Category Archives: My Back Pages

Hillbilly Music That Was Straight Outta Compton

I would imagine most people know Compton as the epicenter of late ‘80s hip-hop and a city dominated by crime and gang violence. Smack in the middle between Long Beach and Los Angeles, just south of Watts, back in the ‘50s and ‘60s it became a suburban destination for middle class blacks attracted to both its location and the affordable single-family homes that were available after a Supreme Court case knocked out segregation laws. But with a small commercial area, a shrinking tax base, and a corrupt government, by 1969 Compton held the distinction of having the highest crime rate in California.

There’s another side of musical history from Compton that pre-dates local gansta rap and g-funk. Town Hall Party began in 1951 as a radio broadcast and eventually became a television show that lasted for almost ten years before going off the air. The old Town Hall building at 400 South Long Beach Boulevard was being booked occasionally for country-and-western “barn dances” when it was taken over by promoter William B. Wagnon Jr. It was his idea to get the dances broadcast live on local radio, and the success soon led to a television show concept that started and stopped, but didn’t really become cohesive until August 29, 1953.

The website Hillbilly-Music Dawt Com has done a great job in researching the history of Town Hall Party, which I would encourage you to check out, but here’s an excerpt:

“The lineup on that first show was to be Tex Ritter, Les (Carrot Top) Anderson, Wesley and Marilyn Tuttle, Jack Lloyd, Joe Maphis, Rose Lee Maphis and Texas Tiny (a disc jockey at KFOX who had a three hour a day show). Tex Williams and his band were to provide the musical backing for performers. Jay Stewart was to be the announcer.”

There were a number of country stars that either joined the cast for short periods or were simply guests, including Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves, Sons of the Pioneers, Smiley Burnette, Patsy Cline, Eddie Cochran, George Jones, Wanda Jackson, Carl Perkins and Gene Autry. The Collins Kids, Larry and Lorrie, became show regulars with their rockabilly beat and harmonies. Just two years apart, by age ten Larry was a guitar whiz, playing a double-neck Mosrite guitar like his mentor, Joe Maphis.

According to Country Song Round-Up in August 1954, “the 10-piece Town Hall Party band featured Joe Maphis, Merle Travis, superb steel guitarist Marian Hall, Billy Hill and Fiddlin’ Kate on violins, PeeWee Adams on drums, Jimmy Pruitt on piano, and other excellent musicians who created a Town Hall Party sound also heard on many country sessions produced by Columbia Records in Hollywood in the 1950s.”

In 1957 Screen Gems filmed a series of 39 half-hour shows that they syndicated and re-named the Ranch Party. The Collins Kids were given co-star billing with host Tex Ritter. In his book Reflections, country performer Johnny Bond, who was also involved in the program, wrote that “traditional country entertainers, singing cowboys and rock singers never shared the spotlight in a more harmonious manner than on the Town Hall Party and syndicated Ranch Party shows.”

Columbia Records released a Town Hall Party album in 1958 that included many of the regular cast members who soon departed the show because NBC decided to discontinue the Saturday night radio broadcasts. In late December 1958, the newly opened Showboat Hotel in Las Vegas began to put on Town Hall Party shows featuring Tex Ritter, The Collins Kids, and Town Hall regulars, thus drawing them away from the Saturday night telecasts on Los Angeles station KTTV. In December 1960 they were dropped from the lineup, and the final performance at the old Compton Town Hall was on Jan. 14, 1961.

Beginning in 2002, the Germany-based Bear Family Records began to release a series of Town Hall Party DVDs that now includes 25 titles. Most feature various artists, but they’ve also brought out an artist spotlight series that includes Joe Maphis, The Collins Kids, Johnny Cash, Eddie Cochran, Merle Travis, and others. There are a few dozen clips and also complete shows available to view on YouTube, with some posted from Bear Family and others from private collectors. It was a great time period for country music in California, and it came straight outta Compton.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

80 Years of Sittin’ on Top of the World

Whether it’s listed on the record label as Sittin’ or Sitting, this 1930 country blues number has become an American standard over the years, which was acknowledged in 2008 when it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Although written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon, and often credited to others, in typical folk music tradition it can originally be traced back to an instrumental a year prior from Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell. Under the title of “You Got To Reap What You Sow,” it was recorded and released in 1929 by Tampa Red.

