Last night I left Seattle later than usual, due to an early dinner engagement. I turned on KEXP, expecting to hear 'college rock, and had forgotten that they change their format at different times.
What I got was Shake the Shack:
[quote]
Rockabilly, boogie rhythm and blues, and country western are only the beginning of this musical adventure
My musical tastes are eclectic, but this sort of music only occasionally grabs my interest. I think one problem is I’d like to play blues, but my guitar skills are rudimentary and I need an extremely patient person to teach me. It makes me ache a little that I never seem to find the time to practice.
Anyway, they played CW McCall’s Four Wheel Drive. It’s not R&B, but ‘trucker-country’. (You never know what they’re going to play.) This got me thinking about McCall’s other songs. I liked Convoy (the song) when I was a kid, and I eventually bought one of McCall’s records. It had Convoy and Four Wheel Drive on it, as well as Wolf Creek Pass and Old Home Filler-up an’ Keep on a-Truckin’ Café. I think these were his most popular songs. There were a couple of others I liked; The Silverton, about a steam train in the Rockies, and Ghost Town, which was an imagination of how a ghost town was when it was alive. Even at the time, his songs were a ‘guilty pleasure’. Definitely un-hip. (I used to care about being hip) I was more into Devo and Blondie and Peter Gabriel and Nena and other New Wave and Punk bands.
McCall sings his songs with an earnestness that reminds me of salt-of-the-earth types who believe in God, Guns, and America, and like nothing better than to be out in the wilderness hoping to bring home a nice buck; the kind of people who find certain things deeply profound. (You know that I’m a leftie, but I don’t mean anything by that.) When I hear his songs I can’t help but think ‘Yes, yes. Nature is good. I like it too. It’s nice that you find your lifestyle fulfilling.’ The lyrics are pure redneck comedy. I used to have a Willys Jeep, and I enjoyed bouncing around the desert in it; so I can relate a little to Black Bear Road. Though I lived in L.A. County, it was in an area where there were a few ‘characters’. I met a few who might try to evade the cops as in Four Wheel Drive or pick up on the waitress at a truck stop as in Old Home Filler-up an’ Keep on a-Truckin’ Café. I’ve always liked ghost towns, and I’ve imagined towns’ heydays as in Ghost Town.
CW McCall’s songs are pure conbread (or pure biscuits & gravy or chicken-fried steak) that, for some, define the stereotype of tucker-country music. But dammit, they’re fun.
