My beloved Bruins tanked the end
of the season and are heading to the golf course early this year. Damn. Being a
sports fan can be hard. Anyone who says it’s no big deal isn’t a sports fan.
Disc 725 is…. Greatest Hits
Artist: Johnny
Horton
Year of Release: 1961 but featuring
music from 1953-1960
What’s up with the Cover? Johnny Horton
looking very bonnie in his red blazer and white shirt. When I was a kid I
thought Johnny was some kind of mythic hero when I looked at this cover. I
still kind of feel that way.
How I Came To Know It: My Mom owned this on record and I
put it on often as a kid. Now that record is mine (thank you Mom!) and I’ve
bought it on CD as well since it is really hard to walk around town while
listening to vinyl.
How It Stacks Up: Best of albums don’t stack up, jerky!
Rating: Best of albums also don’t get
rated, just reviewed. I have a studio album (sort of) by Horton as well and I’ll
review that when I get there.
Back in 1961 when this album came out “best of” wasn’t
really that different from a lot of regular studio albums. Through the fifties,
artists just released a bunch of singles and when the Soulless Record Execs
figured they had enough of them, they’d market them as an LP.
The year before “Greatest Hits” Johnny Horton had
released “Johnny Horton Makes History” and seeing it do pretty well, I suspect the
aforementioned Soulless Record Execs mashed a bunch of those songs into some of
his other popular favourites and had at ‘er. Even my studio album, “Battle of New Orleans” is
just a repackaging of a bunch of pre-existing hits mostly from the fifties, but
at least it doesn't rub it in my face.
Of the 13 songs on “Greatest Hits,” eight of them
appear on “Battle of New Orleans” (hint: those are the songs you’ve heard of).
However, I’m going to focus this review on the other five songs. I’m whimsical that way.
First though, I would be remiss if I didn’t say
something about Johnny Horton in general. Horton is one of the most beautiful
vocalists I’ve ever heard. He is part rockabilly fifties crooner and part
country balladeer, and the combination is enchanting. His tone is pure and
easy; capable of climbing way up the scale without ever losing its power or his undeniable ‘manliness’. That he died so young is a true tragedy.
Horton could have been a fifties pop icon with that
voice but instead he chose to bring American history to life through music.
Sometimes the songs are a bit hokey, but Horton’s sincerity almost always
shines through. He also does some top forty type fare to show he can do that as
well. These include playful songs like “I’m
Ready If You’re Willing” slower tear-jerkers like “The Mansion You Stole” and the sublime “All for the Love of a Girl.”
All three of those songs aren’t on my other album,
but given the subject matter I need to mention at least one song that appears
on both of my records. That is “Whispering
Pines,” which is one of the most heart-rending songs I’ve ever heard. I
also holds the distinction of being the first song to make me truly understand
what it is to have your heart rent.
I think I was around 9 or 10 when “Whispering Pines” first started to
affect me. I loved being out in nature back then, and I think the song’s
naturalist imagery appealed to me. I could key in on the Mourning Dove cooing
tragically for a lost mate through the whispering pine trees and understand
true loss through music, long before hormones would make me susceptible to the
same fate. I’d wander the woods singing this song, reveling in the abject
sadness of it.
“Whispering pines, whispering
pines, tell me is it so?
Whispering pines, whispering
pines, you’re the ones who know.
My darling’s gone, o she’s gone,
and I need your sympathy
Whispering pines, send my baby
back to me.”
To this day when I’m out for walk in the woods on a
windy day (far less common in recent years) this song always springs to mind.
Whenever I’m feeling lonely and forsaken it comes to me just as surely, no
trees required.
As far as the history songs go, I’ll stick to my
original promise and limit my commentary to the two songs that appear only here
in my collection: “Jim Bridger” and “Johnny Freedom.”
“Jim Bridger”
is the reason I bought this album, despite having more than half the songs
somewhere else (did I mention that yet?) Jim Bridger was an actual legend of early
America – an explorer and outdoorsman of the 19th century. As a kid
I just loved the heroic nature of the character the way Johnny sung it:
“Once there was a mountain man
who couldn’t write his name
Yet he deserves a front row seat
in history’s hall of fame
He forgot more about the Indians than
we will ever know
He spoke the language of the
Sioux, the Blackfoot and the Crow.”
The other song, “Johnny
Freedom” is not a real character, but instead an amalgamation of a bunch of
Americana virtues that are comically ridiculous. All the earnest storytelling
of “Jim Bridger” is out the window. Horton
lays it on thick from the start, opening with a banjo strumming “God Save the Queen.” “Johnny Freedom” dumps tea in Boston
Harbour, pioneers out west and as evidenced by these lyrics eventually becomes some
kind of combination of Abraham Lincoln, a hired goon and a gigolo:
“If we need a mess of thinking, he’s
the Lincoln of the day
If we’re fixin’ for a tussle it’s
his muscle all the way
If we need a handsome fella so
the ladies’ hearts can throb
There’s a Yankee-doodle-dandy
always handy for the job.”
Yikes. I am pleased to say at the tender age of ten
I knew this song sucked as surely as I knew that “Whispering Pines” was pure gold.
Despite “Johnny
Freedom” this Greatest Hits package is a brilliant collection of one of
country music’s early greats. Over forty years of listening to it, I’ve never
grown tired of it.
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