A year later The Mississippi Sheiks added lyrics and changed the title to what we all know it as now. The band stayed together, rotating several members throughout the early 1930s in addition to the above-mentioned Walter and Lonnie, and they recorded over 70 songs for three different record labels. The Chatmon family came from Bolton, Mississippi, and after a five-year run they went back home to work on the farm.

Through the years a number of cover versions have been recorded in various styles, this one by Ray Charles, the first under his own name, and it was his seventh single for Swing Time Records. Note the song credits.

Whether it’s true or not, I’ve read that Bob Wills was such a fan of the blues that he once walked 50 miles to see Bessie Smith. This particular performance was recorded in September 1951 in Hollywood, California. Cotton Whittington is the man playing his guitar upside down and Bobby Koeffer is doing the non-pedal steel.

Back in his home state of Mississippi, Chester Burnette (aka Howlin’ Wolf) used to check out the old blues musicians, including the Chatmons. In 1957 he moved north and cut a pure blues version, changing the beat and electrifying it Chicago-style. At about the same time, Bill Monroe turned the song upside down and inside out with this smokin’ bluegrass version. Note the mistake on the label: it confuses the song title and composers with that other song made famous by Al Jolson.

In the ’60s the song probably received its most exposure from both the Grateful Dead’s debut album and Cream’s Wheels of Fire, with Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker. But it’s the Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley version that I have always been most enamored of. Paste magazine called their collaborations “classic old-timey folk music and blues that remains a primary inspiration to Americana roots musicians” and said “they possessed a unique musical chemistry that defied generational limitations and remains vital and fresh to the present day.”

In August of 1978, folklorist Alan Lomax, along with John Bishop and Worth Long, visited Sam Chatmon’s home in Hollandale, Mississippi, to record this version, 48 years after his family brought it to life. The list of people who’ve recorded it over the decades cover a large swath of styles, from Bob Dylan to Willie Nelson, Richard Shindell to James Blood Ulmer.

For those interested in a bit more historical information, I’d like to suggest that you check out this transcription from NPR’s All Things Considered. This is an interview with musicologist Bruce Nemerov from 2006 that walks you through the decades, similar to what I’ve done here, but with more detail.

I’m going to close this out with a version I really like from the late Pinetop Perkins. This was his final studio recording, done a year before he passed in 2010, and the vocals are delivered by Emily Gimble. From Tampa to Pinetop, and most recently Jack White, this song goes on forever.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

New Riders of The Purple Sage: Americana Lost and Found

Halloween 1970 in Novato, California. From left to right: David Nelson, Jerry Garcia, Marmaduke, Mickey Hart, and Dave Talbert. Photo by Mary Ann Mayer.

John Collins Dawson IV,nicknamed both Marmaduke and McDuke, was only 64 when he died peacefully in Mexico eight years ago. Growing weary of life on the road as a professional musician, he retired in 1997 and had moved to San Miguel de Allende with his wife. Dawson, a singer, songwriter, and guitarist, was doing weekly gigs at The Underground in Menlo Park in May of 1969 when an old friend of his was tinkering around with a pedal steel guitar and asked if he could sit in with him.

“I first met Jerry Garcia at the house of my guitar teacher, who was my best friend’s mother,” Dawson told Instant Armadillo News. “It was during the folk music days in Palo Alto, sometime, I guess, before I left for my first semester at Millbrook School in New York, in September of 1959. After that, I would run into him often when I went into Dana Morgan’s shop in Palo Alto. He rented a space there to give guitar lessons, and whenever he wasn’t teaching, he’d be in the front of the place, picking his guitar (or banjo or mandolin), and holding forth.”

After two months of playing as a duo, they decided to expand the group and play straight country-western. They recruited David Nelson for lead guitar. Nelson was an old friend who had played in The Wildwood Boys, a bluegrass band with Garcia. Mickey Hart from the Dead sat behind the drums, bass was handled first by Alembic Studios engineer/producer Bob Matthews, followed by Phil Lesh. They called themselves New Riders of The Purple Sage.

