Chasing the long tail of new media
Album: 40 Greatest Hits
Year: 1950
Time for one of my all-time favorite crackpot theories: Hank Williams was a secret influence on non other that Stephen Patrick Morrissey.
I’ve had this theory since I got Hank Williams 40 Greatest Hits at some point in the 1990s, and realized how many of his lyrics could be Morrissey lyrics, especially “Nobody’s Lonesome For Me.”
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #578: Hank Williams – Nobody’s Lonesome For Me
Album: 40 Greatest Hits
Year: 1947
You don’t need me to tell you that Hank Williams was a titan of American popular music, an ace songwriter whose music was equally influential for rock ‘n’ roll and country.
And in fact, his first big single, “Move it On Over,” is clearly one of those songs that was rock ‘n’ roll before anybody had coined that phrase.
Of course, I heard this song via George Thorogood, via Rock 96 FM, the weird FM station that had arisen in Fresno in the 1970s, and probably didn’t even know it was a Hank Williams song until I found it later on the utterly indispensable 40 Greatest Hits.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #577: Hank Williams – “Move it on Over”
This month, on Musical Moments to Die For: secrets, influences, and secret influences, all book-ended by the two best bands to ever come from Athens, GA.
We’ve also got the front-runners for greatest guitar and organ solos ever; Neil Young’s most despairing moment; and not one, not two, but three variations of the beat solidified by the late, great Ellas McDaniel.
As always, I’m not necessarily talking about hooks here, more like traps. The parts of these songs that bring me back to them over and over again.
This is the sixth in a series: The first one had 25, the second one had 24, the third one had 23, the fourth one had 22, the fifth one had 21.
And yeah, you probably see the pattern and think you know the endgame, but I can promise you that there’s a twist!