My favorite drunk honky tonk drinkin' and cryin' artists

In My Humble Opinion
21

Well, I should clarify. The Star Bar features not just honky tonk acts, but also rockabilly, swing, and even a few surf music acts. The bar does cultivate a honky tonk atmosphere. Hank Williams posters on the wall, a huge Sunbeam Bread sign in one corner, etc., etc., and they do feature the honky tonk acts previously mentioned along with many others.

The coolest part is that on nights when a honky-tonk-style act plays, a lot of the regular bar patrons show up in 1950’s honky tonk attire.

It’s a honky tonk all right, but tinged with a bit of irony along with the nostalgia.

22

This thread inspired me to finally download Napster, and I’m starting a Cryin’ in My Beer file.

The Merle Haggard song (Sing a Sad Song) is wonderful. Didn’t realize his voice was so pretty. I’m familiar with his truck-drivin’ stuff, but this is something else entirely.

Any more suggestions? Anyone?

23

Well, if you’re talking individual songs, let me throw out a few not previously mentioned (and these all fall under the “crying in your beer” heading):
[ul][li]Goodbye -Steve Earle[/li][li]Amanda - Waylon Jennings[/li][li]Dreaming My Dreams With You - Waylon Jennings[/li][li]Big in Vegas - Buck Owens[/li][li]It Won’t Hurt - Dwight Yoakam[/li][li]South of Cincinnati - Dwight Yoakam[/li][li]Good Year for the Roses - George Jones[/li][li]She Thinks I Still Care - George Jones[/li][li]He Stopped Loving Her Today - George Jones[/li][li]He’ll Have to Go - Jim Reeves[/li][li]Lost Highway - Hank Williams[/li][li]**I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love With You) - Hank Williams[/li][li]You Win Again - Hank Williams[/li][li]Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound - Hank Williams, Jr.. This song is my only concession to the younger Hank.[/li][li]Paradise - John Prine (OK, this one’s a little bit out of genre, but I just love this song.)[/li][li]You Don’t Know Me - Ray Charles, in his country phase. Beautiful rendition.[/li][/ul]

24

A couple of more suspects come to mind:

  1. k.d. lang’s “Lock Stock & Teardrops”, a song so good I hunted down and bought most of her early work. Though some country traditionalists didn’t like her (particularly being both Canadian and a lesbian) with that incredible voice and choice of phrasing, she had a lock on channeling Patsy Cline, particularly on the Shadowlands tape

  2. Brooks & Dunn’s “Neon Moon”. Though the flip side, “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” turned into the big hit, Ronnie’s soulful voice carries a real tinge of loss and regret

  3. Garth Brooks’ “Tomorrow Never Comes” and “The Dance” still make me misty. Having lost my wife to cancer complications four years ago, the lyrics are particularly poignant

25

More:[ul][li]If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me - George Jones[/li][li]The King is Gone (So Are You) - George Jones[/li][li]Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine - Tom T. Hall[/li][li]The Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time - Mickey Gilley[/li][li]Hello Walls - Faron Young[/li][li]Pancho and Lefty - Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson[/li][li]Big City - Merle Haggard[/li][li]Kern River - Merle Haggard[/li][li]Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash[/li][/ul]

26

[ul][li]1983 - Randy Travis[/li][li]Storms of Life - Randy Travis[/li]Killin’ Time - Clint Black[/ul]

27

Thanks, y’all. spoke- – there are a few on your list I haven’t heard, and several I’d forgotten about.

Particularly Faron Young – I got to see him on a Grand Ole Opry tour many years ago, and “After The Lovin’” had me on my feet.

Hometownboy – those are great songs. I got to hear Garth do them at a little bitty place in Seattle, right after his first album came out, before he got big. (Literally and figuratively.)

My first husband loved Hank Sr. and Johnny and Merle and Hank and Ernest and Lefty. He’s gone now too, but (forgive me for being sappy), when I play those songs, it’s like he can hear them too.

Did your wife like this kind of music?

28

Thanks for the kind words, AuntiePam. Both my wife and I being boomers, we grew up on rock, though I worked in small town radio for 20 years and played a variety of formats, learned to like some artists in all genres. When the station I was working at switched to fulltime country in '82 I really got into the change.

Though I was always more comfortable with country than she was, she was a big, big fan of Garth and we took a memorable trip in '93 with the two kids just before things started to go haywire for her, all four of us singing along with him. Very happy memories.

I should add that I have since remarried most happily, to a classic music lover who has shown me some nifty things in that realm.

Since there seem to be a number of very knowledgeable country fans posting here, would any of you happen to know the title or artist in a minor song from the 1982-1985 era in which one of the lines runs, “I can still hear her saying, ‘Gary, with your guitar, play the wildwood flower.’”
I used to play it at one time, now can’t come up with it at all.

