George who? Well, you might have known him better as the Commander, Cody, that is, the laconic, cigar chomping leader of his Lost Planet Airmen, that ragggle taggle collective of country memes and influences that beguiled and bemused many an otherwise country music loathing audience across the swathes of the 20th century's last three decades. I loved 'em, but you might have known that.
Frayne started the band back in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a way of getting some beer money whilst pursuing his studies, first a BA in design, topping that with a masters in sculpture and art, two years later, in 1968, before an initial foray into teaching. However, sensing an audience for the manic fusion of country, rockabilly and western swing, he and his like minded compadres did a bunk to Berkeley, during 1969, which is where they stayed, making forever there a little home of red necked hippies in Southern California. A bandleader in the old sense, he was unafraid of the others stealing his thunder, confident and competent enough to give the limelight to the rest of the band, if then to wrest back the crown for one of his idiosyncratic sung-spoken updates of vintage classics. Every album would contain one or two such pieces, like the song above, Hot Rod Lincoln, and the paean to nicotine, Smoke, Smoke, Smoke (That Cigarette). The rest of the booty would be shared out amongst the other front men of the band, Billy C. Farlow, vocalist for the rockier fare, toting a big and unplugged red guitar, and the mighty Bill Kirchen, who could write and croon a country weepy like no other, tongue in cheek, as tears fell down it. Kirchen also possessed an uncanny talent with a telecaster, going later on to have a career of his own, lasting to this day, the self-styled King of Dieselbilly. Having a bevy of ace musicians in the backline can't have hindered either, the likes of Bobby 'Blue' Black on steel and Andy Stein on fiddle and saxophone guaranteeing the chops were as sound as the influences, with second guitar John Tichy, bassist 'Buffalo' Bruce Barlow and drummer Lance Dickerson no small talents either.
Successive record companies, Paramount and then Warner Brothers, had seemingly hoped for some cali country rock to file alongside the Eagles or Poco, which, if nothing else, showed how wrong they had assessed the cut of the band's jib. But, whilst 1971's Lost In the Ozone may have been defiantly different from quite anything else around at the time, it did at least have some minor chart action courtesy Hot Rod Lincoln. Which gave them that extra foot hold to keep doing what they did best. Meanwhile, an ocean away, in the UK, the teenaged me was discovering the pleasures of honky tonks and steel guitar, if only aurally, through the works of Gram Parsons' Flying Burrito Brothers, and I chanced upon a copy of their second album, as entranced by the cover painting as the anticipation off what may lay inside, buying it on spec. Hot Licks, Cold Steel and Trucker's Favorites delighted me and disarmed me in equal doses, the heavy hit of some of the songs initially too "and western" for my untutored ears. Mama Hated Diesels, a brilliantly bittersweet fable from the pen of Kevin 'Blackie' Farrell, had my jaw drop to the ground in horror, momentarily at least, ahead of bouncing swiftly back into a fixed rictus of joy as it progressed. Hook, line and sinker, this was my kind of band, that then cemented by the Live From Deep in the Heart of Texas album. OK, it's true, I was less taken by Country Casanova and Tales From the Ozone, which seemed a little too busily wacky and less authentic, but remember being delighted as a friend picked up the latter, able to further eulogise their earlier works to him.
Which is how, in the spring of 1976 we found ourselves at London's Hammersmith Odeon, the two of us ready and eager for a taste of the live show ourselves. Unbeknownst then, it was from this show that provided the live tapes for (some of) later that years second live recording, We've Got a Live One Here, a double album I had to dig out and play, as I prepared this piece. Surpassing any of my expectations, the band were on fire, the line-up augmented by harmonica maestro, Norton Buffalo. Plus, given both he and Kirchen were also adept trombone players, this gave an opportunity for the Ozone Brass to make their debut, the two 'bones and Stein's sax, for exuberantly OTT takes on western swing staples like San Antonio Rose and Milk Cow Blues. I was in heaven, transported back there by my recent revisiting of the vinyl record.
