WFMU's Beware of the Blog

We Miss You Red Sovine (MP3)

  

Marvin Ray  -  We Miss You Red Sovine

Very soon (April 4), we'll mark the anniversary of the death of the legendary Red Sovine, the crusty country baritone warbler who absolutely perfected the art of delivering sob-inducing histrionic recitations.  Sovine, who died in 1980 at the age of 61, is probably best remembered these days for the 1976 record Teddy Bear, the story of a crippled boy with a CB and the truck drivers who happily accede to his wish for a ride in the cab of an 18-wheeler.  Sovine's triumphs go way beyond poignant recitations though, and include several handfuls of fine honky-tonkers, many with a truck-driving theme.  While much of this material remains out of print, the folks at Ace Records in the UK have assembled an excellent collection of some of Sovine's most enjoyable work called Honky-Tonks, Truckers & Tears.  If you're looking to dip your toe into Red's world, there is probably no finer introduction.

Look, I know I'm jumping the gun a little bit here calendar-wise, but let me be clear: we're talking about a matter of days, not weeks, until the anniversary and I wanted to do my part to get the word out in plenty of time for you to make plans.

Kliph Nesteroff did a fine job of memorializing many of the most interesting highlights of Red's long career here on Beware Of The Blog a while back, so instead of regurgitating his effort I'm going to share a few obituaries and photos that I don't think have seen the light of day on the internet.

The photo below shows Red's 1979 Ford Van in the aftermath of the crash that resulted from the heart attack he likely experienced at the intersection of Battery and Lealand Lanes in south Nashville.  He barreled through the intersection and struck a car driven by 25-year-old Edgar Primm, who suffered facial cuts for which he was treated at St. Thomas Hospital.  Strange but true: on the day of the accident, the Nashville Banner frontpaged a story headlined NASHVILLE TRAFFIC DEATHS CUT IN HALF; KEEP IT UP!

Photo Credit: Country Music Bablyon

Below is a recent photo of the fatal intersection.

The accident took place a a few short miles from Red's house on Stillwood Drive, which can be seen below.  The address was verified in a volume of the City Directory in the main branch of the Nashville Library.  City directories, by the way, are pretty fascintating in that they frequently list the names of people who would probably have never appeared in the phone book.  I'm not sure exactly how that happened, but fishing through old city directories will often reveal addresses and phone numbers of some pretty notable people.  I've found that true in both Nashville (where directories reveal the old addresses of people like Faron Young, Webb Pierce, Grady Martin, Porter Wagoner, Hank Snow) and Atlanta where I've verified the former addresses of people like Hank Aaron, Freddie Blassie and Hank Ballard.  For some reason, city directories seem to have disappeared in the last decade or two but if you're fishing for old residential information or what used to be where your favorite bar now is, city directories are highly recommened.

Below: Red Sovine's former house on Stillwood Drive in Nashville.  Do the current residents know (or care) about who used to live there?  Who knows.

      

Above:  The Tennessean, April 5, 1980.

Above:  The Nashville Banner, April 5, 1980. 

Keep America Beautiful, Get A Haircut! Part 5

 

Paul Wilson  -  Hippie Invasion  (3:41)  Paul Wilson's Hippie Invasion was a local Georgia record, released in the aftermath of the second Atlanta International Pop Festival in July 1970.  Despite its name, the festival was actually held a little south of Macon in Byron, Georgia at a now abandoned racetrack called the Middle Georgia Raceway.  Longhaired youngsters from all over the nation showed up for the three day festival to catch live sets by B.B. King, Procul Harum, the Allman Brothers, Captain Beefheart, Ravi Shankar, Jethro Tull, Blood Rock and Jimi Hendrix among others.  None of this impressed Paul Wilson, who responded with this tirade against the counterculture.  What he lacked in musical talent, he made up for with acrimony.

Johnny Selph  -  A Georgia Country Boy's Dream  (2:11)  This one details the misadventures of a guy who spots what he thinks is a captivating young lady and hatches an impromptu plan that he figures will leave him with a bride, a cook and a new cotton picker.  The only hitch is that the gal of his dreams is actually a dude with long hair.  Johnny would've been better off spending his time and money with an optometrist, I think.

