Date News Posted: September 30, 2010

Well today is August the 8^th, 2010 and I was just remembering as I watched Gene Simmons doing a tribute to our troops a sign that hung over the port of Sasabo, Japan harbor as we pulled in and me just a young Marine standing on the deck reading that sign which read:

A Hundred and seventy nine years of Walkin’, Talkin’, Hell, Death and Destruction > “The United States Marines.”

Many years has been added to that number now, I never bothered to count how many more, I just want to always remember it the way it was, I may be older now but I will never get to old to give thanks every day to all the young guys who have come along and took my place, and all who have gone thru Hell, Death and Destruction in all those wars since Korea, I came home, Some Gave All.

Watching the news on TV is getting to be more then most Americans can watch these days, the White House is falling apart, little towns like a few here in California which no one really paid attention to before, where  the town council has up’d their own salary to two or three hundred thousand a year and blocks away people are sleeping in cardboard boxes.

And as far as stopping Mexicans from crossing the border if we can just wait it out there won’t be any Mexicans left to cross the border, the cartel has already killed thirty five thousand of their own people this year who stuck their nose into the dope traffic business, the bottom line to that is, is if you are stupid enough to want to take a cruise to Mexico this year you better make up a tee shirt for each member of your family that reads “I don’t buy, sell or smoke dope” “I am just here to eat tacos”.

America has waited far to long to stop border traffic, if you don’t believe it just look around they already outnumber you and me, the best we can do at this point is find a way to have them pay taxes, we can say anything we want about some of them but check out the fields and see who’s working in um and who’s digging ditches and who’s mowing your lawn, do I like it ? No, but I also don’t see any white guys I know of out there looking to mow your grass.

There are other people other then Mexicans that are slipping unnoticed into your neighborhood, when was the last time you checked out a seven eleven, or a gas station when was the last time you saw a white man, and not just the owner but even working there or pumping gas, Goober gave up that job a long time ago.

I never really had the urge to hurt anyone with maybe the exception of the war in Korea, but I do wish I had the power that when I see people chained together laying in the streets dis-respecting our flag and military that I could just order the cops to run over all of um, you think that’s wrong to say? You better hope you never have to depend on those people to save your ass if the war should someday arrive in America.

When I was fifteen our mother passed away leaving me as the oldest of three to take care of things. I did the best I could ‘till I was seventeen at which time I told my Dad I wanted to join the Marines, he didn’t like the idea but said if I could pass the test he would sign for me to go in, well, I passed and he signed and I left home never to turn back again except for a couple visits back to Indiana and Kentucky.

When I was fifteen my brother was thirteen, when he got to be seventeen he told Dad he wanted to join the Navy, Dad told him the same thing he told me, “If you can pass the test I will sign the papers” he passed and Dad signed.  Now we are not stupid we know this hurt Dad he had already lost our mom, my brother said he caught Dad crying after I left and I know that Dad cried when my brother left but it was what we had to do, after boot camp I went to Korea and after boot camp my brother went to Vietnam I spent nine years as a Marine my brother spent twenty years as a sailor, anyway you add that up, two brothers gave twenty nine years for America and the only thing I have ever been sorry about is that I wish I would have stayed in long enough to have been in twenty years myself.

Anyway about now you are probably saying “What the hell has this got to do with country music, all I can say to that is, if it wasn’t for my brother and I and millions of other young men over the years going to stand up for America you would probably be singing something that has no resemblance to “Country Music” and just take a guess as to what that may be.

Ever now and then I just like to dig out records or tapes or some of the great music that has been put on CD, now most of us that have been on earth for a while don’t always like changes but CDs are about the best thing to come along since the old 78s in grandma’s attic.

We couldn’t put a record presser in our house and all it took to make a record, but anyone can make a CD, now in the beginning like everything else they cost a bundle but time and hundreds of companies making them has brought the cost down to where they cost no more then a good stereo set, now I know by the time I am gone there will be new and better things but as far as I’m concerned  CDs are far enough for me.

And you have to admit that although all that great old country music is not yet on CD, if you have the record you can do it your self and it’s very easy to do…so, what’s the point?.

