The Podunk Poets: Unofficial Official Band of Three States Plus One!

Cross Posted from The Lower 48 (Plus 2)

Country Music. The Official Music of The Lower 48 (Plus 2)!

I mean real Country Music - Merle Haggard, George Jones and Loretta Lynn.That kind of Country Music. 

Not long ago I was introduced to a band, in Los Angeles of all places(!), that plays exactly that kind of Country.

Introducing The Podunk Poets: Cindy Jollotta & Kelly Kidd - Vocals, Patrick Generosa - Drums, Doug Carrion - Bass, Jake Kelly - Guitar

Read, see and hear the rest on The Lower 48 (Plus 2)

Plus One Special: Alan Eugene Jackson

My old buddy Arthur Itis is still visiting me today and he's got me confined to the couch or bed, so I looked back through the "Three States Plus One" archives and found a very popular post from Country Music Month last October. It's definitely worth another look, so have fun reading about and listening to....Alan Jackson!

If Alan ain't country you can kiss my....you know

 Every so often Country Music seems to lose its focus and veer toward the Pop side of things. To clarify, when I said "Country Music" in the opening sentence, I meant the dumbasses in charge of the record companies who make the decisions as to what's going to be released. At the same time, there always seems to be an artist or two who remain loyal to their country roots and play, you know, actual Country Music. Imagine that. One such artist who has done exactly that for over two decades and is still going strong answers to the name Alan Eugene Jackson.

Alan Jackson burst on to the Country Music scene with his first major release, Here In the Real World and has never looked back. As of this writing, Jackson has had over 50 singles in the Billboard Magazine charts and twenty-five of those have been Number 1's. And every damned one of those chart singles have been COUNTRY. Alan and another Country Legend, George Strait, lambasted the idiots who pour out all this Pop pablum and try to market it as Country in Murder On Music Row. Now that's what I'm talkin' about! Between Strait and Jackson, they have about 75 Number 1's and probably 100 million album sales, plus over 50 years combined as major Country stars, and the dumbasses in Nashville just don't seem to get it. Simply amazing.

The following songs are why Alan Jackson records will be played on the radio long after we leave this world. Classics, every damned one of them. Because I said so.  :)

• Here in the Real World - His first major release. A star was born.
• Wanted - One of the best Country songs ever.
• Chasin' That Neon Rainbow - I love the picture this song paints in my mind.
• Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning) - Simply brilliant. 
• It's Five O'clock Somewhere - Cheers!
• Livin' on Love - Growin' old together. 

After listening to the songs on the list above, I realized that I need to crank up some Alan Jackson way more often. The man is incredible. His song writing is outstanding and the people who do his back up vocals are mo' betta than good. In case you couldn't tell, I really like this guy. :) For another 40 or 50 hits by Alan Jackson, here's the YouTube page for you. Listen to 'em all. You'll thank me later.

Country Music Month: The Texas Connection:Two Words - The Possum

George Glenn Jones, The Possum, was born seventy-nine years ago in Saratoga, Texas, destined to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, country singers in history. My only argument with that is a man named Hank Williams. Still, Jones is easily in the Top 5 of the Greatest All Time Country Singers. Jones has the God-given gift of interpreting a song like few others can. A prime example is He Stopped Loving Her Today. Please take about four minutes of your time to listen to that performance. In my lifetime and during a fifteen year radio career, I have NEVER heard someone sing a song with such power, emotion and the feel of experiencing the song as it's being sung. Pretty much everybody who has listened to Country Music for any length of time, knows about the personal demons in George Jones' life - alcohol, drugs, so on and so forth. Jones finally beat those demons, thanks to his fourth wife Nancy. One quick story, then on to his music. During his marriage to Tammy Wynette when he was a booze hound, Tammy took the car keys away from George so he couldn't go to the liquor store. But, the Possum is a crafty creature and can find ways to do things that others can not. The solution to Jones' dilemma? The riding lawnmower! Liquor store here I come! Jones was nothing if not an inventive drunk on this occasion. There's a hell of a lot more I could write about George Jones' life, but I'll leave that to Wikipedia. I want to delve into his music.