Marvin Rainwater  -  The Haircut  (2:37)  Marvin's problem?  His kid refuses to get a haircut, so Marvin rounds up one of his pals and they hatch a plan give the kid a G.I. buzz cut.  Let's just say, things don't exactly go according to plan.

     

Here are links to previous dispatches in this ongoing series:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Santa's A Hippie.

Buffalo Creek Disaster (MP3)

   

Jean Crowder  -  Buffalo Creek Disaster  (2:32)

Saturday will mark the 39th anniversary of the deadly Buffalo Creek flood that swept through 17 small towns in West Virginia on February 26, 1972.  All told, 125 people perished in the flood.  If any of this sounds vaguely familiar to BOTB readers, it's not impossible to imagine that you recall another 45 I blogged on this horrible event a little over a year ago.

The flood was caused by the failure of what is known as a coal slurry impoundment dam, which is essentially a colossal (mostly) liquid garbage dump built to contain the impurities that are left over as a result of the coal mining process. 

Buffalo Creek Disaster pulls no punches in its grim description of the horrors experienced by those caught downstream of the dam.  The flood's destructive powers are illuminated by Crowder's blunt but powerful lyrics telling of displaced families, drownings, orphaned children and the screams of people who knew their deaths were imminent.

In 1975, a documentary filmmaker from Kentucky, Mimi PIckering, released The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act Of Man.  Thirty years later, this film's cultural significance was recognized when it was named to the National Film Registry.  This coming Tuesday (March 1), Pickering will present The Buffalo Creek Flood on the campus of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.  More details can be found here.

Ernest Tubb, The Old Troubadour (MP3s)

If he were still with us, Ernest Tubb would be celebrating his 97th birthday today.  Tubb, one of the most reliably consistent honky-tonkers in the history of country music, died in 1984 after succumbing to emphysema. 

Behind the scenes, Tubb could be a handful especially when the occasional extended drinking bout brought his truculent side to the surface.  Fans, however, loved him for his genial warmth and good humor so it's not terribly surprising that some tribute records emerged in the aftermath of his death.  Fittingly, Tubb's own recording career, launched in 1936, began with a pair of Jimmie Rodgers tribute tunes: The Passing Of Jimmie Rodgers b/w The Last Thoughts Of Jimmie Rodgers.  Before he developed his own style, Tubb was enormously influenced by The Singing Brakeman.  In fact, that's Jimmie Rodgers' guitar that Tubb's posing with in the photo above.

Jim Kinman  -  The Old Troubadour  (3:09)

B. Bob Akers  -  Tubb Song  (3:18)

Ernest Tubb  -  It Sure Helps A Lot  (2:40) 

Ernest Tubb  -  The Texas Troubadour  (2:23)  Written by Tubb's good friend Porter Wagoner, this longtime favorite could just as easily have been titled "Ernest Tubb Vs. The NYC Hippies."  I think you know what side of the debate I come down on.

      

Saga Of The South Platte River (Denver Flood Of '65) - MP3

      

Butch La Rita  -  Saga Of The South Platte River (Denver Flood Of '65)  (2:21)

In June 1965, several days of extraordinarily heavy rains in the Denver area resulted in massive flooding along the South Platte River.  Hundreds of homes and businesses were completely destroyed as were most of Denver's bridges over the river.  In all, the damages exceed $500 million dollars.  Butch La Rita was there and gives us a graphic first-hand account of the devastion that was left in the flood's wake.

Casualty counts vary, depending on the source.  In a 1999 article, the Rocky Mountain News reported that the flood took six lives, while a 2007 article in the Denver Post attributed "more than two dozen" deaths to the flood.  Wikipedia puts the total at 28.

Following the destruction, the South Platte River was dammed to help prevent future floods.  The project, completed in 1975, resulted in Chatfield Lake in southwest Denver, part of Chatfield State Park.

