MetaFilter posts tagged with soul and country

Back before the musical lines were so clearly drawn

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 06:38:55 -0800

In decades past, R&B and soul artists didn't shy away from covering country songs. That's right, children, straight up country songs. And the results were often stunningly good. For example, Al Green's performance of Kris Kristofferson's For the Good Times (best known as a hit for country crooner Ray Price). Or Ray Charles' performance of Eddy Arnold's You Don't Know Me. Or Aretha Franklin's performance of country chestnut You Are My Sunshine, first recorded in 1939 by the Pine Ridge Boys. And... Percy Sledge, best known for his iconic hit "When a Man Loves a Woman" went full-on country with his cover of Merle Haggard's Mama Tried. Meanwhile, here's Gladys Knight and the Pip's version of a Jim Weatherly tune that was first a hit for, once again, Ray Price, You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me. But let's take this back to where we started, shall we? Back to the great Al Green. Here's his performance of Hank Williams classic I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry and his wonderful rendition of Willie Nelson's Funny How Time Slips Away. Which, by the way, was also covered, with a rather amusing spoken-word introduction, by blues/soul singer Junior Parker.

Drink up, y'all!

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:24:41 -0800

New Year's Eve is fast approaching, and for lots of folks that means... drinking. Plenty of drinking. And since there's no shortage of singers and songwriters who've had a little something to say about that particular topic, maybe some of the following tunes can serve as an appropriate soundtrack to your own joyous (or not?) imbibing of spirits. For example, there's... Jimmy Liggins with his succinct rendition of Drunk, and there's... Now folks, scattered throughout this post, among the well-known names in American music, you'll find a number of relatively obscure artists, and I hope you'll check out those links, especially. I've chosen them because they each have something well worth your time and attention! So, let's drink up! The Clovers: One Mint Julep Jerry Lee Lewis: What's Made Milwaukee Famous Merle Haggard: Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down Gil Scott-Heron: The Bottle Amos Milburn: One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer Floyd Dixon: Hey Bartender The Five Owls: I Like Moonshine Faron Young: Wine Me Up Jackie Brenston: Juiced George Jones & Willie Nelson: I Gotta Get Drunk Peppermint Harris: I Got Loaded Ernest Tubb: Pass the Booze Skip James: Drunken Spree Loretta Lynn: Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' Louis Jordan: What's The Use Of Getting Sober Muddy Waters: Sittin' Here and Drinkin' (Whiskey Blues) Tommy James and the Shondells: Sweet Cherry Wine Tom T. Hall: I Like Beer Roger Miller: Chug-a-lug Jim Reeves: Drinking Tequila The Big Bopper: White Lightning Hank Thompson: On Tap, In the Can, or In the Bottle Bumble Bee Slim: Sloppy Drunk Blues Dick Curless: Loser's Cocktail Robert Diggs: Drink, Drink, Drink George Jones: If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will) Sam Chatmon: Let's Get Drunk Again Dinah Washington: Drinking Again Webb Pierce: There Stands the Glass and, Webb Pierce again, with a live, drunken version of: There Stands the Glass And finally, since we started this whole drinkin' thing with Jimmy Liggins and his wonderful rendition of "Drunk", let's wrap it up with Jimmy again, who this time insists: I Ain't Drunk Happy New Year everyone!

