Tanya Tucker – “Take Another Run” 1990 from Tennessee Woman. I sure wish I’d heard this back in 1990 so I could have been praising it when it was current. It fits in so perfectly with what I consider to be great years of country music – the run from abut 1987 to 1992 when so many performers seemed unable to put out bad records. This song was co-written by Don Schlitz and Paul Overstreet, the same team that gave Randy Travis his magnificent “Forever and Ever, Amen.” (Schlitz also wrote “The Gambler” for Kenny Rogers.) It’s catchy as can be, as Tanya Tucker puts her trademarked growl into her belief that she and her man can get to the other side of whatever problem seems to have them down. And, man, that guitar solo slays, especially the way that long lean note opens it and we hold our breath for the inevitable fast picking to come. Tanya Tucker, by the way, deserves a lot more respect than she’s gotten, and she’s gotten some pretty good respect.
Duncan Dhu – “Rey de la Luna” 1994 from Piedras. Duncan Dhu was a Spanish rock band that sounded perfectly at home with American roots rock. Except it was all sung in Spanish, of course. They made no kind of splash over here, but I fell in love with them when Sire Records released Autobiographia back in 1991. You can still occasionally find a used promo CD of that one. But anyway, this song was one I didn’t hear back in the day, so I’m glad to be reminded they kept on making catchy records. With an insatiable loping groove and a gentle vocal melody, this particular song is a major earworm candidate if you give it a chance. There’s a bouncing bass line, a reverbed guitar lick, light acoustic strumming, and electric piano chords with crisp drums under the vocal. It actually keeps building, adding a second guitar, some horns, a synthesizer line, another dribbling clipped guitar part, and then the bridge lets it all hang out before stripping down for an instrumental bit. At the end, there’s even some vibraphone.
Reverend Gary Davis – “Hesitation Blues” 1959 from Pure Religion and Bad Company. Hearing Reverend Gary Davis for the first time sounds familiar to me, because I’ve heard the likes of John Fahey, John Renbourn, Jorma Kaukonen, and many others who have incorporated his acoustic guitar style into their playing. In fact, according to Wikipedia, it seems half the famous white acoustic players of the 60s and 70s studied with him. Davis was from the Piedmont region in South Carolina, and while he was proficient in the blues, he drew inspiration from a wide range of music. “Hesitation Blues” is not a normal 12-bar blues, though it does add some blues feel – the bent notes - to its ragtime structure. Davis fingerpicks this elegantly funky tune, playing enough chords behind his leads, or doubling up the tune on the low strings and high strings in ways that make you forget he’s only one guy with a guitar. It’s a light and breezy and infectious recording.
Ely – “All You Are Love” 2020 from Love in the Midst of Mayhem. Joe Ely was my gateway drug to country music in general back around 1980 or so. I’d enjoyed some country before that, of course, but when the Clash invited Ely to open their American tour, something clicked in my punk and New Wave head, and I learned that music had many more channels than I had previously believed. Years later, I learned that Ely had been in an obscure country band called the Flatlanders, and years after that, they got back together. This song was written by the three giants of the band – Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Ely. In fact, they’d recorded it with Gilmore singing back in 2002 on their album Now Again. Ely’s version is lighter, more intimate. Without that vibrato of Gilmore’s, Ely relies on pure heart to sing this simple evocation of love at its most serene. Lightly picked acoustic guitar, gentle accordion, and some quiet piano make up the background of this sweet record.
Jimmy Hughes – “Everybody Let’s Dance” 1963 single available on The Best of Jimmy Hughes. Hughes never hit the big time the way his cousin Percy Sledge later did, but he made some pretty cool records in the early years of FAME Studios down in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. This one is a cracklin’ good time groove as Hughes tells us his baby left him for another guy. He has no intention of wallowing in sorrow, at least not yet. Instead, there’s a party, and the records are spinning, and he’s gonna find another woman to start anew. There are plenty of records out there about dancing to keep away heartache, but this one keeps it all upbeat and finger snappin’, making it explicit that at least for one night, he can still feel good. Hughes has a cool feathery gospel-influenced approach to singing, and he shifts between declarative near talking to blistering soul phrasing. Very hot sax solo, too.