The images below appear courtesy of the Denver Public Library.

     

Happy Birthday, Ray Price

           

Ray Price Interview - Side One    7:45

Ray Price Interview - Side Two    6:14

Today we celebrate the 85th birthday of the greatest voice in all of country music, Ray Price.   I know George Jones has legions of acolytes who would happily take issue with this, but as much as I love Jones, I stand by my vote.  Over a career that's now spanned some six decades, Price has been the voice behind an extensive array of honky-tonk gems featuring an irresistible beat known today as the "Ray Price shuffle."  The sound was fully realized for the first time on Crazy Arms, recorded in 1956.

Price described the new sound to writer John Morthland this way in 1980.  "The sound they had going at the time in country was a 2/4 sound and a double-stop fiddle.  I added drums to it, which had been done before, but not much, and a 4/4 bass and shuffle rhythm and the single string fiddle.  We came up with it right there on the session (for Crazy Arms).  I don't know why or where from; that's just what I wanted."  (This description was lifted from Rich Kienzle's 2003 volume Southwest Shuffle: Pioneers of Honky-Tonk, Western Swing, And Country Jazz.  It's hard to find these days, but well worth tracking down.  Google Books has put large chunks of it online.)

Silver Bridge Disaster - Part 3 (MP3s)

   

Barnett Brothers  -  Tragedy Of The Silver Bridge  (3:11)

Jim Wayne  -  When The Silver Bridge Went Down  (2:43)

Last week, we took note of the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history and today we mark the anniversary of the collapse of the Silver Bridge, the worst highway bridge disaster in American history according to the back of the postcard above. 

It was on this day in 1967 that the Silver Bridge buckled and fell into the icy waters of the Ohio River, a disaster which claimed 46 lives.  The collapse of the bridge inspired a surprising number of songs commemorating the event, including the two featured today. 

Those of you with long memories will perhaps recall that we've previously posted six songs about this deadly tragedy here on Beware Of The Blog.

   

The Burning Of The Winecoff Hotel (MP3)

    

Lee Roy Abernathy  -  The Burning Of The Winecoff Hotel 

Today marks the 64th anniversary of the deadly Winecoff Hotel fire in downtown Atlanta on December 7, 1946.  All told, 119 people lost their lives in the fire.  It was, at the time, the deadliest hotel fire ever.  It remained the world's deadliest hotel fire until Christmas Day 1971, when 163 people perished in a blaze that overtook the Hotel Taeyokale, in Seoul, South Korea.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, gospel singer Lee Roy Abernathy, a native of nearby Bartow County, memorialized the event on this 78rpm record.  Abernathy himself narrowly escaped the peril of the fire.  He had a permanent room at the Winecoff, but made a last minute decision to head for his north Georgia hometown after a friend came through with a few gallons' worth of gas coupons at a time when post World War II rationing was still in effect.  Abernathy went on to enjoy a long and successful career as a gospel musician and studio owner, eventually earning induction into the Georgia Music Hall Of Fame (1989) and the Southern Gospel Music Hall Of Fame in 1996.

The Winecoff Hotel still stands, though it's now known as the Ellis, a swanky boutique style hotel that opened in 2007.

Here's To The Women's Liberation (MP3s)

             

As the push for women's liberation grew in the early 1970s, so did the tendency of country singers to head to the studio to record songs bemoaning the oncoming changes. 

Perhaps you'll remember late in that decade when the CBS television program All In The Family petered out and morphed into Archie Bunker's Place, set mostly in Archie's tavern in Queens?  I'm thinking that if the show had been set in Chattanooga instead and there was a jukebox at the bar, there's a pretty good chance some of these records would've made the cut.

