Tennessee Ernie Ford: Hippest Kid in Town (1965)

Heavy airplay in the Nesteroff household this week:

Although I can't yet verify this, my ears think that this arrangement has the fingerprints of the incredible and legendary Billy Strange all over it.

UPDATE:  Billy Strange writes in "I'd LOVE to take credit for this arrangement ...... But I can't. It was written for Ernie by Jack Fascinato!!!! And it's really great!!!!"

Comments

[Duncan Walls]

These are both just tremendous. TE Ford was about as 'country' as it got in my middle class academic Northeastern US house. '16 Tons' has always been a touchstone for me as was it's flipside 'You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry' (also loved the later version of theis by those cute little English girls,The Caravelles). I've played both as a musician as soon as I was able to figure out the chords.

Looking back on this production which aired in my 14th year I have to believe that we did see it, probably on one of the last Saturday nights we all sat around the TV and watched together. Soon I was off and away to high school social activities and my father's work at the college took him more and more with my mother accompanying him and all of us coming along from time to time. They just don't have variety shows like this anymore. American Idol or America's Got Talent are very pale imitations of what ot all used to be. I long for these days documented here, when you could turn on the TV and see real professional talent perform. Sure some of the production values are 'douchy' by today's standards, but they weren't locked into recreating a video that had erased any individual mind excursions that could have existed. I guess I am really getting old. There. I finally said it.