Report From The Country, Part Eight: Sock It To Me Country Style
Published June 20th, 2006 in Treasure Tags: C&W, Music.
Recently, a twenty-something friend of mine told me that you can take courses in country music for college credit these days. She also told me she got an “A” on her paper on Kenny Rogers. This same twenty-something gave me a blank look when I asked her to analyze Kenny’s crossover from rock to country to country pop to pop and its socio-politico-economic ramification on the take-out chicken franchise industry. Turns out, her essay was on “the effect of Kenny Rogers music on the listening pleasure of the average college student.”
A couple of months back, when first working up notes to this series, somewhere halfway down the page I scrawled the cryptic yet cliched phrase “not a bang but a whimper.” I confess I no longer remember what that was supposed to mean. But I suspect it was related to the next note: “chart the wussification of hardcore country as brought on by the ascent of pop crossover success.” Trouble is, I’m essentially a wussy myself.
Being a child of the early seventies, I was raised on pabum — the cheesier the better. Some call it “ear candy,” some call it a “guilty pleasure.” Some call it crap and leave it at that. The same things that draws me to country music is what draws me to all pop music. What attracts me to a record is not its “timelessness,” but what I call (for lack of a better term) its “ephemeral” quality. I’m not looking for something that will endure, I want something that’s gone forever. I like a record that was made for a market that no longer exists.
The songs in this collection are probably not the first choice among country enthusiasts. In fact, some of these might even make most “real” country fans leave the room. Which isn’t to say they’re bad; some of them are considered classics. It’s not like they don’t have working class themes; some of them even involve various forms of self destructive behavior. But they are either “too pop” or “too formula.” They’re all unabashedly and self-consciously aimed at the cross-over market.
They all have that intangible …something that makes them an abomination to the ears of purists. That is to say, they’re “kitsch.” They play too fast and too loose with the laws that rule our asthetic lives. They dance back and forth across the fences demarcating styles, failing utterly to live by and live up to the standards set by their betters. But you know what? As far as I’m concerned, a good pop song’s a good pop song, no matter where it comes from. And you shouldn’t overthink that.
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1. He’s Got A Way With Women - Hank Thompson
2. Coming Back To You - Browns
3. Chet’s Tune - Some Of Chet’s Friends
4. Your Sweet Love Lifted Me - Bobby Barnett
5. Do What You Think’s Best - George Jones
6. Rings Of Gold - Dottie West & Don Gibson
7. Good Enough To Be Your Wife - Jeannie C. Riley
8. How Can I Unlove You - Lynn Anderson
9. If I Don’t Like The Way You Love Me - Mary Taylor
10. Sock It To Me Country Style - Jim Ed Brown
11. South - Roger Miller
12. Farm In Pennsyltucky - Jeannie Seely
13. One’s On The Way - Loretta Lynn
14. I Knew Jesus (Before He Was A Star) - Glen Campbell
You can take any class in College. I took a class on the History of Rock that introduced me to such people as “The Yodlin’ Blues Man” Jimmy Rodgers, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Big Mamma Thornton (whose version of “Hound Dog” is much better than Elvis’), and Robert Johnson among others. “Fans” of rock music do not give any credence to country or bluegrass. They fail to realize the strong influence both had on rock and tht spells disaster for the future.
For the record Kenny Roger’s Roaster’s was, by far, the best chicken in greatly missed in Southern California
Big Mama Thornton’s version of “Hound Dog” was BETTER than The King’s??
Is that what they’re teaching you at that school of yours??
Apples and oranges, my friends. That’s what I say.
Big Mama’s is definitely more simple, but I am a bigger fan of early blues than I am of Rockabilly.
Yet another cool mix. Crossover, lots of strings, whatever - it’s good stuff. Please keep it coming. Thanks!
the song you”you aint nothin but a hound dog”expressly indicates a womans feelings about her man,elvis’s producers like so many of the day,i would think,saw an opportunity to capitalize on an already popular and well written hit.the fact that it was written from the perspective of a bad ol’ black woman,i am sure meant very little to them,they were ripping everyone off in those days.
i would be curious to know the amount of royalties big momma recieved for”hound dog”,i wouldn’t be surprised if it were in the hundreds.