That was sort of it, the band imploding a not so long thereafter. Frayne kept the Commander Cody title on into a number of lesser bands, but the tide had turned, for me anyway, my ears more keenly attuned to the new wave of artists like Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson. This tended to put my country music aside for a while. Or, actually, until Costello brought it all tumbling back into focus, as he nailed his flag to that mast with Almost Blue. Many, many years later I was lucky enough to have some of my Commander Cody favourites reprised, including, at my request, Mama Hated Diesels, when Bill Kirchen made one of his irregular small club and bar tours of the UK. I was able to chat with him in the interval, as he manned the merch stall, mentioning the tour of all those years before. He said he kept in some touch with the Commander, and had fond memories of those days. Me too. (Here's my review from then.)
Here's a great interview, from 2018, with Frayne, where he too comments on keeping links with Kirchen. And reveals that John Tichy, after the band folded, became a professor of physics. It makes for a more reflective read than the somewhat more effervescent Rolling Stone article of some near 40 years earlier.
R.I.P., George, thanks for the music and all those fond memories.
....you'd probably barf, that certainly being also my reflex response to this nadir of kitsch, a song so ghastly I cannot bring myself to say the whole title out loud. So, then, the Bellamy Brothers, what can you possibly say, how can you possibly defend this massively selling worldwide hit, a Billboard country chart topper in 1979, and 39 in the entire reckoning? Hell, it hit a national number 2 in the UK, seemingly on the back of it's initial success amongst the record buying public of Northern Ireland. Apart from offering your gratitude, that is, to all of those with such execrable taste.
Harsh? Well, maybe, but please understand where I was at the cusp of the 1970s into 80s. I was possibly alone amongst my chums in having a penchant for country music. By which I mean country-rock, I should explain, never "& western", not that dreck, no sir. So the Burritos, Pure Prairie League, New Riders, Poco and all their kindred steel-tinged spirits. And my friends and family would know that, themselves suspicious and wary even of whenever Bernie Leadon took centre stage in the Eagles, who were as country as their mainstream ears could ever stray. A little beyond, in truth. But, bless them, they would look out for me and point me in the direction of where they construed my taste to lie. Which meant the fecking Bellamy Brothers. The chances were that they would themselves like it, the o so witty play on words, the clever chat up line to trot out at the disco's close. They would make an exception to the genre on that occasion, maybe thinking I wasn't so strange after all. No, no, no.
It was only as I recalled my full unadulterated hatred of this song that I remembered there had been a time when their name had not led me to rage, with their earlier and other hit single, 1976's 'Let Your Love Flow', a pleasant enough ditty, if a little anodyne. So they weren't necessarily all bad, although I discover today that song was written not by them, but by one of Neil Diamond's roadies, something that would have, had I known then, immediately flagged up another of my instant red flag prejudices. You can stuff Diamond's reappraisal and Rick Rubin helmed rehabilitation. Still irredeemable nonsense. But, it set me to thinking, given the theme of this piece, and the brothers appropriation of the, in his hands, mildly amusing Groucho Marx line, who knows how they could have taken the title themselves? Eeeow, Richard Hell, eat your heart out.....
Of course, I know nothing much about the Bellamys, and am sure they are decent enough coves. Indeed I suspect they are still going, with a no doubt popular move into Christian music along the way, possibly necessitating a humble apology as they drag out the old warhorse, with sly and knowing glances being exchanged across the probably line dancing audience. I hope they promise, beyond that ill-considered lapse in taste, part of their hot-headed youth, and to stick to more wholesome fare, and to single entendres. Like this:
So, fast forward forty years, and I find myself quite liking the "& western", classic Grand Ol' Opry being now something I can derive pleasure from, especially mawkish country weepie duets. Of course, I still love all the old stuff I did back then too, and also keep my ear to the ground for newer flavours of country, from banjo jam band fusioneers like Leftover Salmon to sassy songstresses like Margo Price. I guess you are expecting me now to now offer my respect, grudging or otherwise, to the Bellamy Brothers and similar "Hat" acts?
Not.
A.
Bloody.
Chance.
If I said your song was a crock'o'shite, would you hold it against me?
Late to the game as ever, here I am banging on about closing the honky-tonks, just as some sectors are begging for them to be opened up again, whether for the sake of the depleted hospitality industry or just from sheer thirst. But, wherever you are, OK, except Sweden, the bars and restaurants have been or were closed for a fair old while. Mainland Europe is now beginning to open 'em up again, but the merest hope we have here, in the U.K., is possibly of beer gardens by the end of the month, and with waitress service at that, something us bar standing brits abhor.
