Great moments in stage names: from Angus Murdo McKenzie to Karl Denver
If ever a name sounded like a Hollywood Scotsman, it was Angus Murdo McKenzie. And if ever a name sounded like a Scottish fantasy of a Wild West cowboy, it…
Tag: country music
#AprilCountry, April 28th, “Harper Valley PTA”, Jeannie C Reilly
Country music is, with the partial exception of hip hop , the only popular music genre to preserve the narrative song. Songwriter (amongst other things) Tom T Hall is known as…
#AprilCountry, April 25th, “Yellow Submarine”, Mike Denver
I’ve been debating how best to approach the phenomenon of Country’n’Irish for a while, a genre of music one could pontificate pompously about, but what better way than via Mike…
#AprilCountry, April 14th, Hey Good Lookin’, Tom Hiddleston
So dominant a figure is Hank Williams even now that I thought I would approach him through the prism of some of the covers of his work. To start with…
#AprilCountry, April 13th The Walker Brothers “Boulder to Birmingham”
More Scott Walker in slightly unexpected country mode – though in The Walker Brothers reunion mode, rather than solo. This is an Emmylou Harris song mourning the death of Gram…
#AprilCountry – April 9th, “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”, The Byrds
On my first visit to Kilkenny city in December 2003, I picked up a CD of “Sweetheart of the Rodeo”. Along with the then-recent revival in popularity of Johnny Cash,…
#AprilCountry: April 5th, “The Cold Hard Facts of Life”, Porter Wagoner
Let’s face it, this is one of the great album covers and one of the great country story songs. You don’t get the likes of this from Radiohead.
Séamus Sweeney 