Well the point is that there is so much great, not just good but great country music that no, or very few radio stations even have in their library let alone play it and if you really want to hear country music you gotta go lookin’ because it ain’t coming to you via many stations on your radio.

Now everyone has their old favorites there is no doubt about that but the truth is you don’t have to go back to the 30s or 40s to find good country music, even as far back as Gene Watson some great country music got past censors but whether it did or it didn’t chances are unless you have the CD or record you ain’t never going to hear it again.

So today I thought we would do a little lookin’ and seeing what I thought was good from just the past few years.

Now Gene Watson has managed to “still” record some great material over the years and the good part is for the most part it can be bought on line or at one of the few mail order houses still left.

There are so few what you would call record shops left that most people don’t even go looking, anyway it got kinda old to walk into one of them (record stores) and ask for George Jones and the clerk with sixty four tattoos said  “Who?”.

So from Gene Watson’s “In Other Words” CD album try this one “Old Porch Swing” which is a story about all the memories that old swing brings?

Also on that same album is kind of a strange song called “One & One & One” about a gal who wants to know if it’s alright to have two men instead of one, but still it’s so different that’s what makes it country.

And from Watson’s “Then And Now” CD there are some more good ones from Gene like “I Didn’t Think Of You At All” & “I Wonder How It Is In Colorado”.

If you remember David Ball and his “Riding with Private Malone” which was a great song with a great story and kind of a tear jerker but then, it’s Country...

Also on David’s “Amigo” CD there are several more that sure sound good like “She Always Talked About Mexico” in fact the whole album is worth buying and playing again.

Rayburn Anthony, not the country’s biggest name in music but he sings some great songs and we sure thank him for sending us one of his that I keep close by and play the heck out of it called “This Old Juke Box” now this one is about a guy that’s not to happy about what he’s hearing on the radio so he buys himself a jukebox and fills it with all the great tunes he likes. (Something you might want to do yourself).

From T. Graham Brown comes “Wine Into Water” now we got this one a while back after we heard him do it on “Larry’s Country Diner” the title I guess pretty much tells the story of the song, needless to say he had drank to much wine over the years and now he is asking the man upstairs to help him change the Wine back into water. Great song by T. Graham and just a great CD to own.

An old wino was staggering down the street with a jug of T Bird wine in his hip pocket, he trips and falls back on his butt and seconds later felt something running down his leg, as he look to the heavens he uttered “Oh Lord I hope It’s blood”

Hylo Brown now here is a great old blue grasser from way back who’s music is as great today as it was when he recorded it and sang it on stage where ever that may have been.

Pretty clear how he got his name Hylo, he could sing really high and he could sing really low so Hylo it was, his real first name was Frank.

First song I remember of Hylo’s was “A Bar With No Beer” now that’s a heck of a story about an old boy that gets home one night and his wife about dies of a heart attack because he is never on time, if he’s not working he’s at the bar and sadly he is telling his wife “The Bar Has No Beer”>That one is not on this album of Hylo’s called “Lovesick and Sorrow” but this one is that Hylo also made famous called “Cocaine Blues” on this “Lovesick” CD there are 16 tracks of what they call the best of Hylo Brown, I am not sure it is the best of they may have just run out of good titles , “More of Hylo” would have been fine.

Couple trips ago we mentioned Ed Bruce and his latest album called “This Old Hat’ he has some old and new stuff on it, I think good ole Ed is about ready to hang it up and stick to writing songs and doing some TV now and then but with all the great records he has made over the years I reckon he’s in title to spend more time with his bird dogs.

Nevertheless some of Ed’s songs will be heard for generations to come, and I’ll be playin’ um.

I probably should have stayed a DJ maybe by now I could have owned my own station and played all these great songs and talked about them and let people call in and talk about when country was country and western was western which by the way I hate the word country western, there is no such word, it is either country or it’s western.

And speaking of “Western” which we just were, we have several Rex Allen albums but a DJ friend in Denmark sent us a 3 album set of Rex’s material, now England and Germany gather up U.S masters and put them all together and a lot of other strange stuff and sometimes it works and sometimes it don’t but in this case with Rex they all sounded pretty nice and it brought back the memory of one of Rex’s songs we had not heard in a long while..

