as our stage, we trip backwards for more tour shenanigans, supernatural mysteries and, as always, gr

Podcasts · 12/27/2017

Buck Owens is an inkblot test. Ask 20 different people, get 20 different Bucks. Whatever else is true (and some of it certainly is), today we’re talking about the one who brought real country music to the world in a time when we desperately needed someone to do that. Sticking to that real deal honky tonk sound from Bakersfield made him a very famous man. Shrewd business practices made him a very rich man. Both of these things made him more than a few enemies. However, all you need to take on th

Podcasts · 12/20/2017

They call him The Storyteller because he distills life into words. Behind any story worth telling, you’ll always find another story. Maybe if we can get behind some of his best stories, we can reverse engineer the alchemy of Tom T. Hall. Maybe we’ll find the story about who he is and how he’s able to do what he can do with the English language… Probably not but, worst case scenario, it will be an incredibly entertaining waste of time. Beginning with a condensed history of country music radio, w

Music · 12/17/2017

BACM 411 -Spade Cooley Vol.1 Live 1944-1946 These amazing air checks feature Cooley's classic Columbia Records-era band, with vocals by Tex Williams, Smokey Rogers, Colleen Summers (AKA, Mary Ford, later of the legendary Les Paul & Mary Ford recordings) and others. A particular highlight is the presence of steel guitar wizard Joaquin Murphey heard at his very best. The live setting gives Murphey, fiddling leader Spade and other instrumental stalwarts like electric guitarist Johnny Weis and accor

Podcasts · 12/12/2017

Jeannie C. Riley’s debut single sold over a million copies within ten days of being released but she never wanted to record the song. She’s often considered a one-hit wonder. We can easily disprove that. In the late ’60s, Jeannie C. Riley became country music’s most blatant sex symbol to date but she never wanted to wear those clothes. Small town girl with big dreams goes to the city and lets it break her in order to make her. Total cliche, right? Sure. Except Jeannie’s choice to bury the sto

Podcasts · 12/05/2017

This episode looks at what Merle Haggard did when it happened to him in 1969 with “Okie from Muskogee.” The song was just what so many Americans needed at the time. Conservatives needed someone to stand up and defend small town, traditional values. Politicians needed someone to justify America’s continuing involvement in the Vietnam War. Oklahomans needed someone to redeem the meaning of the word “okie,” a hateful slur that arose from The Great Depression.

Podcasts · 11/29/2017

The Murder Ballad of Spade Cooley. Spade Cooley came to California in the early 1930s, as poor as everyone else who did the exact same thing at the exact same time. Only, Spade became a millionaire. And all I needed to accomplish that was a fiddle, a smile and a strong work ethic. If it sounds like the American Dream, stick around to hear how it became an American nightmare of substance abuse, mental illness and, eventually, sadistic torture and murder Recommended if you like: Western Swing, mur

Music · 11/06/2017

An Anthology of Western Swing. More than any other popular American music, western swing represents a blend, a combination, a brew of various musical styles and genres. The result is unyieldingly listenable, danceable and unique. Western music, West Texas fiddle tunes, Dixieland and New Orleans jazz, Big Band swing, urban and rural blues, Tin Pan, Alley pop, Spanish music, Jimmie Rodgers songs, polkas and more-these together formed Western Swing.