“So there we had it: a full, five-piece band,” Dawson recalled. “And the neat thing was, the Dead would only have to buy two more plane tickets and we could go on the road with them, as an opening act. It would give Jerry, Phil, and Mickey a chance to warm up before theirset and it would give our music and my songs a national audience. After doing more gigs than I can remember locally that summer, we did the two extra ticket thing and went on the road with The Grateful Dead in the fall of 1969.”

In early 1970 Dave Torbert took over on bass, and when Mickey Hart decided to take a sabbatical from touring with the Dead, they enlisted former Jefferson Airplane drummer Spencer Dryden, who eventually also became their manager. It was that lineup, with Garcia still on pedal steel and banjo, that was signed to Columbia Records, and their self-titled debut was released in August 1971. Every single song on the album was written by John Dawson.

According to the Encyclopedia of Popular Music (1998), the album “blended country rock with hippie idealism, yet emerged as a worthy companion to the parent act’s lauded American Beauty.” When Dawson passed away, Rob Bleetstein, archivist for the band, wrote in an email to the LA Times that “Dawson’s songwriting brought an incredible vision of classic Americana to light with songs like ‘Glendale Train’ and ‘Last Lonely Eagle.’”

In addition to the songs he wrote for the New Riders, Dawson co-wrote the Dead’s “Friend of The Devil” with Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter. And he also contributed in some manner … guitar, maybe vocals … to at least three Dead albums: Aoxomoxoa, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty.

Garcia left the band in November 1971, and was replaced by Buddy Cage, who came from Ian and Sylvia’s Great Speckled Bird. The lineup stayed intact for Powerglide, The Adventures of Panama Red, Gypsy Cowboy, and Home, Home On The Road. Torbert exited the group in 1974 for Bob Weir’s Kingfish, and Dryden stayed for another three years. Dawson, Nelson, and Cage carried on with a number of bassists and drummers up until 1982, ultimately releasing 11 albums. When it came to touring, they were road warriors.

For the next 15 years, until he left for Mexico, Dawson teamed up with multi-instrumentalist Rusty Gauthier, and, along with a number of supporting musicians, they continued to tour and released one album, Midnight Moonlight, on Relix Records. In 2006 David Nelson and Buddy Cage re-formed NRPS to take the music of John Dawson “back to the ears of adoring crowds.” Dawson not only blessed the endeavor but “was excited to know his music is being heard live again by a new generation of fans.”

I got a chance to see the original band on their first tour with the Dead, and several times in the early ’70s. They’ve always been one of my favorite bands and I never quite understood why they haven’t been acknowledged as one of the pioneers in this thing we call Americana. Solid songwriting, great musicianship, and they carried on the sound of Bakersfield-style country, not unlike the Flying Burrito Brothers. But in 2002 they were given a lifetime achievement award by High Times magazine, so I guess there’s that.

For a complete history of the band, check this out. John Dawson’s personal memories, which include some of the quotes I used above, is here.

Update: In 2012 Buddy Cage was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and has been battling blood cancer and a heart condition. Though he managed to stay on the road playing, he passed away on February 4, 2020.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

Streaming: A Music Junkie Shifts Gears

As an addict, I’ve been able to kick a lot of bad stuff out the door. Dope, alcohol, and nicotine to name but three, and if I think hard enough there’s probably a couple more things I could add to that list. Living a life unmanageable has been my calling card, and while I never suspected music to be one of those things that would or could cause me irreparable harm, as long as I didn’t inhale it, I have come to realize that the art of collecting music – the actual hunting and gathering – has consumed way too much of my life. So as an act of self-discovery and recovery, I’ve recently chosen to surrender and become baptized in the digital stream. Glory hallelujah.

This will not be another wistful look back at how wonderful it was to find some gem back in the ’60s because the cover art was amazing, or the first time I dropped a needle onto the edge of a disc and watched it magically spin around and around as the sweet sounds came floating ethereally out of the speakers. Y’all have done this long enough to know that the joy of finding, acquiring, and sharing new music is one of the greatest highs you can have. And while it sounds like I’m giving that up, I’m not. But I shall no longer be a prisoner of consumerism, where possession and ownership equates to my happiness. I now gladly rent my music.

