If That Ain't Country

In this episode, we're featuring the first Capitol LP for the booming baritone of Tony Booth: "The Key's In The Mailbox" (1972). Born in Florida, Booth relocated to New Mexico and even though his step-father was a steel guitarist, being a musician was not initially the intention for Tony Booth. Eyeing a career as a music teacher, once Booth got wind of the pay scale, he jokes, the life of an enter...

In this week's episode we're featuring an excellent western swing/country music album from Houston's The Original River Road Boys: "Country Music High" (1985). Formed in 1971 by fiddlers Clyde Brewer & Bob White, The River Road Boys were extremely active in their first decade and a half - releasing nine albums prior to "Country Music High". We'll focus on the contribution of Clyde Brewer to th...

In this week's episode, we're featuring one of the best albums in the long career of Buck Owens: "Buck Owens Sings Harlan Howard" (1961). Born in Detroit and barely receiving nine years of formal education, Harlan Howard relocated to Tucson then Los Angeles in the mid-fifties seeking a steady wage. It was there he was introduced to several early Bakersfield pioneers, including Wynn Stewart and Buc...

In this week's episode, we're featuring a snapshot of Carl Vaughan's stint in Nashville: "The Monument Years" (1968-1972). Born in Cleburne, Texas, Vaughan took a job at the tender age of four on a local radio station and proved a very adept entertainer, playing over the next several decades to big crowds around the DFW area in some of the roughest bars and clubs on the circuit. During a very popu...

In this week's episode, we're featuring a solid traditional country release from the often overlooked career of Freddy Weller: "The Roadmaster" (1972). As a member of popular rock/pop act Paul Revere & The Raiders in the late 60s, it was his version of Joe South's "Games People Play" which shot him to country stardom. Weller never recaptured that level of fame but spent most of the 70s recordi...

In this week's episode, we're featuring the first album in fourteen years from bayou-dweller John Mark Davis: "Bayou Self Sessions" (2018). John Mark Davis was gigging in and around the Beaumont/Port Arthur region in Texas at the same time that Mark Chesnutt, Tracy Byrd and Clay Walker were getting signed to major labels out of Nashville. They shared many of the same clubs, booking agents and cont...

In this week's episode, we're featuring the one and only album in the decades-long career of Rose Lee Maphis: "Rose Lee Maphis" (1960). Well may you wonder how one is active in country music for over five decades and have only one album to your name, but the answer is a simple one: Rose Lee Maphis was one half of "Mr. & Mrs. Country Music" with husband and country guitar wizard Joe Maphis: the...

In this week's episode we're featuring an all-star duet album from Hank Thompson: "Hank Thompson & Friends" (2018). Originally released on Curb Records but becoming out of print shortly afterwards, our feature album was expanded and re-released on Heart Of Texas Records in 2018. In 1996/97, at the time that the original sessions were laid down, Hank Thompson hadn't been in studio for almost a...

In this week's episode we're featuring the only album from the short, mysterious and tragic career of Curtis Leach: "The Indescribable Curtis Leach" (1964). Born in Catoosa, Oklahoma just outside of Tulsa, Leach wrote his first song at age ten. After moving out to California, he began to be recognised for his prodigous songwriting talent and by the time the mid 1960s had rolled around, he'd had se...

In this week's episode we're featuring the self-titled, debut album from Texas City native Jason James: "Jason James" (2015). After latching on to his father's love for traditional country music and leaving a fledgling punk band on the shelf, he began making recordings and demos for personal use. His mother got ahold of some of those recordings and began sending them out to labels - lo and behold,...

In this week's episode, we're featuring an album from the tail end of Conway Twitty's hard country period: "I've Already Loved You In My Mind" (1977). As was the way at that point, there was only one single (the title track), which duly went #1 and then MCA moved on to the next project. However, when you dive a little deeper, there's plenty of album gold here. There are few singers who would write...

Jim Beck was an innovator and a wizard in the recording studio. In the early-mid 1950s, Beck gave raw honky tonk talent some of their first sides - names that later went on to become some of country's legends. Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Marty Robbins amongst many others were in Beck's studios long before they went to Nashville - and if not for Jim Beck's untimely passing in 1956, could Dallas, Tex...

In this week's episode we're featuring an album from Porter Wagoner put out at the peak of his powers: "The Carroll County Accident" (1969). His syndicated TV show was in it's eighth year of production, Dolly Parton was building up a real head of steam as a solo and a duet act and Wagoner was an established hitmaker. Our feature album has typically solid instrumental support from The Wagonmasters:...

