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Barstool Mountain is open for business. Head on over and enjoy yourself.

If I never see you no more

I'll meet you when I pull in on that other shore

R.I.P. James Davis

Because something is happening here

but you don't know what it is

You made a man out of me

now I'm gonna make a monkey out of you

Play it cool, man, play it cool

Tibby Edwards recorded a dozen singles for Mercury records in the mid-50’s. The ones I’ve heard are really good. Bear Family Records put together a compilation LP in the 90’s but I’ve never seen a copy.

Tibby (short for Thibodaux) Edwards was from Louisiana and started playing guitar and writing songs in his teens. When Edwards was 16, he met Lefty Frizzell. The two musicians hit it off and Edwards was soon touring and singing with Frizzell. In 1952 17-year-old Edwards got a steady gig at Louisiana Hayride and settled in Beaumont, Texas. While he was living there, Tibby started playing with another Beaumont-based singer, George Jones.

J.D. Miller arranged for Edwards to go to Nashville to audition for Mercury Records in 1953. Over the next five years, Edwards recorded a dozen singles for Mercury and Starday Records. Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer played on the records, as well as members of Hank William's Drifting Cowboys. Edwards recorded a great versions of a George Jones song called “Play It Cool Man, Play It Cool” in 1956. The flipside - "Shift Gears" - is also a great song.

In 1958, Edwards joined the army. He was inducted the same week as another Hayride performer, Elvis Presley.

I don’t know what happened after that. I don’t think Edwards made any more records (under his own name anyway). I’m not sure if he’s alive or dead. It’s rumored that he died of cancer in the 90’s. Maybe right around the time I found his records at the flea market.

If I never see you no more

I'll meet you on that other shore

Baby please don't go

baby please don't go,
baby please don't go,
baby please don't go,
down to New Orleans
you know I love you so,
baby please don't go.

baby your man done gone,
well your man done gone,
well your man done gone,
for the county farm,
he had the shackles on.
baby please don't go.

for be a dog,
for be a dog,
for be a dog,
to git you way down here,
I'll make you walk the log.
baby please don't go.

baby please don't go,
baby please don't go,
baby please don't go,
down to New Orleans,
you know I love you so.
baby please don't go.

for be a dog,
for be a dog,
for be a dog,
to git you way down here,
I'll make you walk the log.
baby please don't go.

'now how I feel right now,
my baby leavin',
on that midnight train,
and I'm cryin'.

baby please don't go,
baby please don't go,
baby please don't go,
down to New Orleans,
you know I love you so.
baby please don't go.

for be a dog,
for be a dog,
for be a dog,
to git you way down here.
I'll make you walk the log.
baby please don't go, yeah.

- Big Joe Williams

OK, now the long one. You can't go wrong with a 17 minute version of "baby, please don't go'. It's worth the wait for the download.

And one recorded after 1970.

We used to laugh

we used to cry

Music for the man with no name

Heresy time! I like this album of Hugo Montenegro’s orchestra playing Ennio Morricone’s music more the original movie soundtracks. I know Morricone’s are the original versions and what he really wanted them to sound like and all. Montenegro’s versions were meant to be singles played on the radio. He tightened them up. They sound better to my ears. “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” sold over a million copies and made the Top 10 in 1968. Here’s the whole LP. It’s too short at only 28 minutes.

Morricone did do a lot of great music. But Montenegro was no slouch.

BTW, this post is for my son. He learned how to play “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” on violin last week.

Help me in my weakness

cause I've fallen out of grace

Who the heck do you think you are?

Another garage compilation, this one focusing on jangly heartbroken teen mopes with a vague idea of tuning. I like it a lot.

SHUTDOWN ’66 was released in 1988 (or so) on Ernie Douglas records. I have heard that these songs were considered ‘uncompable’ and by BACK FROM THE GRAVE standards, they are. The guys at Ernie Douglas put all of these songs on one compilation. Uncompable or not. Twenty years after I got it, it's still one of my favorite records.

These bands are not swaggering punks, they’re a bunch of skinny wimps. The Shandells on side two played accordion, bass, and drums. No guitars! That was as wimpy as a band could get in 1966. But "Please Stay" is an amazing record! Really! Another one, “Killer Of Men”, is in my top 10 of garage records. We The People are probably the best known band on the record. The more obscure groups have better songs. If you ever wanted to hear what a Phil Spector record would sound like if he didn't have unlimited money and the Wrecking Crew, you need to hear "Should I" by The Half Beats.

