Showing posts with label Country. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Country. Show all posts

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Lee Hazlewood - Cowboy In Sweden (1970)


You can take Lee Hazlewood's music on two different levels: one; he was a hilarious jokester that wrote tongue-in-cheek pop and country songs or the second tact, which was he saw himself as a serious musician that was completely misunderstood, even now. I'd like to think he's somewhere in between the two, bridging the gap between ridiculous camp and true art.

Cowboy In Sweden was a television series from Sweden that Hazlewood starred in and wrote the soundtrack to. It's an attempt at reconciling the psychedelic sounds of the day with Bakersfield-style country and string-laden commercial pop music; the results are what would happen if a cowboy took LSD and appeared on The Lawrence Welk Show.

It's that awesome...

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Wanda Jackson - Rockin' With Wanda (1960)


I was introduced to Wanda Jackson a few years ago, by the wonderful KALX radio station. I had just moved to California and was trying to learn the area roads, out driving around- and this song comes on called Fujiyana Mama; it was equal parts awesome rockabilly and hilarious late '50s camp.

I was hooked; got this album from Miss Jackson. The tunes range from straight rockabilly to honky tonk to country to rock & roll- if ever Elvis had a female counterpart, it'd be Wanda (she briefly dated Presley in 1955, so there you go).

Check out this record if you wanna hear an early influence on rock music, from a woman's point of view (this is the 2002 re-mastered issue with bonus tracks)...