In this week's episode, we're featuring a fiddle and steel framed return to form for Mark Chesnutt: "Thank God For Believers" (1997). After debuting in the first half of the nineties, Chesnutt's first four albums were a resounding commercial success: with producer Mark Wright, he enjoyed three platinum and one gold album right out of the gate, steeped in this Beaumont, Texas native's keen sense of...

In this week's episode, we're featuring a sensational Capitol compilation of all-truck driving country: "Put The Hammer Down!" (1976). Popularized by the booming baritones of singers like Dave Dudley and Del Reeves in the 60s, truck-driving country music hit a peak in the early-mid 70s in the USA, right around the time of a nationwide fuel shortage and significant spike in CB radio use. CB radio u...

In this week's episode, we're featuring the first solo album from Kentucky-born Ray Sanders: "Feelin' Good Is Easy" (1969). During his college years at Texas Western in El Paso, Sanders began working for radio station KHEY and picked up personal appearances around the Southwest. He must have done all right too, because in 1959 he was recruited by Ray Price to lead The Cherokee Cowboys and to sing...

In this week's episode, we're featuring the debut record from Houston piano man Damian O'Grady: "From 9 'Til 1" (2018). Here's a man who spent years playing sideman to some of the Lone Star State's best dance bands and who picked up a thing or two along the way. A frequent cameo to the mic when playing with Texas favourites Amber Digby & Midnight Flyer and prior to that with Miss Leslie &...

In this week's episode, we're featuring Reba McEntire's second album for MCA: "My Kind Of Country" (1984). After being plucked from the rodeo arena in 1974, Mercury Records took McEntire and turned her into a recording professional. Her signing with MCA in the early 80s was meant to cement her as a country superstar. However her first MCA release stalled. Reba was no fool - sensing a shift away fr...

In this week's episode, we're featuring some lost 60s honky tonk from James O'Gwynn: "The Best Of James O'Gwynn" (1962). Nicknamed "The Smiling Irishman Of Country Music", he got his start around the same time as George Jones on the Houston Jamboree in the mid-50s, sharing a label and a legendary producer in Pappy Dailey. They stayed friends during their time at the Louisiana Hayride and Jones cut...

In this week's episode, we're featuring one of the most honest albums in the long career of Hank Williams, Jr.: "Habits Old & New" (1980). After a suicide attempt in 1974, a severe climbing accident in '75 and a divorce in '77 - there's little doubt that Hank Jr. did some re-evaluating. He emerged with a new musical direction. Steering away from the traditional country sounds of his famous fat...

In this week's episode, we're featuring the fourth album from Canada's Western Swing Authority: "Big Deal" (2018). Fronted by husband and wife team Shane Guse (fiddle, vocals) and Stacey Lee Guse (vocals), the Western Swing Authority is a seven-piece act based around Ontario. Their music is big, bright and appealing: much like Haggard helped bring Bob Wills to a 70s audience, the WSA take the trad...

In this week's episode, we're featuring a 1977 album from a man who doesn't get a lot of love on classic country radio in 2018: Tommy Overstreet. With his band The Nashville Express, the album is called "There'll Never Be Another First Time" and it's a marked departure from the majority of Overstreet's body of work. Firstly, the title is referring to the first time that Tommy Overstreet was able t...

In this week's episode, we're featuring Ray Price's brief return to his alma mater at Columbia Records: "Sometimes A Rose" (1992). Price had been with Columbia from his very first LP through 1974, and this reunion only lasted the one album. His charting days were behind him, but quality was still the name of the game for The Cherokee Cowboy and his voice truly seems to have gotten better with age....

In this week's episode, we're featuring high-top mid-60s George Jones at his best. Just for kicks, we're playing his fourth album for Musicor "Love Bug" (1966) in it's entirety. After signing with Musicor Records in the spring of 1965, Jones went right to work and his first three singles went Top 10 for his new backers: "Things Have Gone To Pieces", "Love Bug" and "Take Me". Less than a year into...

In this week's episode, we're featuring Mel Tillis' first album on the Kapp label: "Stateside" (1966). After a short time with RIC, and following a longer stint with Columbia - Kapp signed Tillis in the mid 60s, and he was there for five years, releasing ten high quality albums in that time. Tillis fans will eagerly tell you about the bright artwork, the big Nudie suits and hard country style that...