Red
This song, an acknowledged classic of a country weepie, the alliance of tears to a jaunty beat, never fails to lift my heart. First penned back in the early 60s, by a Red Simpson, me neither, it became a 1964 country smash for Buck Owens and his Buckaroos. On researching, it seems ol' Red was a bit of name in the 50s, chiefly for songs about truck driving, a niche and specialist sub-genre that lives on to this day. (Well, sorta...) Based in Bakersfield, he seems interminably linked with the more famous Owens, originally taking Owen's place in a weekly session in Bakersfield, California. When he proved adept about writing songs about semi-trucks, he hooked up with Owens as his main co-writer, largely then neglecting his own performing career. The playing of Owens was integral to the Bakersfield scene and it's eponymous Bakersfield Sound, an altogether twangier version of Nashville's then somewhat syrupy drench of orchestral strings, with a greater reliance on electric guitar and pedal steel interplay, the bass and drums also writ large. And so with a far greater cross-over potential with the emerging rock music diaspora, resultant in the country-rock vibe that later begat americana.
Buck
Hardly surprising, then, that I first came across the song as I started to investigate the twangier side of the Byrds. Early 70s and entranced by that band, reading about their revolving door of players, I caught wind of of the Flying Burrito Brothers and of Gram Parsons. Thus, a month or so after buying 2-disc compendium History of the Byrds, I chanced upon Close-Up the Honky Tonks, another 2-disc compendium, this time of the Burritos. On getting it home, it was a whole more stark and severe an affair, with few of the radio friendly Byrdsian harmonies, and altogether more "and western" for my untutored ears. Side 3 contained the titular song, and was part of the body of songs that engaged me and some, sufficiently to then work harder on the first couple of sides. (Side 4 was just terrific, but that's another tale.)
Gram
The Byrds themselves, having anyway a somewhat incestuous relationship with the Burritos, later took it back into their own repertoire as well.
McGuinn
Fast forward a few years. Now a full card carrying country aficionado, a young buck named Dwight Yoakam was making a name for himself, and, finding his cut to my jib, I learnt that he was a huge fan of Buck Owens, to the extent that he made a full album's worth of songs either written, co-written or made famous by him, Dwight Sings Buck, in 2007. Of course the song was on it, the album itself significant enough the entice Owens back onto the stage and performing, just shy of his 60th birthday. Whist he died in 2006, Yoakam maintains a living epitome of his style and sound.
Dwight
Listening to these, as well as to the myriad other you-tubed versions out there, I have to say it is the version by Gram's Flying Burrito Brothers that still lingers longest, with the perfect balance between delight and despair in his wracked vocals.
Trying for a double whammy, associating both the song and the performer with the theme, doncha know! Well, no, not as it turns out. And, anyway, a song about a runaway train would sit awkwardly alongside the usual culprits occupying the songs of this short lived and single album-ed band. Yes, but I still suspect a tongue may well have been twixt tongue and cheek as the name for the song's main man came to be chosen. With a nod, I feel, more to the Grateful Dead than to the old west.
Sir Casey Jones/Eighteenth Day of May (2006)
Eighteenth Day of May were a glorious anachronism, a potent mix of folk-rock UK and folk-rock US, the first a post Fairport plunder of trad. arr., the second a Byrdsian singer-songwriter jangle. Here but for a brief blink in the spotlight, emerging first in 2003, all burnt out by the end of 2006, they left behind them a legacy of only one completed full length recording and a lot of lingering expectation.
Initially an acoustic trio, Alison Brice on consummate Denny-esque vocals and flute, with guitarists Ben Phillipson and Richard Olsen, each capable on a range of stringed instruments. With a mission statement based about the Incredible String Band, they seemed thirty years plus late for the game. However, following the vibe of many a folkie before and since, they embraced Judas and went electric, adding bass and drums. And, more importantly, viola, in second female member, Alison Cotton. A serendipitous appearance on a magazine cover disc led to to their catching the ear of Hannibal records supremo, Joe Boyd. That Joe Boyd, the same as had fostered loving care and attention on the early Fairport Convention, recognising here some kindred spirits. There's a neat interview with them round about that time.