Hard Luck Guy

BitterOldPunk — Tue, 31 May 2011 14:40:59 -0800

Say, you wanna hear a sad song? Eddie Hinton was a guitar player, vocalist, and songwriter from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Co-writer of one of the tenderest, sexiest hits of the late 60s, Dusty Springfield's Breakfast in Bed, Hinton was a key member of the world-famous Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section from 1967 to 1971 (turning down an invitation from Duane Allman to be a member of the Allman Brothers Band) who worked as a studio musician on albums by Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, the Staples Singers, and Toots Hibbert, but his early success was sidetracked by mental problems, booze, and drugs. His brilliant (if unfortunately titled) solo debut, Very Extremely Dangerous, was released on Capricorn Records in 1978, months before the label went bankrupt. Crushed, Hinton kept plugging away, recording an album with Jimmy Johnson in 1982. But the album went unreleased and that blow, along with the stress of a divorce, sent Hinton into a tailspin. He ended up homeless and estranged from his family. He was on a bus stop bench in front of the Salvation Army in Decatur, Alabama when he was recognized by John D. Wkyker, a Decatur native who recognized Hinton from their days in the University of Alabama drum and bugle corps. Himself a veteran of the music business, Wyker helped Hinton get back on his feet, and the two started a music publishing company. New music, along with the unreleased Jimmy Johnson tracks, became the album Letters From Mississippi, and soon Hinton was performing again, both to small rooms in the US and to larger and more enthusiastic European crowds. That success landed Hinton a contract for two more albums, Cry and Moan and Very Blue Highway. Though Hinton's demons never left him, he was able to reconcile with his family. Hinton died of a heart attack in 1995 at his mother's home in Birmingham. Said Jerry Wexler of Hinton in the liner notes of the posthumously released Hard Luck Guy: "He remains unique, a white boy who truly sang and played in the spirit of the great black soul artists he venerated. With Eddie it wasn't imitation; it was totally created, with a fire and fury that was as real as Otis Redding's and Wilson Pickett's." His music, an intoxicating mix of soul, gospel, country, and rock, is undergoing something of a revival, thanks to the efforts of the band Drive-By Truckers. They've recorded several of Hinton's songs, including Where's Eddie and Everybody Needs Love (this performance includes original Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section member David Hood, father of Patterson). Eddie Hinton's albums Letters from Mississippi and Very Extremely Dangerous are available for your listening pleasure at Grooveshark. And here's Eddie playing guitar on Toots Hibbert's Freedom Train. And if you find yourself rather depressed by Hinton's tragic story, listen to Eddie shout, scat, scream, and holler through Shout Bamalama and leave with a smile on your face and your ass in motion.

The reason for the season.

kipmanley — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:06:37 -0800

It’s maybe a little early yet for year’s end retrospectives, but who cares: we’ve got 157 songs, 10.5 hours, 1.12 GB of “some of the best and most notable music from 2010... covering indie, pop, rock, punk, folk, rap, R&B, soul, dance, country, modern classical, ambient and electronic music, and in many cases, hard-to-classify genre hybrids.” —Curated by FluxBlog’s own Matthew Perpetua.

"The little girl with the big voice."

The Card Cheat — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 07:18:10 -0800

Timi Yuro, an Italian-American singer born in Chicago (where, the story goes, her nanny snuck her into clubs to watch singers like Dinah Washington and Mildred Bailey), was arguable the greatest blue-eyed soul artist of the '60s. In 1961 she had her first (and biggest) hit with a cover of Roy Hamilton's emotional ballad "Hurt", so powerfully sung that many listeners first assumed she was a man, African-American, or both. Follow-ups "I Believe" (a duet with Johnnie Ray) and "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" were also successful, but established her in the public's mind as a cabaret performer rather than a soul singer. This all changed with the release of her next single, the r&b barnburner "What's A Matter Baby" and the 1963 LP Make The World Go Away, a collection of soulful country covers that included goose pimple-inducing renditions of "Leavin' On Your Mind" and the title track, which would prove to be her last significant U.S. hit. "Can't Stop Running Away" and "Interlude" went on to become Northern Soul favourites, but by the end of the '60s she had more or less left the music business, resurfacing only to record a few stray singles (including a 1979 cover of "Nothing Takes The Place Of You") before she was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1980. In 1984 she was forced to undergo a tracheotomy operation, which ended her singing career, but she lived on until March 30th, 2004, when she passed at the age of 63.

y2karlTube - Simply Beautiful

y2karl — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:56:06 -0800

Clarence Ashley - The Coo Coo
Skip James - Crow Jane
Howlin' Wolf - How Many More Years
Son House - John the Revelator
Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys - Close By
Houston Stackhouse & Joe Willie Wilkins - Cool Drink Of Water
Muddy Waters - Honey Bee
Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys - Lone Star Rag
Mississipi John Hurt - You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley
Maybelle & Sara Carter - Cannonball Blues
Al Green - Simply Beautiful
Enjoy. Note that, too, save for Mississippi John Hurt, there is more by each of the above artists linked on each clip's page.
The first is via FaheyGuitarPlayers, the rest were all in a day's surf. On dial-up, even.