How I Caught the Hillbilly Fever and Found Out That Everything I Knew Was Wrong - Part 1

It all started with my uncle’s record.

My uncle, Thomas Fox, was a part time guitar player and singer for most of his life.  His one shot at country music stardom came around 1964 when he cut a single for the independent label K-Ark in Nashville. According to the story my dad tells, Uncle Thomas’ agent persuaded him that “Tom Fox” wasn’t a good name for a country singer, and for one of those crazy-hillbilly-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time-but-what-the-heck-were-they-thinkin’ reasons he adopted the stage name of “Toby Rose.” He was apparently trying to impress Wesley Rose, the head of Acuff-Rose publishing and son of legendary songwriter Fred Rose, as if stealing the family name was a good way to do so. (But I’ve already been through that with the hyphenated adjective.)

 The record I learned to bop to, daddy-o!

In any case, the record failed to go anywhere in the country music market of the time, despite being a fun novelty record in the vein of George Jones’ country rockers of the early sixties like “White Lightning.” It was cheaply produced record for sure, but it was a great showcase for my uncle’s voice and hot guitar pickin’. Side A was his version (complete with maniacal canned laughter) of “The Burglar and the Old Maid” a joke song that already had miles of whiskers when it was recorded by “Mr. John Terrell” in 1901, but had achieved a bit of a revival thanks to a version by The Big Bopper a few years before.  Side B was a hot, twangy version of Hank Williams’ “Howlin at the Moon.”

While Toby Rose may not have gotten many spins on the turntables of radio stations, one place he did get a LOT of play was in our house. Uncle Thomas naturally gave copies of the record to all his relatives, and since I only about a year old when the record was pressed, I grew up hearing it regularly. And of course, once I was old enough and big enough to operate my dad’s hulking turntable myself it got even more play. Because, after all, what’s cooler than having a record by your very own uncle?

Of course this wasn’t the only place I was exposed to country music. Neither my mom or dad were big music fans, but they did like their share of country music.  My dad, back in the early fifties when he had been living in Nashville and before he had married my mom, had played at being a country singer for a short while, and had even appeared on a few local radio shows. And he had known a few country music folks, most notably Randy Hughes, a singer, guitar player and talent agent. My Dad and Hughes had become friends through the Masonic Lodge they were both members of, and when Hughes died in March of 1963 - in the same plane crash that killed Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and Hawkshaw Hawkins - dad decided to name me after his lost friend.

My dad, Frank Jewell Fox, hammin' it up in the early fifties.

In regards to music, early on I fixated on country tales of bloody death. My mom says my favorite lullaby was always “The Streets of Laredo,” the country western updating of an ancient British ballad of gambling, whoring and death. And when the song “The Green, Green Grass of Home,” the story of a condemned man’s imaginary last trip home in the minutes before his execution, hit in 1966 for Porter Wagoner, I quickly became obsessed with it. The guy dies at the end – how awesome!

But I was not to be a country music fan – yet.

As the seventies rumbled on the occasional country music hit would catch my fancy, but for the most part I was not a big music fan and that went for just about any genre. Oh sure, there were individual songs that I liked or bands that I dug, but my big obsession with music wouldn’t start until my last couple of years of high school, and then kick into high gear my first year of college.  When the bug finally did bite me, I started devouring all the histories of rock music I could put my hands on. Rolling Stone magazine supplied much of my introduction to the history of American pop music through The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, The Rolling Stone Record Guide, and The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. Three books that I read over and over again. 

But there was a problem – I was being a handed a load of horse manure. Which we will dig into in detail in Part 2.

Charlie Louvin Meets Jello!

In February of 2007, country music legend Charlie Louvin released a new solo album on Thompkins Square Records. It would be the first of several new releases leading right up to his death in January 2011 from pancreatic cancer, and the start of Charlie’s official “re-discovery” by the Americana crowd.

One lucky result (for me, anyway) of the promotion for the new album was getting Charlie as an in-studio guest for my radio show, The Hipbilly Jamboree, on the now sadly deceased WRVU  91.1 FM. 

But it got even better.

No.1 on Jello's want list!

My co-host on the show, Kels Koch, was working for the local record store The Great Escape at the time. A few years earlier, he had met punk rock icon and former lead man of The Dead Kennedys, Jello Biafra. Jello was in town and looking for Louvin Brothers albums, in particular the 1959 classic Satan is Real. He left Kels his telephone number in case a copy of Satan is Real did turn up, and a few months later, one did. Kels hooked Jello up with an original Capital pressing of the Louvin’s harrowing tales of sin and salvation and all was right.

