Damn 2020, really?

Jerry Jeff Walker and Billy Joe Shaver passing literally within days of each other? That’s cold.

It’s pretty safe to say that Texas music wouldn’t have been what it was without either of them. Robert Earl Keen was my first proper introduction to Texas music, but Jerry Jeff wasn’t far behind. First place I ever heard Jerry Jeff was on the radio, believe it or not, on Rowdy Yates’ classic country show that was then called Solid Gold Sunday on KILT 100.3 FM.

“…this song is by Ray Wylie Hubbard…”

Honestly, I think if I was asked to introduce Texas music to someone, I would recommend Viva Terlingua to them and tell them to go from there.

And what to say about Billy Joe Shaver that doesn’t come up woefully short? He was one of the greatest, most authentic songwriters of our time. Hawking the tables at Green Gables, his grandma’s old-age pension being the reason he’s standing here today, shooting a man in Waco but not being able to talk much about it…all of that stuff came straight from his life. That’s really about as authentic as it gets, and we’ll never see the likes of him again.

But much like the songs he leaves behind him, he’s gonna live forever now.

Just an observation…

Sigh.

Look. Jason Aldean’s “Got What I Got” has precisely fuck-all to do with anything George Strait, Merle Haggard, Bill Monroe, or Hank Williams EVER did, and I would tell him that to his PUDGY ASS FACE given the opportunity. Really, I don’t know where people get off associating mainstream country music with NASCAR anymore, because if NASCAR had “evolved” as country music had, they’d be racing electric go-carts or something.

Oh, this is long, long overdue.

So a few weeks ago, Kevin over at Country Universe reviewed a greatest-hits album from Roy Clark. I didn’t think anything of it until this morning, when I went on one of my periodic Roy Clark searches on Spotify…

…and found this.

Oh, huh. Are these all original recordings?

Yes. Yes they are!

More research yielded this:

Country Hero Roy Clark’s ‘Greatest Hits’ Gets CD And Digital Release

The Craft Recordings set revisits the native Virginian’s definitive retrospective and the only one currently in print.

This is long, long overdue. Too many people only know Roy Clark for Hee Haw (a show I loved, by the way), but he was a great singer and a fantastic instrumentalist in his own right.

One of the greatest songs in country and pop music history, and this is probably the definitive version of it.