So anyway here’s a whole comp of uncompable garage rock. Enjoy!

Happy birthday!

Al Green!

It's just

a simple metaphor

Meet me

with your black dress on

Last Temptations

The Temptations released two LPs in 1973. Norman Whitfield did his usual great job on both records. He also wrote and produced all of the music. The Funk Brothers and members of Rose Royce provided instrumental backup. Both records are good but I think cutting a few songs and combining the two into one album would have been a good idea.

Whitfield had been running the producing the Temptations for most early seventies. The group was tiring of his emphasis on long (the shortest song if 4:39) heavily orchestrated socially conscious music. “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” was the Temptations and Whitfield’s greatest song. To even things up parentally, Whitfield wrote a song about “Ma”. The group barely makes it into the title song of MASTERPIECE. There are no vocals until 4 minutes into the song and none for the seven and a half minutes. The Temptations names are not listed anywhere on the sleeve but all six(!) guitarists, four drummers and three bass players get thanked. Only one horn player but he gets a thank you too. On the back cover, Whitfield’s picture is larger than any of the Temptations.

There were several hits from MASTERPIECE so Whitfield got to produce another Temptations LP. That LP – 1990 – seems to be where Whitfield decided that he was tired of the Temptations. He wrote a few potential singles but nothing really great, some political stuff and filled out the LP by blasting the Temptations into space with a 13 minute song about a trip to the moon. “Zoom” is filler but its pretty good filler. Even though Whitfield does bring the group back to Earth, he was not asked to produce the Temptations again. The best song on the LP is the still-relevant title song.

Both Norman Whitfield & the Temptations soon left Motown for greener pastures.

In that day

when the bells don't toll

I'd much rather be

with the girls/boys

Thanks Perry!

A gift from Euphoria

This album is one of the best junk store finds I ever made. The LP has sold for several hundred dollars on the usual sources. I found a sealed copy in a junk store in Johnson City, TN for a buck. Woooo!

The really good news is that this is one of the megabuck records that really is worth hearing. A GIFT FROM EUPHORIA is a terrific country-psych album. The songs are excellent, the arrangements are interesting, the singing and playing are magnificent. There’s not a bad song on the LP. It’s up there with late-period Byrds and Neil Young’s first solo record. Really.

William D. "Bill" Lincoln and Hamilton Wesley Watt were Euphoria. The duo had been playing together in various mid-60’s Los Angeles and Houston bands. They joined a Hollywood folk group named Euphoria in 1967, soon they were the only two members left in the band. Mainstream records released one 45 "Hungry Woman"/"No Me Tomorrow" (which I don’t have) and included both songs on an LP called A POT OF FLOWERS (which I don’t have). Also, there is a handful of unreleased songs (which I don’t have) from this period.

In 1969, Capitol Records signed a bunch of bands and gave them free rein to record whatever they wanted. Euphoria was one of the chosen bands and used Capitol’s money to record in Hollywood, Nashville and London. There’s British accents, animal noises, a symphony, banjos, a shootout, and a TV audience in here somewhere. Most of the songs are about departure or death – suicide is a topic more than once.

The Bee Gees are thanked in the liner notes. I think their only contribution was leaving a studio in time for Euphoria go in to record some stuff. Capitol took a bath on these bands. None of them had any hit records, most of them didn’t even make a second record. Euphoria didn't.

A GIFT FROM EUPHORIA was re-issued on See For Miles records in 1996. Rev-Ola Records released it again this year. No bonus tracks yet!

It's the way you do the things

you do to me

Superlaphonic hi-fi sound

Frankie Ortega led his jazz trio for years in L.A. They were the house band at Dino’s, a lounge (owned by Dean Martin) that was featured in the TV series 77 Sunset Strip. So The Frankie Ortega Trio got to be the house band on the TV series by default.

I’ve never seen the series. It’s supposed to be pretty good. I’ve got this album though. It’s the Frankie Ortega Trio backed up by Sy Oliver’s big band. I would like the LP more if Sy’s band had missed the session. They’re too loud and intrusive for my taste. The songs are good though. This one is the best, it’s quieter and the harp effect (Ortega was actually strumming the piano strings) is great. I wonder if Ortega & Oliver got in trouble over this one? Maybe Davenport and Coole owed them money.

The record, by the way, is in superlaphonic hi-fi sound. Which means it's not in stereo. I got it for the cover anyway.

Sedan delivery is a job I know I'll keep

it sure was hard to find

Running now

I can't tarry