Money notwithstanding, one record’s greatness doesn’t make the other LESS great. As far as rip-offs go, the writers of “Hound Dog” pitched it to The King’s people themselves. So I guess they wanted the greatest possible return on their property. White males Leiber & Stoller may have given the song to Big Mama Thornton first, but their work was far too tongue-in-cheek to be considered an earnest expression of the black female experience. If anything, it was a novelty song. Until Elvis got ahold of it.
The History of American Music in 3 E-Z Peices
http://residents.com/bh/cubelive.htm
I’ve always enjoyed there take on it.
oh,i always thought that big momma thornton wrote that one…leiber & stoller eh?noted thx.
Big Mama’s version does have quite a lot going for it: Her bad ass threatening vocals, nasty guitar and Big Mama actually barks at the no count man. It is primitive and raunchy, but I would not dismiss it as novelty.
Elvis’ version is far tamer, but his big ol’ voice and Scotty Moore’s killer (and influential) guitar slinging make you forget all about Elvis singing to a dog on TV.
Both versions are excellent and unforgettable.
who really wrote “I’m a man”,Ellas McDaniels or Mickinley Morganfield,or both and how does that work?
Bostrom is right when he said that one record’s greatness does not make another one less great. However, what Elvis did was make the record more commercially acceptable. Instead of a black female singing about something with, what some would consider harsh sounds, you had a white male singing it with a polished sound who was already well-known. It was the same thing that happened when Elvis covered Athur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup’s “That’s Alright Momma”. For my money, covers are rarely better than the originals.
While “Hound Dog” as written is clearly a novelty number, each artist used it as a template and brought their own talents to bear on it. One made it an R&B dance hit very much in line with her style, while Elvis did what he was doing to songs back in those days. The King’s version is probably his best anthem from that period of his misquided belief in what must have seemed to him like the limitless opportunity of his youth and talent. In later years, he used to mock it in his stage shows, using it as a benchmark, as if to say “look how far I’ve come from the juvenile hockum I used to sing.”
As to this notion of “covers” and the sanitation of black music by white artists conspiring to deny black artists the rightful fruits of their labors, it is hardly fair to tar Elvis with that brush. This had been the cycle of American popular music for over a century before Elvis ever set foot in a recording studio. As it was, RCA had no idea what to do with their new artist, and The King’s managers didn’t quite have their system in place for keeping certain material away from him. So in the beginning, Elvis had no choice but to record songs he already knew that appealed to him. On more than one occasion, RCA embarrassed him by releasing songs that directly competed with versions by artists he admired. But in their defense, they were at a loss how to promote him. So they stuck with what they knew.
Leiber & Stoller, meanwhile saw a great opportunity to further their own careers by pitching their songs to an artist that interpreted their material with a vision very close to their own. Elvis really got their wheels turning. But their ambition was perceived as a threat by Elvis’s management, and they were quickly muscled out.
The Elvis Hound Dog has possibly the single finest guitar solo on ANY Elvis record, but it’s Chet Atkins, not Scotty. Once The King went to RCA, Chet took over all the sessions, and while Scotty and Bill were good enough for the road, Chet wanted pros on the records. Chet also plays the guitar on Heartbreak Hotel and a zillion others.
Although Bostrom may argue for James Burton, I believe Chet Atkins is the coolest and BEST guitar player ever on an Elvis Record.
And yes, that really was Hoyt Axton’s mother that got writer credit on Heartbreak Hotel…
Tom
Actually, as I recall it, Chet and Elvis did not take to one another, so Chet left it to Steve Sholes to sort out the sessions after mid-56. Steve left the sessions to Elvis, and Elvis left them to his publishers. So if was a marvellous dysfunctional circus, with nobody actually taking charge, and The King cutting up in a passive agressive manner, enciting horse-laughs from his entourage and machiavellian manouvering in the control room.
We at Bostworld won’t say anything bad about Chet, but we won’t give him much credit for the Presley phenomenon either.
Tom, Are you certain it’s Chet Atkins on Hound Dog? I found several articles on the net that identify Scotty Moore as the guitarist. I also see others that say Chet. Anyone know for sure?