• She Thinks I Still Care - C-O-U-N-T-R-Y!!!
• Still Doin' Time - In a Honky Tonk Prison. This one's in my personal Possum Top 3. Frakkin' awesome!
• If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will) - The hurtin' song to end all hurtin' songs. Incredible.
• The Grand Tour - Step right up, come on in...
• Choices - Just because I like it.

For over fifty years, the man called The Possum has been crankin' out hits, so any effort to list them here would prove futile. I, therefore, highly encourage you to pay a visit to this YouTube page of George Jones songs. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with a riding lawnmower.

Country Music Month: The Texas Connection - George Strait

I started in the radio business in November, 1979. A little over a year later, in 1981, I played a song called Unwound and it was at that moment that I became a George Strait fan. Damn, this guy from Poteet, Texas was country - honky tonk sound? Check. Fiddle? Steel guitar? Lyrics about drinkin' and lost love? Check, check and check. My faith in real country music had been restored. That restoration of faith was confirmed when Strait followed Unwound with the release of  Down and Out. Here we are thirty odd years later and George Strait is still making hit records. Early in Strait's career, a songwriter named Dean Dillon was the genius behind many of Straits hits. A partial list of those songs include the previously mentioned Unwound and Down and Out plus: Easy Come Easy Go, I've Come to Expect It from You, Ocean Front Property , The Chair and more. I think it's safe to say that George Strait and Dean Dillon made each other wealthy men - and Country Music Legends. The collaboration between these two men is so historic that I couldn't, in good conscience, not link to a Dean Dillon song actually performed by Dean Dillon.

George Strait has achieved a status in country music reserved for few men and women. He's earned Entertainer of the Year, Song of the Year, Single of the Year, Album of the Year and Everything Else of the Year awards without compromising his integrity and belief in what country music and its traditions are all about for over three decades. I am going to link to a George Strait YouTube page that features many of his hits, the songs that have set the standard for the Country Music stars of tomorrow. You can read more about George's rise to fame and some of the hurdles, including the death of his daughter, he overcame to be the man and artist he is today at this link.

Country Music Month - The Texas Connection: Shotgun Willie

Here's a question for you: Can you remember a time when Willie Nelson was not a part of Country Music? I can't either. The man became a part of the Country Music scene in 1956! I was born in 1956!

The Favorite Son of Abbott, Texas was born April 30, 1933, where at age six, Willie's Dad bought some mail-order music lessons that young Willie delved into head first. Willie wrote his first song at seven years old and was in a band by the time he was nine. His father was a pool hall owner, so honky tonks were like a second home to Willie. As a young man, Willie sang in the local watering holes, while being a DJ at various radio stations. He moved to Vancouver, Washington and then to Nashville, but still had little success as a singer. However, Willie was a prolific songwriter having penned such hits as Funny How Time Slips Away for Billy Walker, Night Life for Ray Price, Crazy for Patsy Cline and Hello Walls for Faron Young. Still, a singing career was not in the cards for Willie at this time. In 1973, the critically acclaimed (which means nobody bought it) Shotgun Willie  was released followed by Phases and Stages with the hit single Bloody Mary Morning.. In 1975 after changing record labels where he got full control over his music, and moving to Austin and becoming a part of the Outlaw Music scene, Willie captured lightning in a bottle with the release of  The Red Headed Stranger. Willie Nelson was now a bona fide star. For the last thirty-five years, Willie has written and produced some of the most memorable music of any genre. From his classic duets with Waylon Jennings , Ray Price, Ray Charles and an offer to do a duet with me(!) and a host of others to that magical album of standards, Stardust, Willie has gone places with music that few, if any, others would even consider. There is so much to write about when Willie is the subject, that I'd have to write a book to cover it all. Instead, I'll leave you with  this link to Wikipedia to dive in a little deeper into the man that is Willie Nelson.

Country Music Month - The Texas Connection - Waylon Jennings (For My Brother Mark)

Texas and Country Music go together like a hand and glove. A short list of country superstars from Texas reads like a Who's Who of the industry - Willie Nelson, Bob Wills, George Strait, George Jones, Waylon Jennings... I'll never forget the day that I heard Waylon had died, February 13, 2002. My Brother Mark and I were roommates in a little house in Tyler, Texas. We were/are early risers and one of the first things we did each morning was crank up some music, followed by beer for breakfast and a manually assembled relaxation device. Mark is a Waylon guy, I am a Hank, Jr guy. On this day, we were both Waylon guys. It was like a swift kick in the gazebos. Painful and you can't believe it just happened. Mark and I liked Waylon's music because of the stories that Waylon wrote about. We had lived those songs. Waylon put them to music, singing about our Rough and Rowdy Days. But now the music had stopped, no more of that familiar thumping bass, no more stories about a Good Hearted Woman or Luckenbach, Texas.