Streaming. In this modern age, it’s access that matters. For under ten bucks a month there are over 30 million songs to fulfill my needs … 62,500 days of unlimited listening, give or take. And outside of some still undigitized and “missing in action” titles, a lot of what I love to listen to is there for the taking. With a couple of keyboard punches and a swipe of my finger, there it is. And with the “if you like this, you might like that” feature of most streaming services, along with tons of curated playlists, exploration and discovery is easier and deeper than when I used to hang out at a record store flipping the stacks. Before some of you shake your heads with disdain, give me a moment.

From the early ’60s through the mid-’80s I was a vinyl junkie, with a little eight-track and cassette chaser on the side. Then I transitioned to CDs for another 15 or 16 years before uploading, downloading, saving, converting, transferring, and backups took over much of my free time. While never a Napster or Pirate Bay dude, a few years ago I started searching for digital files of long out-of-print 78s, getting a shellac rush whenever I found an obscure recording on a Japanese or Finnish blog site. But it’s a solitary and endlessly boring way to collect songs that I only would listen to once, so I began to wonder about the value.

The disposal of my physical goods, what little is left of them, will be relatively easy. My eldest has offered to put everything up on the Discogs marketplace, and what won’t sell will go to the local thrift store. My massive digital library that I worked so hard to maintain with a consistent file structure and original artwork, and which is triplicated on hard drives, will likely wind up in a box or on a shelf. There’s nothing pretty to look at there, and if history is any indication, they’ll shortly become as useless as an iPod Classic.

If you want to know what tipped the scales, look no further to an endless barrage of vinyl reissues that cost 25 bucks at Barnes and Noble or some supermarket, and come from digital masters that sound like crap. And here’s my message to Gillian and Dave, and Jack White and T-Bone, who are doing these custom analog direct-to-disc projects: I don’t care and it doesn’t really sound that much better than the digital versions. Seriously … loved watching American Epic and all, but you’re in the ether of the barely one percent who give a damn. Sorry, and I still love ya.

With the big corporations seeing dollar signs after a self-inflicted devaluation of their content, if I see one more piece of marketing fluff touting the joy and wonder of vinyl, I might jump out the window. From a personal observation, my workplace consists of me – the old dude – and 89 people in their 20s. They are voracious music listeners and concertgoers, are constantly walking about with their earbuds, talk about and share songs and albums with each other at lunch, and every single one of them streams. Nobody buys anything anymore. The revolution was not televised; it just happened and you missed it.

Just to add to my overall annoyance, do y’all know about October 14th? That would be Cassette Store Day. Seriously. Did you know that tape sales have increased by 74% in 2016? I didn’t. Thought they were just something that only experimental musicians still released. Here’s how the website explains this new phenomenon:

CSD began in the United Kingdom in 2013 and quickly grew to become a global event with the participation of the United States, Japan, Germany and France. Through the efforts of CSD and the stores, labels, bands and fans involved worldwide we’ve helped keep what was once perceived as a dead format alive and viable in today’s digital age!

This makes me want to rush out and start hoarding candles, once word gets out that lightbulbs are a thing of the past. Thomas who? Oh yeah, he also invented the phonograph player.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Moby Grape: Americana Lost and Found

God only knows how many ways I’ve tried to avoid using the term “Americana” in describing the music I love. My go-to response has at times been “it’s a radio format, not a genre,” but I’m aware it’s deeper than that. I just don’t like the word, and it’s an itch I can’t seem to scratch. And when even the Americana Music Association can’t exactly understand or articulate it — handing out lifetime achievement awards to folks like Richard Thompson, Robert Plant, and this year’s recipient, Van Morrison — a singular music blogger would be best served by just falling in line. So I have, at least for this moment, chosen to bend in the blowing wind and accept the inevitable. Go pitch your enormous tent, throw it all under the canvas, and call it whatever you want. I surrender.

