Tag Archives: Lefty Frizzell

March 31: Lefty Frizzell was born in 1928, 87 years ago

lefty frizzell

 

Some people can’t talk and express themselves; with me, expression comes in the form of a song, and it makes me very happy. So I’d lose my blues, hang on to what little I had, and it became a style
~Lefty Frizzell

Lefty Frizzell was the definitive honky tonk singer, the vocalist that set the style for generations of vocalists that followed him. Frizzell smoothed out the rough edges of honky tonk by singing longer, flowing phrases — essentially, he made honky tonk more acceptable for the mainstream without losing its gritty, bar-room roots.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)

I Love You A Thousand Ways & I Wan’t To Be With You Always:

Continue reading March 31: Lefty Frizzell was born in 1928, 87 years ago

Best early country songs – up to 1955

 

In this spirit-numbing information age, we gorge on the web and on CNN, we cannot free our hands of our Blackberrys and lap-tops and cellphones, but, in the end, we know less and less … of each other … of our hearts … of our souls.
But Johnny Cash singing “I Walk The Line” or Hank sorrowing through “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” still gives us more insight in three minutes, tells us more about what matters most in our lives, than we get in an entire twenty-four-hour news cycle.
Dana Jennings, in his magnificent book “Sing Me Back Home: Love, Death, and Country Music

This is our first article in a series highlighting the best country songs. We start off by nominating songs from the start up till 1955. The next post will focus on songs from 1956-1965.

When we are through nominating songs.. probably around 70-80 songs.. we will pull it all together and put a list of the 20 best Country songs ever.. in JV’s humble opinion.

Our goal is to only nominate one song from each artist.. I’ve managed to do so on this first article (although it was tough only including one Hank Williams song….)

… and btw .. the songs are presented in random order…

 

Can The Circle Be Unbroken (Bye and Bye), The Carter Family

Produced by Art Satherley
Written by A.P. Carter
1935

Continue reading Best early country songs – up to 1955