Looking back, it's hard to believe that Waylon Arnold Jennings started his singing career in 1949! He was twelve years old. Ten years later he would be the bassist for Buddy Holly's new band and would be the man that gave up his plane seat to a fellow Texan, The Big Bopper, on The Day the Music Died, February 3, 1959. From there, the man from Littlefield, Texas would record over sixty albums and gain worldwide fame as one of the original Outlaws of Country Music. But Waylon knew that Ladies Love Outlaws, just ask Jessie Colter. Waylon was a Ramblin' Man  and his hometown of Littlefield knew it too and saw fit to name an RV Park after him. That's when you know you are a superstar in Texas! Hank Williams, Jr recorded several songs with Waylon and in one of them said about Waylon, "he's got a string of hits about two miles long". True that, and thanks to websites like You Tube, Waylon and his two miles of hit music live on.

Country Music Month - The Texas Connection featuring Garth Brooks

It was 1991, I think, when I  met a young man who, in a few weeks, would set Country Music on its ear. A young man who would make selling 10 million or more albums almost routine, instead of unheard of. At the time I met him, he had had a couple of hits that set the tone for what was about to happen - If Tomorrow Never Comes and Much Too Young to Feel This Damn Old. You've figured it by now that I am talking about Troyal Garth Brooks. I talked with Garth before one of his shows in Wichita Falls, Texas. It was just me and him in a very relaxed atmosphere, backstage at the concert venue. It wasn't so much an interview as it was a conversation. We talked about everything under the sun, but music was at the heart of our visit. He told me to look out for a particular song that was going to be his next single, Friends in Low Places. Little did I know what would happen when he tore into that song. Garth was going ape on the stage, the crowd was going ape in their seats and then Garth went into the audience singing his ass of, high fiving people and generally working the crowd into a frenzy like I had never seen at country concert. And this crowd was sober! The auditorium EXPLODED and stayed exploded for the rest of the show. This was almost like Elvis in concert. It was nuts! Garth got called for several encores, each "encore, encore!" louder than the last! I got the feeling at that point that this chubby, balding guy from Tulsa just might become a star. After sales of more than two hundred million albums, I suppose it was a pretty good guess. By the way that 200 million number includes the time Garth was "in retirement" for about eight years and not cranking out two or three albums a year. During our conversation, Garth told me how much playing in Texas meant to him, "If you can make it in Texas, you can make it anywhere". That's why I included Garth in the Texas Connection to country music. The question I get asked most about Garth has to be "what's he like?" Garth Brooks is just like you and me. He's a regular guy. He is extremely polite and very friendly and probably the best show man I have ever seen in person - on stage he's an animal. Off stage, a pussycat.

Texas Tidbits : A Special Birthday & Country Music Month

Today is the first day of October and that means two things to me. One, today is my sister's birthday. Happy Birthday, Teri!!! We love you! The second thing about today is that it marks the beginning of Country Music Month. I was in the radio bidness for over 15 years and country music was my thing. I learned about country music from people that knew the music - Big Jim Russell being my main mentor. In the process, I soaked up information about country music like a sponge. I came to appreciate the honesty, simplicity, imagery and lyrics of country music as well as the availability of the artists. Ninety-nine per cent of them were just down home folks like you and me, willing and eager to talk the DJ's who played there music and the fans that bought their records. I was lucky enough to have interviewed, drank beer and whiskey with and picked the brains of some the greatest country artists of all time. Some names that come to mind are Hank, Jr, Willie Nelson, Reba, Ernest Tubb, Merle Haggard, Marty Robbins, Faron Young, Garth Brooks  and dozens of others. In honor of these men and women, I plan on doing a post a day featuring them and their music throughout the month of October. It'll be a lot of fun to do and even more fun to learn about the people who, through their unique individual talents, have become the best at what they do. So, saddle up! It's Country Music Month on Three States Plus One!