It was actually something that Jason Isbell said while on the Charlie Rose Show that tipped me over. Wish I could remember exactly what he said, and I’m too lazy to hunt it down. But it was much more convincing than AMA’s honcho Jed Hilly’s description: “If you can taste the dirt through your ears, that is Americana. It is music that is derived or inspired by American roots traditions. I think that’s pretty solid.”

I think it’s pretty lame, but Jed’s heart is in the right place so he gets a pass and I get off my horse. Go forth Americana … and to quote No Depression co-founder Peter Blackstock from when O Brother, Where Art Thou? broke out into the mainstream, “This is the next medium-sized thing.”

Y’all probably remember Moby Grape, but if not let me give you the thumbnail version. Three guitars, a bass, and drums. Everybody sang, everybody wrote. Infinitely talented. They wore cowboy costumes: boots, buckskin fringe jackets, and other similar Western wear. Their incubation occurred 50 years ago in San Francisco during the infamous Summer of Love, and they were victims of poor management, record label ineptness, marketing plans that undermined their music, and at least one member suffering from mental illness. In later years, another ended up homeless.

Rolling Stone, prior to it becoming a fashion magazine with occasional music marketing fluff, called the band’s debut album “a stunning artifact of San Francisco rock at its ’67 peak. Jerry Miller, Peter Lewis, Don Stevenson, Bob Mosley, and Skip Spence all sang like demons and wrote crisp pop songs packed with lysergic country-blues excitement. And the band’s three guitarists – Miller, Spence, and Lewis – created a network of lightning that made songs like ‘Omaha,’ ‘Changes’ and ‘Hey Grandma’ shine and sizzle.”

While those three songs are probably their best known, I’ve often preferred the more acoustic ballads and straight country blues they offered. And in addition to the debut album, all of their work still stands the test of time, with songs that sparkle and shine and are ripe for rediscovery.

I was fortunate to have seen the band several times in the late ’60s, and each set remains etched in my brain. They are a touchstone and tentacle to my youth, and although I often enjoy reminding people of their existence, I imagine that they’ll never get the institutional recognition from the Americana cartel. Without a label to promote them, a new product or tour to promote (Hi Van … hope to see you on the road later this year), a rabid publicist, or tragic demise, they are destined to remain in the dustbin of time. ’Tis a shame.

Postscript: Skip Spence died of lung cancer two days before his 53rd birthday on April 16,1999. He was survived by his four children, 11 grandchildren, a half-brother, and his sister. Oar was his only solo album, recorded in Nashville over seven days in 1999. Originally meant to be simply a group of demos, his manager convinced Columbia Records to release it and it holds the distinction as being the lowest-selling album in the label’s history.

Ross Bennett from Mojo magazine:

“Combining the ramblings of a man on the brink of mental collapse with some real moments of flippancy and laughter, Oar is a genuinely strange record. Unsurprisingly, the journey from “Little Hands”‘ Grape-esque guitar grooves to “Grey/Afro”‘s terrifying nine minutes of mantric drone isn’t an easy one. Even when Spence builds his songs around a familiar sound (primarily minimalist country-folk), unsettling oddities and ominous modulations creep in.”

More Oar: A Tribute To the Skip Spence Album, an album featuring contributions from Robert Plant, Tom Waits, Jay Farrar, and Beck, among others, was released a few weeks after his death. Prior to its release, the CD was played for Spence at the hospital, in his final stages before death. Spence is interred at Soquel Cemetery in Santa Cruz County, California.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Together Again: A Buck Owens’ Classic With A Bad Hombre Picture

There are probably many people who don’t remember that OJ Simpson was found liable for murder back in 1997. With all the Hollywood weirdness of the earlier criminal trial in which he was declared innocent, there was another civil trial by jury that determined he was liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. One juror claimed after hearing Simpson’s testimony that “he was not credible,” and another said that “finding OJ Simpson liable of the murders and acting with oppression and malice was one of the easiest decisions I have ever had to make.”

When The Juice made headlines recently with the news that he would be released from prison after serving nine years for armed robbery, I pulled up this old photo of him with the man who currently lives in the White House and immediately thought of this song.