Raymond A. Smith  -  Here's To The Women's Liberation  (2:21)

Bobby Shannon  -  Women's Liberation's For The Birds  (1:58)

Lana Roush  -  Don't Liberate Me  (1:51)

Bob Aden  -  Women's Lib?  (2:53)

Slim Martin  -  Women's Lib  (2:54)

Willis Brothers  -  Women's Liberation  (2:56)

Slagle Miller  & The Country Comers  -  Liberation Blues Pt. 1  (2:27)

Hill-Dillies  -  Women's LIberation  (2:06)

Mel Anderson  -  Liberated Woman  (2:24)

Judy Reynolds  -  LIberated Woman  (2:38)

 
           

WSM Blues (MP3)

 

Chuck Bills  -  WSM Blues  (3:30)

WSM Blues is Chuck Bills' tribute to his favorite radio station, Nashville's famed WSM (650 AM), which is probably best known for hosting the Grand Ole Opry show for decades.  Under the right conditions, WSM can be heard in 38 states due to its extraordinarily powerful 50000 watt signal and the fact that it's a clear channel station, meaning no other US stations share that specific frequency.  

Since 1979, WSM has been a full-time country station featuring a pretty impressive array of classics and deep catalog country, bluegrass and Americana music.  One program that I can highly recommend is recording artist Jim Lauderdale's weekly program, The Jim Lauderdale Show, which broadcasts live and streams over the internet each Wednesday at 2PM Nashville time.   On a recent show, he kicked off with a couple Buck Owens songs and a pair of Reno & Smiley numbers, before treating listeners to Bobby Bare's hit version of Streets of Baltimore, which was followed by a Jimmie Rodgers song from about 1930.  As far as I can tell, there's no playlist - just a knowlegeable and passionate DJ playing music he loves, kind of like what happens on WFMU.  And like WFMU, WSM features archived programming on their website, although navigating the WSM website can be a bit of a challenge.

Here's a good example of how engaging WSM's programming can be.  A couple of months ago on an excursion to Nashville, I heard weeknight DJ Eddie Stubbs spin The Shoe Goes On The Other Foot Tonight by Marty Robbins.  That alone was enough to put a big smile on my face, but after the song, I could scarcely believe it when he called to listeners' attention Bill Johnson's sensational steel guitar solo.  Where else do DJs on commercial radio stations take the time to point out such artistry?  Then, I was positively dumbfounded when Stubbs said "let's hear that great steel solo again" and joined the song in progress and proceeded to play the solo all over again.  Brilliant!  Here's the steel guitar solo that prompted Stubbs' salute:

Hear It:  An MP3 of Bill Johnson's spectacular steel guitar solo from the 1966 recording of The Shoe Goes On The Other Foot Tonight.

And below, you can see Bill Johnson in action playing the same solo live in a clip taken from The Marty Robbins Show (1969).

The clip above was borrowed from the YouTube channel of tarquin45, which I cannot recommend highly enough.  It's a superb archive featuring a incredible wealth of extremely rare Marty Robbins footage.

The Marine Corps Builds Men (MP3)

   

Happy birthday to the U.S. Marine Corps, born 235 years ago today in Philadelphia.

Pam Miller  -  The Marine Corps Builds Men  (2:35)

Billy Beer Drinkin' Fan (MP3s)

       

Rick Pilgreen  -  Billy Beer Drinkin' Fan  (2:03)

Keith Reedy  -  Drinking Billy's Beer  (2:34)

Bill Gibbs  -  Beer Drinkin' Billy  (2:00)

Sure, Billy Carter was a bit of a raffish lout and a perpetual embarrassment to his brother, President Jimmy Carter, but he sure did liven up the joint. 

By the way, is there a chance in a billion we'll ever elect another president named "Jimmy"?

Who knows.  But here's a few tunes devoted to Billy and the wretchedly lame beer that he endorsed.

The Ballads Of My Lai (MP3s)

     

The records featured in today's post all deal with Lt. William Calley Jr., the U.S. Army officer who ordered, and was one of the many soldiers who took part in, the horrible event that has become known as the My Lai Massacre.  The massacre took place in March 1968 in the South Vietnamese village of My Lai and resulted in the deaths of  300 - 500 unarmed civilians, many of them women, children and the elderly.   

The widespread atrocities were initially covered-up, but news about the savage events that took place that day eventually leaked out and Calley was formally court-martialed and charged with murder. 