Lady Margaret/Eighteenth Day of May (2006)
The eponymous LP, which came out in 2005, received probably more praise than plaudits, a critics favourite rather than causing any great bother to the charts. Little else in 2005 sounded quite like this, perhaps a reason why it has lasted so well, exuding a timeless charm. As a card carrying lover of this style of musical alchemy, it has remained a thing of wonder to me and not small number of like-minded chums. So imagine my joy as I read of an expanded re-release of the debut, along with various other bits and bobs that would have potentially made up the second album, had they managed to gel that long. And imagine my dismay as it came and went, obviously released on the 18th of May, a limited 600 copy release, on vinyl, now already available only for silly money. Shame, but I live in hope of a further release, perhaps on CD next time, please. Hell, even a download would do.
Sir Casey Jones/Eighteenth Day of May: Live at Green Man festival, 2006
Since the demise of the band there have been flickerings from ex-members, predominantly Olsen and Cotton. Cotton actually stayed for a while with Phillipson and the rhythm section, with a near Eighteenth Day of May part two ensemble, Trimdon Grange Explosion, but they too only managed a single eponymous LP. So far, at least. For something a little more avant garde, she also has a developing solo career of drones and loops, voice and viola to the fore. Olsen I had heard no more of until I was alerted to the similarly jangly sounds, if with a more country-rock bent to them, of Hanging Stars. With three releases to their name, bubbling under the surface of the small pond of music styles tending to attract little current mainstream favour, they are right up my proverbial, echoes of the Flying Burrito Brothers and Love imbuing their sounds. I hadn't even realised their frontman was the one and same Richard Olsen, that knowledge somehow adding buckets of kudos to my enjoyment.
The Bonnie Banks of Fordie/Trimdon Grange Explosion (2019)
Honeywater/Hanging Stars (2017)
So, turning full circle, on this 22nd day of May, a few days late, please investigate these three strands, each straggling from the premise and promise that there is no such thing as out-dated musical styles, just buttoned down ears afraid to tempt fate.
Unlike esteemed colleague Darius, I have no such qualms about steps over stairs, enjoying the smorgasbord of songs available. Many refer to the concept of going forward only then to go back a greater distance. (Indeed, as I scribble I wonder as to whether any reference the opposite journey?) This is one of my favourites, which might conceivably also reference the career of it's author, the mercurial Chris Hillman.
Hillman has had a long and still unfinished career, starting off in bluegrass as a Scottsville Squirrel Barker, before being head-hunted to join the Hillmen, which featured later country star, Vern Gosdin. His instrument of choice was then mandolin, and early namechecks have him as Chris Hardin, a fiction to conceal his being to young to be in the sort of venues they made their living in. So far two steps forward, until, in 1965, a massive leap ahead into the Byrds. Now toting bass guitar, albeit probably not playing on their worldwide breakthrough smash, he was undoubtedly major league.
(Indulge me for the contrivance of a reprise of this song, used merely for the caption which calls it Mr Spaceman Quickstep. And, ha, by the Birds!)
After six albums with them, gradually introducing the country influences he had ingrained in him, magnified by the short sojourn of Gram Parsons, there came his, arguably first step back, although aficionados like me might cite the opposite. In the hiatus around a projected tour of South Africa, first Parsons and then, swiftly, Hillman peeled off into The Flying Burrito Brothers, a full blown headfirst immersion in the country music tropes the Byrds were now starting to more fully embrace. As main co-writer with Parsons, the Burritos had a golden period of doing no wrong, if earning little money or acclaim at the time.
(My somewhat contrived link here is in the lyric, as, assuming the lift is broken, how else are you going to get to the 31st floor?) Hillman was now also firmly ensconced as a reliable two-part harmony vocalist. Unfortunately the lifestyle of Parsons was getting a tad chaotic, and he had to go, Hillman now effectively band leader. The band carried on for a couple of more albums, Hillman de facto leader and main vocalist, recruiting first Rick Roberts and then, more or less, the whole of bluegrass band, Country Gazette. Then, following terrific live album, Last Of the Red Hot Burrito's, Hillman jumped ship. (And, as is always the way, it wasn't the last of them, and a version of the band limps on, probably to this day....)