That there is Tom Brumley playing pedal steel guitar, and he was in the Buckaroos throughout much of the ’60s and then eventually joined Ricky Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band. If you know the song “Garden Party,” that also was Tom doing the tasty licks. His dad was Albert E. Brumley, the gospel songwriter who penned “I’ll Fly Away,” and, if you can believe Wikipedia, Tom’s solo in “Together Again” was the inspiration for Jerry Garcia to learn the instrument.

I was originally going to share a personal story regarding OJ, me, and the record store I used to manage back in the ’80s in Santa Monica. Might have mentioned that my first apartment in West LA was less than a football field away from Nicole’s condo, too. And then I planned to discuss my well developed theory about how that infamous televised ride in the white Ford Bronco triggered the death of the music industry and eventual rise of social media. Really. Every damn picture on Instagram, your Uncle Alfred’s cat on Facebook, $250 scalped tickets for a Gillian Welch concert, Bono’s sunglasses, and Jack White … I can trace it all back to OJ.

But the song … it took me away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFm4ZCBheOw

The only time I ever saw George Jones was in an empty restaurant at a suburban Nashville shopping center during the “early bird” special they served on weekdays. Met Tanya Tucker twice, and she was like spit and hellfire. Short, too. Did you like it when she says “Glen … “ at the beginning of the duet? She’s talkin’ to Campbell, of course, who also recorded it for his Burning Bridges album.

Buck Owens had a number one hit with “My Heart Skips a Beat”’in 1966, and the B-side … do I really need to explain that … was “Together Again.” Ray Charles covered it right away, and it reached #19 on the Billboard pop chart. And in 1976 Emmylou Harris released it as a single and was able to take it to the top of the country chart. This is from a Dutch television show called TopPop.

After that there was a duet by Kenny Rogers and Dottie West in 1983, Dwight Yoakam covered it (of course) because he covers all of Buck’s songs, there was a Filipino version from Guy and Pip, an electronic dance abomination, Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan, Vince Gill, and one from Swedish singer Jill Johnson.

Most interesting, at least to me, was that in 1981 a Norwegian singer named Elisabeth Andreassen put out an album titled Angel In The Morning, which includes not only “Together Again” but also Kirsty MacColl’s “There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis.” And while much of her career is tied to the Eurovision Song Contest, which is a big deal in that part of the world, in 2004 she released A Couple of Days in Larsville, which included a Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman song.

And with OJ and Trump soon to be “together again,” I’m going to let Elisabeth sing us out:

This old town is filled with sin
It’ll swallow you in
If you’ve got some money to burn
Take it home right away
You’ve got three years to pay
And Satan is waiting his turn

This article originally was published as Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Eight Songs That Blow Me Away

Photo by Steven Steigman

This photograph from was shot by Steven Steigman in 1978 and was used in a series of advertisements for Maxell cassette tapes, back in an era when people had use for such things. It crossed my mind the other day while I looked at my old stereo system and albums, wondering how long it would be until I was ready to say goodbye. It’s really a rhetorical question since I haven’t turned it on in years. With the exception of going out and seeing live music, virtually all the tunes I listen to these days are delivered digitally through my iPhone and pumped into earbuds.

According to iconicphotos.org, Steigman achieved the wind-blown positioning of the model, a man named Jack, by putting “tonnes of hairspray on his hair” and using fishing line to tie strands of it to the ceiling. “The lampshade, tie, and martini were also likewise tied to the fishing lines. The photo was instantaneously a hit, a powerful statement that music has power and force to move the mind and the soul. It was so popular that it was expended into a TV ad campaign. In the television versions, either Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries or Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain was the music responsible for those powerful waves.”

Like the man in the picture, I too am a solitary listener, and although I no longer have the hair, I’m still blown away by music. Many years ago, before No Depression morphed into whatever it is these days, there was a fairly large community of people who contributed on an almost a daily basis what music they were currently listening to. It was a great way to discover things you missed or had forgotten. Some of those folks are still kicking around here, and many are long gone. But in the spirit of the day, I thought I’d share a few things that are on my current playlist.