His primary defense rested on his belief that he was following the orders of his superiors, but that's always seemed like something of a non sequitir to me.  While it's not unimagineable that Calley was in fact ordered to make sure the entire village was wiped out, the slaughter of unarmed and defenseless people has pretty much always been illegal and indefensible, at least for as long as warfare laws have been around.

Calley was the only soldier convicted of war crimes for the incidents that took place in My Lai.   On March 29, 1971, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labor at Fort Leavenworth.

Upon announcement of the verdict many Americans were appalled, including most of those whose records are included below.  President Nixon immediately ordered Calley transferred from prison to house arrest arrest at Fort Benning while his appeal was heard.  State legislatures in New Jersey, Arkansas, Kansas, Texas, and South Carolina passed motions officially requesting clemency for Calley.  Alabama Governor George Wallace quickly named Calley an honorary Lieutenant Colonel in the Alabama National Guard.  Here in Georgia, Governor Jimmy Carter proclaimed an "American Fighting Man's Day" and asked the state's residents to drive with their headlights on during daylight hours in a week-long protest.

Matt McKinnley  -  The Ballad Of My Lai  (3:41)

C Company featuring Terry Nelson  -  Battle Hymn Of Lt. Calley  (3:27)

Rick Riddle  -  Hang On Bill  (2:07)

Lucky Clark  -  My Lai  (2:48)

Big Bill Johnson  -  Set Lt. Calley Free  (2:45)

Mutt Cottingham  -  Free Calley  (2:59)

Merritt Jordan  -  Pardon This Soldier (And Set Him Free)  (3:35)

Nelson Truehart  -  Morning In My Lai  (3:08)

Smokey Harless  -  Hang Lt. Calley  (3:03)

Incidentally, the Smokey Harless record (Hang Lt. Calley) is not actually a condemnation of Calley's acts, as its title seems to indicate.   Rather, it's a stinging rebuke to those who wanted to see Calley punished.

         

Despite being sentenced to life in prison, Calley was ulitmately paroled after serving less than four years under house arrest at Fort Benning.  These days Calley, 69, stays out of the headlines and seems to live a quiet life in Atlanta. 

In 2009, while publicly speaking about the events for the first time, he apologized for his role in murders at My Lai.  Addressing the Kiwanis Club in Columbus, Georgia near Fort Benning, Calley said, "There is not a day that goes by when I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai.  I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, and for the American soldiers involved and their familes.  I am very sorry."

Hippie In A Blunder

    

I have some pretty great news for those of you who have an affinity for truly wigged out country music obscurities from the 1950s and 60s.

A new cd reissue series called Vinyl Wastelands has recently been showing up on eBay and on the website of vendors like No Hit Records in the UK.   These discs caught my eye only a few weeks back and somehow there are already available six incredible volumes of (mostly) country music oddities that alternate between the pleasantly bizarre and the truly disturbing.  I should point out that they're not 100% country; Volume 2 is devoted to rock & roll songs and pop sounds surface on various volumes.  Volume 5, for example, (Last Kiss Of The Drunken Driver) rounds up a heady mix of tragic teen pop and country songs about suicide, drunk driving and gruesome highway accidents.

Another standout effort is Volume Three: Beatin' On The Bars, which consists of thirty or so dispatches about life in the joint, kicking off with  the Travelin' Texans title track, an ode to jailbait.

Johnny Buckett  -  Hippie In A Blunder (MP3)

In fact, they're all superb, but the one that's completely knocked my hat in the creek is Volume Four: Hippie In A Blunder.  As you might imagine, it rounds up scathing country anti-hippie diatribes, some of which are so obscure I've never even heard of 'em.  Maybe I'm being a little delusional, but I kind of like to think of myself as something of an expert when it comes to this stuff. 