I am similarly uncertain if Hillman's next guise was a step forward or back. Recruited as right hand man to Stephen Stills in the latter's Manassas band, I am sure he welcomed the regular pay checks.
(I guess my use of the above track, Down the Road, gives away my opinion.......) In 1973 he again moved on and, via a brief reprise of the original Byrds line-up, took a definite step back. As was compulsory, the name of his new grouping was the imaginatively titled Souther Hillman Furay band. Despite the auspices and expectations, the band never really took off and were almost clunky in their attempts to out-Eagle that nascent band.
(On the Line can suggest he was now back where he started?) A couple of solo records and the lure of the old band again became strong, with a trio of he, (Roger) McGuinn and (Gene) Clark, ex-Byrds all, and then just he and McGuinn touring and putting out a record as the membership further tumbled. Overall still heading backward, I feel.
After further solo records, which introduced the now longstanding musical kinship with ex-Dillard Herb Pederson, before 1987 saw the definite several steps forward Desert Rose Band. Definitely now country more than country rock, let alone rock, with seven albums and a slew of singles all hitting country pay dirt. The band lasted until 1994, but has stood a reunion in 2008. Most of the intervening and subsequent years have seen Hillman take a largely quieter background role, popping up infrequently as a solo artist, in tandem with Pederson, or guesting on the albums of others. However there was still an acronym ready and waiting in the wings, the fully bluegrass Rice, Rice, Hillman & Pederson, who had some brief success.
(Again, this song title enables you to draw your own conclusions as to where on the road he now was. Actually I feel this has weathered perhaps better than the earlier DRB, on account of the clunky rhythm section production, so 80s/90s, on the latter.)
Nearly up to date, to all intents and purposes it seemed Hillman had retired. He has said as such himself. But it seemed, and I apologise, he was only Biding (his) Time, as a surprise invitation came from Tom Petty to do a record for him, duly released last year and pretty damn good it was too, a definite step forward from wherever he had been lurking. Sadly the death of Petty may have put future work out of range, but we shall see.
You can read more about Hillman's glory days in the Burrito's, if such, in this excellent book, co-written by Hillman, with John Einarson. In many ways Hillman might fill the description, apropos George Harrison's role in the Beatles, as the "quiet" Byrd. Never as much a self-publicist as others in the band he has quietly got on with letting his writing, his singing and his musicianship talk for him. Long may he step.
For me this was always the consummate Byrds track, given as it is one of the earliest outriders, 1966, for their later more overt country influences. Undoubtedly a yee-haw hayride of a tune, yet coupled with, literally, spaced out lyrics, it was ideal for the time; the Byrds still in their first flight of success, together with the race for the moon being in full pelt. Too 'and western' for the UK charts it bombed in my home-land, but did better at home, no little assistance coming from the phased psychedelia of the instrumental middle 8. Indeed it is still argued as to whether it was forerunner more of psychedelia or of country-rock. Both, say I.
The video represents it's first airing, on the Smother Brothers Show, with a 4 member band, the legendary rotating door of this band already in full swing. Whilst writer of the song and singer Jim (later Roger) McGuinn is clearly still present, along with Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke, on 12-string rickenbacker, bass and drums respectively, David Crosby is conspicuously absent for the first time. Especially as he was, arguably, the biggest space cadet and sci-fi freak in the band. And Gene Clark, in or out of the band depending on whether there was a plane trip expected, and who was nominally only a supporting musician for the recording, is there, pretending to play Crosby's guitar. It seems certain his is the key second voice in the harmony however, miming though they all are. A memorable tale from the time was that the band famously took out a million dollar insurance policy, with Lloyds of London, against being abducted by aliens. They didn't of course. And weren't. Although, with Jim to Roger, who's to say?
It remained a staple of live performances over the years, as members came and went, McGuinn the sole staple, but the style of the song fitting well with the directions driven by later members Gram Parsons and Clarence White. There is a nice video filmed in the desert featuring the former, but with the original recording still the one playing. Various reunions of the earlier line-up also featured it, as have various off-shoots of the original band, notably the equivalently ever changing Flying Burrito Brothers, who probably featured every other living Byrd, McGuinn apart, at some stage. McGuinn also trots it out at the drop of a hat, it often being the song chosen should he make a guest appearance, as he here does with Wilco.
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