Charlie was scheduled to appear on our show for February 20, 2007 and it just so happened that Jello would be appearing at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville on the same night. That morning, Kels received a phone call from Jello to let him know about the show and that he had put Kels on the guest list. When Kels mentioned to Jello that Charlie would be appearing on our show that evening Jello got really excited and asked if he could drop by the station.

Like we were going to say no…

And so about 50 minutes into the show Jello showed up at the door and the meeting between one of the men responsible for Satan is Real and one of the men responsible for Frankenchrist began. Jello had stopped off at a record store and snagged a couple of Louvin Borthers LPs for Charlie to sign. No copy of Satan is Real, but Jello was still mighty happy.

My favorite off-air moment was when Jello asked Charlie to inscribe the records to him, and Charlie said, “I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”

“Jello.”

“Jello!  You mean like the dessert?”

Here's a clip of the on-air portion of the meeting.  Things were pretty chaotic in the studio as you can tell, not only from Jello showing up, but also the various other WRVU DJs that had stopped by to meet Charlie. The “one line story” that Jello mentions is a off-color joke that Charlie told him that he didn’t want to repeat on the air, and that unfortunately, I have forgotten.

And to hear more about Satan is Real check out the audio archive of my story for Nashville Public Radio about the new reissue of the LP on Light in the Attic Records.

Charlie Louvin and Tragic Songs of Life

Two small bits of bidniz…

First, I want to send a Deadly Mantis-size thank you to my good buddy Norm Partridge for being so kind to plug A Schmuck with an Underwood, in his great blog American Frankenstein. If you’re not familiar with Norm’s writing, buy, beg, borrow or steal a copy of his novel Dark Harvest right away. Or for that matter any of his books. It will be well worth any prison time you may have to serve as the result of the acquisition.  Trust me on this…

My personal goal is to get a new bog entry up every week, but a really good freelance opportunity came through for me two weeks ago with a very short deadline, which is why there was no new entry for last week. (And rest assured I will be shamelessly plugging the magazine when the stories I wrote appear in print!) While I’m working on this week’s entry, and it should be up no later than Friday, I wanted to go ahead and get something posted about Charlie Louvin, hence today’s entry.

I just found out this morning that Charlie Louvin passed away. If you don’t know who Charlie Louvin was you really need to get yourself educated. As one half of the Louvin Brothers (with his older brother Ira) Charlie was one of the biggest country music stars of the 1950s. The Louvins were, and still are, one the most successful and most influential duo acts in country music.

Over the years the perception has grown up that Ira was the “wild-ass” of the two brothers – hard-drinkin’, mercurial, onry, and a ladies man.  The truth was hardly that simple. Charlie could be just as mercurial, onry, and a ladies man (at least as far as harmless flirting was concerned) – just without the drinkin’ and a whole lot more common sense. After the brothers split in 1963, Charlie went on to a successful solo career with thirty chart hits between 1964 and 1973. However, through the seventies and the eighties, the Louvin Brothers and Charlie seemed to slip from the consciousness of country music.

I first heard of the Louvin Brothers in early nineties when I was engaged in a full speed, whole-hog emersion into the history of country née hillbilly music. I don’t even recall where I read about their album Tragic Songs of Life, but I knew I had to find a copy. I finally did, granted a copy of the Rounder Records late-eighties reissue which had one of the ugliest covers you’ve ever seen, but the music, oh my!  It was of those defining moments where you hear music and you mind cannot comprehend how it could be that you have lived as long as you have without knowing about this!

I first met Charlie at the opening ceremonies for the new Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.  We were in the VIP section, but there was a red carpet ceremony for all living Hall of Fame members, which astonishingly, did not include Charlie. I spent some time talking to Charlie who was friendly, but something was obviously bothering him.  As the ceremony began I said, “You should be walking down that red carpet, Charlie.”

“Damn right I should be,” he said without skipping a beat.

Fortunately, the powers at be did induct the Louvins into the Hall of Fame in the very next year, and the last ten years has seen a major revival for Charlie as a solo artist and for recognition of the Louvin Brothers.  But the best way to remember Charlie is with the music he did so well…