29

Well, he’s not a country boy, but Tom Waits can be a good guy to enjoy feeling like crap to. He’s got a seedy underbelly type of vibe that any honky-tonker can dig. You got yer misery, yer booze, yer hookers, yer beat up old cars . . . what more could you ask for?

30

Hometownboy – maybe it’s time for a thread about classical music – for dummies. (Like me.)

What “nifty things”? What are the steps from country to classical?

Every time I ask a classical music lover for suggestions, I get stuff that I can’t relate to.

I like definable melodies. I like John Williams’ soundtracks, for example. And the soundtrack from the Frank Langella Dracula movie.

I saw Amadeus four times, and then bought the movie.

Deskmonkey – what more could I ask for? Buffalo wings, maybe? I always forget about Waits, thanks for bringing him up.

31

Fer me at least, 'tis the season:

The Lubbock triumverate, most definetely: Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, and Joe Ely. Gilmore’s Spinning Around The Sun and his new one One Endless Night are particularly conducive to the meanderings of the heart.

Townes Van Zandt: Anything! The favorite songwriter of everyone’s favorite songwriter. I used to drive out to the Delta when I felt blue, and listen to Townes as I watched the Mississippi river flow by. It always helped. I’m missing that river.

Merle Haggard: His voice will carry you through even that horrid stretch of road known as Bakersfield.

Iris Dement; not exactly the honky-tonk mode, but a heart-render with Merle’s seal of approval.

Hank SR: He said it best, then died from it, too.

Roy Orbison: The Most Plaintive Wail that ever was.

George Jones: The Race Is On

Webb Pierce, Gary Stewart, John Anderson (and his cohort Whitey Schaeffer), Rosie Flores, Freddy Fender, Doug Sahm & The Texas Tornadoes, well, these are a few heart busters.

A fine boxed set that came out in 1996 is Roots of Country: The Story of Country Music, Friedman/ Fairfax. My husband wrote the chapter ; “The Fightin’ Side; Honky Tonk”. Mighty fine, and he even got a “sperm-stained sheets” allusion to fly past the ol’ censors.

32

Haggard was still a young guy when he recorded that. It was his first hit single. Wynn Stewart wote the song. Haggard was Stewart’s bass player at the time.

Another George Jones song deserves a mention: Ya Ba Da Ba Do. It’s about a guy whose wife has left him and taken almost everything. All he has left is some Jim Beam in an Elvis Presley decanter and a Flinstone jelly glass. The song contains the unforgettable lines

“I pulled the head off Elvis, filled Fred up to his pelvis. Ya ba da ba do,
the king is gone
and so are you.”

33

All the dead ones. Take it how you want to. :smiley:

broccoli!

34

One of the great transitions would be the collaboration bluegrass master fiddle player Mark O’Conner did with Yo Yo Ma and Edger Meyer, a CD called “Appalachia Waltz”, which was a big seller in the classical community.

As far as pure classical, I find I do best with either the romantics such as Mussourgsy’s (sorry about the spelling) “Night on Bald Mountain”. Check out Disney’s Fantasia for some others.

Or, if in an intellectual mood, I go for baroque chamber music, which can be pleasant. The Brandenburg Concertos have been fairly accessible to me.

Beyond that, I suspect it’s pretty much what you expose yourself to. I still have a real problem with dissonance as an artistic choice, which puts me on the outs with much of 20th century “classical” composing. Far from being an expert,I have a long way to go.

But it’s nice to be able to appreciate both Townes Van Zandt, Steve Fromholz and Alison Krauss on one side and Bach, Bizet and Karl Orff on the other…

35

Hey, somebody mentioned Paradise by John Prine. I’m actually from the county he’s talking about! Good ole Muhlenberg County KY.
I dont get to brag often about that, so sorry! I had to mention it.

Conti

36

Conti wrote:

I thought Mr. Peabody’s coal train done hauled it away.(?)

37

haha…they pretty much have Spoke. Almost all the land here has been stip mined and then reclaimed by the Peabody Coal Company. And they’re still here surfacing mining different areas!!!
The town Prine is talking about, Paradise, used to be a small town but it was stip mined and nobody ever rebuilt anything there. I dont even think there is a road that leads to Paradise anymore…i’ve walked out there a few times though. And i’ve fished in the Green River he’s talking about! LOL

Conti

38

“There’s No Road to Paradise Anymore”

Now there’s a song title. :wink:

39

Hell yeah Spoke! Now that’s what i’m talking about. If i ever become a country singer, that will be my first single.

40

hometownboy - thanks! I have some Mark O’Connor stuff but didn’t know he’d done anything that was considered classical. That’s good to know.