In addition to songs that mock and gripe about hippies, the disc also features a generous sampling of obscure drug scare tunes like The Needle by Harry Snyder and Marijuana, The Devil Flower by Johnny Cash sound-a-like Johnny Price.  And perhaps best of all, the compilers have dug up a label shot of the frequently comped but truly elusive California Hippie Murders by Red River Dave, a 45 rpm disc that is so rare I know people who've been looking for their own copy for decades with no luck.  And now, thanks to Vinyl Wastelands Volume Four, we see that the insanely psychotic record was released by the Reveal label, a Madison Avenue concern!  Twenty-something years ago, when I first heard Autry Inman's Ballad of Two Brothers, an over the top story of campus protests and battlefield valor, I would've given practically anything for a disc like this.  If you like this kind of material you probably already have at least a few of the records featured here, but it's a real treat to have so many of them rounded up in one convenient place.

And you should really check out the amazing front cover photo (above) which captures irate and seething southerners in all out protest mode at the very idea of living alongside people who don't have cracker haircuts.  This is really an outstanding series and I'm looking forward to seeing future releases.

And while we're on the topic, I should probably mention that there's a rumor that WFMU's Rex hit a rich vein of wobbly country oddities last weekend at the Allentown Record Show (45s and 78s only), so tune in to Fool's Paradise this Saturday to get an earful.

       

Chet's Tune (Chet Atkins) - (MP3)

        

Some Of Chet's Friends  -  Chet's Tune  (2:43) 

I've always had a bit of a weakness for tribute records, songs cooked up by those who have opted to spend their studio time crafting tunes that extol the talents and virtues of other artists. 

In the case of Chet's Tune, we see the concept brought to life by some of the biggest names signed to RCA Victor, all gathered to help commemorate Atkins' 20th year with the label.

The artists, in order of appearance are: Jerry Reed (guitar), Floyd Cramer (piano), Eddy Arnold, Dottie West, Archie Campbell, Bobby Bare, Norma Jean, George Hamilton IV, Skeeter Davis, Jimmy Dean, Hank Locklin, Jim Ed Brown, Hank Snow, John D. Loudermilk, the Anita Kerr Singers, Connie Smith, Homer & Jethro, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Porter Wagoner, and Don Bowman.

The record, produced by Bob Ferguson and Felton Jarvis, is obviously a valentine to Chet Atkins (1924 - 2001) who headed RCA's Nashville operations for many years and served as producer for most of the artists appearing here.   If you buy into it, the story is that the whole thing was done without Atkins' knowledge.  According to Billboard, his wife even smuggled Atkins' favorite guitar out of the house and lent it to Jerry Reed for the session.  It's feasible.

Pretty Girls In Mini-Skirts (MP3s)

                   

Today's post deals with the ever ascending hemlines of the late 1960s and early 1970s and a handful of country songs that address the topic. It serves as something of a sequel (or maybe it's a prequel) to a recent foray into the world of country songs about hot pants.

As the narrator in the YouTube clip below says, try this on for thighs.

Jim & Jesse  -  Pretty Girls In Mini Skirts  (2:20)

Rodeo Jim Peters  -  Country Girl In A Mini-Skirt  (2:28)

Red Simpson  -  Mini Skirt Minnie  (1:57)

Johnny Collier  -  Mama Wears A Mini Skirt  (2:10)

Wayne & Wanda Raney  -  Grandma's Mini-Skirt  (2:41)

Granny Of The Beverly Hillbillies  -  Granny's Mini-Skirt  (2:24)

Pakistan Disaster (MP3)

Dick Bruning  -  Pakistan Disaster

Pakistan, as you probably already know, was recently the site of devastating floods killing some 1,600 people and forcing at least 200,000 others to flee their homes in search of higher ground.

The Dick Bruning record featured here concerns an earlier Pakistan flood, the result of the Bhola cyclone which hit East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on November, 12 1970.  Incredibly, this catastrophic storm and the resulting floods claimed up to 500,00 lives.

The Bhola cyclone was also the disaster that triggered George Harrison and Ravi Shankar to sponsor the Concert For Bangladesh, a huge relief effort for displaced refugees that was held at Madison Square Garden in August 1971.