From http://www.scottymoore.net:
This particular version of the L5 CES was of the blonde, rounded (Venetian) single cutaway variety. Scotty played this guitar on some of the final Sun recordings as well as ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, ‘Lawdy Miss Clawdy’, ‘Hound Dog’, ‘Don’t Be Cruel’, ‘Any Way You Want Me (That’s How I will Be)’ and ‘Mean Woman Blues’, to name but a few.
From http://www.answers.com:
While additional musicians on RCA sessions would sometimes make Moore’s role less prominent than it had been at Sun, Scotty still added a great deal to Elvis’ earliest and best RCA discs. There was the chilling, fiercely echoing solo on “Heartbreak Hotel,” the almost avant-garde mad runs up and down the scales on the solos of “Hound Dog” and “Too Much,” the brief but blasting one on “Jailhouse Rock,” and the bubbly one on “My Baby Left Me,” which was as pure and sparkling as anything Moore had played at Sun.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotty_Moore: Moore played on many of Presley’s most famous recordings including “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, “Baby Let’s Play House”, “Heartbreak Hotel”, “Mystery Train”, “Hound Dog”, “Too Much” and “Jailhouse Rock”.
From allmusic:
by Cub Koda
One of the songs that is forever tied to the rise of rock & roll is Elvis Presley’s version of “Hound Dog.” Originally written by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller for rhythm & blues singer Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, the tune in its original incarnation was a modified rhumba, fueled on the original recording by an extended guitar solo from Pete Lewis. The popularity of Big Mama’s version inspired an answer record on Sun by Rufus Thomas, “Bear Cat,” sounding close enough to the original to inspire a lawsuit. Reportedly, Elvis got his inspiration to cover the song when he saw Freddie Bell & the Bellboys doing it in Las Vegas on an early ill-fated tour in 1956. But what Elvis did with it was entirely new and different; the beat was modified to a driving rock & roll rhythm with off-time handclaps provided by his backing singers, the Jordanaires. The guitar breaks were now kept to two 12-bar solo bursts, played effectively by Scotty Moore and, above all, the song was infused with Presley’s manic vocal energy. The song blew the rock & roll movement through the roof, becoming a lightning rod for critics of the music as well as a rallying cry for the nation’s youth movement. It’s been successfully covered by Jerry Lee Lewis and others over the years, but nothing beats Presley’s version, as emblematic a song from the ’50s as you’re likely to come across.
I do believe that Elvis was a victim of bad management that wasd trying to make as much money as they could off of him. At least Elvis helped careers unlike the Crew Cuts
According to Ernest Jorgensen’s “Elvis Presley: A Life in Music–The Complete Recording Sessions,” Scotty Moore was the only guitarist on the session, which took place in NYC under the eye of Steve Sholes. Chet Atkins does not appear on this session. Chet really only had a hand in the recordings of “I Was The One” and its soundalike “I Want You I Need You I Love You,” on both of which he also played rythmn guitar. Scotty and Bill, meanwhile, weren’t actually shunted to the side until the following year, during recording of the songs featured in the film “Loving You.”
Found this site linked on another blog and I can’t stop reading the posts here. Nor can I stop listening to this great series. It’s fantastic stuff that I’m only recently getting into. I love it and can’t wait for more.
I am happy to stand corrected!
Bostrom, you ever gonna reveal how you saw The King’s ghost at Graceland, which convinced ME to go?
Tom
Tom -
I don’t know if that has any bearing — I see Elvis’ ghost everywhere.
Is it ESP? I’m have a feeling that tells me another installment of the Report is coming soon.
Maybe it’s just my wish. Please, please, please?
I really enjoyed reading this. I too am a fan of a song that defines an era, especially the 1960’s and 1970’s. “Sock it To Me Country Style” is among my favorite country songs by Jim Ed Brown (written by the late, great, Nat Stuckey) I had the great fortune to meet my idol Jim Ed last month in Nashville…he still looks and sounds terrific.
Susan
San Francisco
macarthurp@yahoo.com
Wow! I hope that some day I could be so lucky.