She sounded like Saturday night on a Sunday morning.

"She sounded like Saturday night on a Sunday morning. Patsy on Jesus. Elvis without the pelvis." is how the liner notes for The Glory Road, the Numero Group's 2005 reissue of Fern Jones' classic album Singing a Happy Song start. When her album was recorded, the session musicians had just played Elvis's 1958 sessions. Later, Jimmie Davis and Johnny Cash both covered one of Fern's songs (I Was There When It Happened(YT)). Much of the information on the web, including this brief piece from The Oxford American about Fern, these images from her revival days, and other history comes from the website maintained by her daughter. Fern's daughter is interviewed about her mother here (mp3), with musical clips included. NPR reviewed the reissue in 2005 when it came out. [more inside]
posted by OmieWise on Jan 9, 2012 - 9 comments