Down With Hot Pants (MP3s)

      

Hot pants, those mesmerizing leg-baring garments worn by young ladies in the vanguard of the youth fashion revolution of the early 1970s, jump started a lot of musical imaginations.  The best known tunes on the subject probably come from James Brown, who recorded a 3 part tribute to hot pants in 1971.  But my favorite ruminations on the slightly salacious topic emerged from the world of country music. 

The main point of today's post is to disprove Rolling Stone's ludicrous affirmation that only James Brown could do a great song about hot pants.  

Hank Sanders  -  Down With Hot Pants  (2:04)

Leona Williams  -  Country Girl With Hot Pants On  (2:20)

Hasil Adkins  -  Do The Hot Pants With Me  (3:12)

Dink Ringo  -  Hot Pants Country  (2:04)

Betty Logan  -  I Got My Hot Pants On  (1:51)

Dick Cooper  -  Dick Cooper's Hot Pants  (2:21)

Larry Quinn & Associates  -  Hot Pants  (2:18)

Lee Green with Mike Kerr & The Country Teardrops  -  Hot Pants  (3:20)

Jack Bartly with Jeannie Lou And The Workingmen  -  Hot Pants  (2:57)

                 

Photo credit:  Tom Davenport, (top of the post, on the right).

Twinkie Insanity MP3s

Art Peterson  -  Twinkie Insanity  (2:50)

Lenny Anderson  -  The Ballad Of Dan White  (2:55)

On November 27, 1978 San Francisco mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk (the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California) were gunned down by Dan White, a severely depressed  ex-City Supervisor who had recently given up his normal health food regimen for a steady diet of "junk food" laden with sugar and salt.  At his trial, White's attorneys argued that his consumption of junk food was a contributing symptom of his diminished capacity for reason, not, as most people believe a cause of the problem. 

In 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle's Carol Pogash wrote a fine article (The Myth Of The Twinkie Defense) summarizing the public's chronic misunderstanding of the situation.  A defense attorney recalls testimony concerning Ho-Hos and Ding Dongs, but Twinkies themselves were never mentioned in the entire trial.  Despite this fact, the myth of the "Twinkie Defense" was born and as Pogash noted, "Folklore trumps history."

White was charged with first degree murder but ended up getting convicted of manslaughter and receiving a 7 year sentence, serving only 5 years before he was paroled in 1984.  In October 1985, a still depressed White committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of a house owned by his wife in San Francisco's Excelsior district.

This split single features two songs about the murders and the events that followed.

    

Skid Row Hit Parade (MP3s)

              

Here's a pretty extensive array of "skid row" country records, those audio dispatches defined by grimly unblinking examinations of the misery, depression and woe that people have to deal with when things in life veer way off track.

None of the songs here actually came from the Salvation Army Skid Row Sounds LP pictured above, but I borrowed the picture from the LP Cover Lover site because it fit the theme of the post so well.

Porter Wagoner  -  Skid Row Joe  (3:05)

Joe Bravo Y Su Orquesta  -  Skid Row Joe  (2:58)

Leon Lynch  -  My Friend, Skidrow Joe  (2:59)

Hal Ford  -  Skid Row Blues  (3:04)

Merle Haggard  -  Skid Row  (1:54)

Conrad Stoneburner & Elmer Solomon  -  Skid Row  (2:26)

Freddie Hart  -  Skid Row Street  (2:26)

Carroll Gilley  -  Skid Row Hall Of Fame  (1:56)

Hugh Pilgrim  -  King Of Skid Row  (2:42)

Wanda Allred  -  Skid Row Girl  (2:51)

Kenny Tidwell  -  Queen Of Skid Row  (2:12)

Luke Gibbons Rhythm Rangers  -  Queen Of Skid Row  (2:46)

Larry Lewis  -  My Skidrow Degree  (2:46)

Ron McFarlin  -  Skid Row USA  (2:51)

Jimmy Welch  -  They Won't Even Have Me Down On Old Skid Row  (2:17)

Rex North & Family  -  Skid Row Joe's Answer  (1:48)