But first think about this, if there was a record store and you went in and ask a hippie clerk who’s face (and I have counted up to eleven in a clerk that used to be here in town) he was pierced in his face, ears, nose, eyelids, I sure thank goodness he wasn’t naked, no telling where else he was pierced, but anyway think about asking him for this Rex Allen title: “JoseVillaLopesAlfradoThomasoVincenteLopez”.

Rex Allen like my old friend Eddie Dean I sure do miss and come to think of it, all those singing cowboys, Monte Hale, boy what a great guy he was, Roy, Gene they sure made a lot of young kids happy back when, which reminds me, have you ever seen the tribute the Statler Brothers does about all those great cowboys? It’s just fun to watch over and over, sure brings back a lot of memories.

We watched it on the net several times, if it’s not on a disc for people to buy then it should be it even covers all those great side kicks, Eddie said that Fuzzy Knight and some of the others he had worked with just made it all worth while.

Last time we wrote some things about Dale McBride and if you still don’t have any of his CDs or music you would sure enjoy it if you did.  Check out what we wrote last time and get yourself a couple of his songs or CDs

If you know where Virgil Warner is let us know we would like to do a story on him if he is still singing, or even if he isn’t, either way he sure had some great music. (Last we heard he was in Arizona)

Don’t forget to send us a card that we can send on to Warner Mack.

We are still one title short for the Smiley Monroe CD,  “Paul Bunion Love” it was on a 45 many years ago. 

Check out some of the things Charley Daniels writes you may want him in the White House come next election time.

Grace Bradley “Hopalong” Boyd has passed away at 97, Grace first off was a beautiful actress and second she was the wife of one of America’s most popular cowboys Hopalong Cassidy.

Eddie and I were having some coffee one day in a little old coffee shop when a little kid walked up (his daddy probably put him up to it) and ask, sir, did Hopalong Cassidy only have one leg, Eddie laughed and said “no son, he had two” the boy said “well why did they call him Hopalong then ?.

Eddie appeared in some of Hoppy’s movies but did you notice anything? He never sang in any of them, I guess Hoppy thought there were enough singing cowboy movies...

Hoppy was almost twice the age of Grace when they married, he was 42 she was 23.

Bill almost lost his butt when he bought up the rights and old films of the Hoppy character in the amount of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars and nothing was happening, but then out of the clear blue a TV station in Los Angles and one in New York started running the old Hoppy films and the words Hopalong Cassidy became a household word for many years to come.

Banjo great Earl Scruggs has been in the hospital in North Carolina he is 86.

Who in the world could ever forget the great music that Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs made during those great years, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” is a bluegrass classic and>>Come listen to my story bout a man name Jed>>or as will be remembered forever “The Ballad Of Jed Clampett.

Couple of birthdays this month Lefty’s little brother David is 69.

Lynn Anderson is 63

Doug Supernaw is 50

Carlene Carter is 55

But the juice drinking  man that for years has been kicking his legs up between two chairs and makes and drinks juice on TV stations all over the U.S is now 96 years old and of course that is Mr. Jack LaLanne, keep on a truckin’ Jack.

Bill Phillips is gone, born in Canton, North Carolina on January the 28^th 1936, Bill moved to Nashville in 1957 and worked with the Johnny Wright and Kitty Wells show.  His biggest record was “Put It Off Until Tomorrow” which reached number six on the national charts, doing the harmony vocals on Bill’s “Put It Off” record was a little known country singer by the name of Dolly Parton.

(Gosh, I wonder what ever happened to that girl.)  The P.S to that story is, this was the first recording that Dolly ever sang on.

The heading to this article reads>>”These are real notes written by parents in the Memphis school district.

1 My son is under a doctor’s care and should not take PE today.  Please execute him.

2 Please excuse Lisa for being absent she was sick and I had her shot.

3 John has been absent because he had two teeth taken out of his face.

4 Please excuse Ray Friday from school. He has very loose vowels.

 (And finally for tonight)

5 Sally won’t be in school a week from Friday, we have to attend her funeral

 I am sure any good song writer could make a great song out of these excuses from Memphis parents.

 That’s gonna’ do it for this time, and we’ll see ye later, but just in case we don’t. Take care of yourself.

God Bless America

Don Bradley
Country Classics